“NOW WE HAVE RETURNED…”

Who are the Mondasian CYBERMEN?

The creepily sock-faced Cybermen Mk 1 arrived in 1966’s “The Tenth Planet”, the last William Hartnell adventure.

The lamp-headed, logic-ruled menace were the creation of Gerry Davis and scientist Dr Kit Pedler, inspired by the rise of so-called spare-part surgery that substituted prostheses for human limbs. “We conceived the idea of someone with so many mechanical replacements that he didn’t know whether he was a human or a machine,” said Pedler.

The Cybermen came from Earth’s long-lost twin, Mondas, knocked out of solar orbit millions of years before. Their home planet was destroyed at the end of the story, forcing them to relocate to Telos.

They’re cyborgs, not robots. “Our brains are just like yours except that certain weaknesses have been removed,” they declare. “You call them emotions, do you not?” At this stage in Cyber-evolution their human hands are still visible.

The first Cybermen had eerie sing-song intonation, their mouths opening but not moving as they spoke. They were voiced by Roy Skelton – later Zippy and George in Rainbow – and Dalek man Peter Hawkins.

For the only time in their history these Cybermen were credited with individual names: Regos Krang, Jarl, Gern, Krail, Talon and Shav.

While they were quickly redesigned for TV, the original cloth-masked variant continued to battle Patrick Troughton’s Doctor in the pages of TV Comic. In 1969 comic strip “Conflict On Ice” they’re even seen skiing!