White Knight
Real Name: Norman Power
Identity/Class: Human transformed by science into fictional construct, taking form of human mutate
Occupation: in the real world Passenger ship Captain
in the Land of Fiction unknown, former superhero
Group Membership: None
Affiliations: Sparky (sidekick), the Doctor (seventh persona), Bernice Summerfield, Dorothy "Ace" McShane
Enemies: Doctor Nemesis, Dragonella, the Medusa, the Glitterbug, Timewinder, the Purple Nasty, Silver Fist
Known Relatives: None
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Arandale, the Land of Fiction
First Appearance: Conundrum (Doctor Who New Adventure #22, Virgin Books January 1994)
Powers/Abilities: Super strength, invulnerability, heat vision, able to fly. Able to travel to other planets, as his skin is tough enough to survive in space and he can hold his breath for hours at a time.
History: It was June 15th, 1959. A meteor shower comes down near the small town of Arandale, nearly demolishing the old castle that stands at the town's edge. Young Norman Powers gives in to curiosity, and in the rubble he touches one of the fallen rocks. In an instant he is transformed, gaining powers beyond mortal men. He adopts the identity of the White Knight and becomes a superhero.
Initially the White Knight operated out of his home town, but there was very little call for someone with his powers there. So Norman moved to New York, the better to fight crime. He had been adventuring for roughly three years when he met Sparky, his sidekick. An orphan, her mother had died in childbirth and her father was killed by falling debris as the White Knight battled Doctor Nemesis in Times Square. Norman adopted the plucky girl, and equipped her with gas pellets full of stun gas and a black costume to counterpoint his white one, she became his partner. She even managed to save his life during a later encounter with Doctor Nemesis and captured the villain herself.
Sparky had worked with the White Knight for five years when Nemesis returned. Having learned his opponent's true identity, he and his thugs managed to capture him by coming for him while he was asleep. Sparky followed a ransom note to a warehouse down on the waterfront, but when she entered she triggered a boobytrap, and ten pounds of explosives detonated in her face, killing her. The White Knight eventually escaped of course, and triumphed against his enemy, but nothing could undo the damage that had been done.
After Sparky died, Norman didn't want to continue his costumed career any more. So when his old friend Doctor Carol Pullen devised a way of ridding him of his powers forever, he accepted. He returned home to Arandale, and as the years progressed he began to regret giving up his powers; he missed being able to fly. Eventually, after thirty years of depression, he decided to kill himself by jumping off a bridge. He is stopped by Bernice Summerfield, a traveller from the future and companion to the Doctor. Grateful for someone he can tell his story to, he explains everything to her, and when she proves sceptical, he shows her his hidden underground base as evidence of his veracity. While Benny is still trying to work out how to react to this, the evil Doctor Nemesis bursts into the cavern, seeking revenge. Benny distracts Nemesis while Power escapes, fleeing through the hole which Nemesis had blasted in the cavern wall.
The next morning as the Doctor continued to investigate other weird anomalies in and around the town (a retired superhero and his arch enemy weren't the only bizarre things happening), Benny introduced him to Norman Power and told him her story. Norman explained about the meteorite shower, and that ever since that night, anybody who ventured near the Keep had sickened and died. The Doctor suggested that, exaggerated as Norman's exploits might have been, there was a grain of truth to them; his genetic structure could have been altered by exposure to a rare and dangerous form of extraterrestrial energy known as McAllister’s Radiation. If the Force beneath the Keep was indeed composed of McAllister’s, the Doctor warned Benny, they were all in great danger.
While events continued to become increasingly ca-ca in Arandale, Norman returned to the ruins of the keep, hoping in vain that the Force which once made him a superhero would take notice of him again. The Doctor and his friends meanwhile discovered that they were in The Land of Fiction, a place where reality could be transformed by the "Writer" in charge of the place; fictional characters could be made real, and real people turned into fictional ones - and Norman Powers, a.k.a. the White Knight was just one of the fictional stereotypes inhabiting this trap that had been set for the Time Lord.
The Writer, having been rumbled, started to wind down his subplots. Nemesis caught up with Benny and the Doctor's other companion, Ace, and demandrf they hand over Norman. Norman came to the defence of his friends, but was nearly beaten to death, before Nemesis was destroyed by a third party. Norman, taken to hospital, was made by the Writer to believe his powers had returned; this allowed the Writer to tie up one more plot thread as Norman then jumped from out his hospital room window, and fell to his death.
Comments: Created by Steve Lyons.
The White Knight proved to be a fictional character - but then aren't they all? Norman Powers however had been a real person before the Writer trapped him in the Land of Fiction and turned him into a plaything. He was in command of a passenger ship that strayed too close to the sector of space containing the Land.
His costume, described but never seen, was white, with a full face mask and a stylised yellow sword embroidered on the left breast. Among his many foes were Dragonella, the Medusa, the Glitterbug, Timewinder, the Purple Nasty and Silver Fist (who was a Cyberman who had been likewise trapped - he was killed battling the White Knight).
CLARIFICATIONS: Not to be confused with
any other Knights, whatever their colour
Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.
All images and characters depicted on this site are copyright their respective holders, and are used for informational purposes only. No infringement is intended and copyrights remain at source.