There’s something rather deliciously ironic about celebrating the Cybermen’s golden anniversary. Being allergic to gold, it’s not a birthday that they’d choose to celebrate themselves, I suppose – even if they were the sort of creatures to indulge in celebrations. Which they’re not.
It seems that the Cybermen are always doomed to be remembered as Doctor Who’s second most popular monsters – behind the Daleks. It’s a matter of taste, of course, but I always found the Cybermen far more scary. There’s something tragic and horrific about the idea of human beings who had voluntarily transformed themselves into unfeeling machine creatures. Are they even ‘alive’ in the way that we understand the term? The earliest Cybermen even looked like the undead – living corpses, perhaps. And yet, when we consider human beings’ instinctive desire to cling on to life by any means necessary – replacing body parts that are defective or worn out – could they be considered humanity’s ultimate form? That’s the real key to their horror: the Cybermen are us. Brrrrrr!
Half a century on, the power of Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis’ extraordinary creations is undiminished. Like the Daleks, the Cybermen will always return to Doctor Who, time and time again. Out of respect for the men from Mondas, we haven’t put any gold on the front cover, but on this very special occasion, it’s only fair that they go one better than the silver-medal position.