Susan is magnificent. I mean, she's not, but she should have been.
Not to say the series' subsequent returns to her have fared any better. There have been a few attempts to build her into something mythic. To quickly summarise Tardis Data Core (tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Susan_Foreman):
Susan was Lady Larn, last of Rassilon's descendants, who happened to be hiding in the Tardis when the Doctor stole it (according to Eric Saward's 'Birth of a Renegade' (1983)). As an aside, this also mentions the Doctor 'has had selective memories wiped' (tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Birth_of_a_Renegade_(short_story)), which'd tie in with 'The Timeless Children'.
Susan was Arkytior, which means rose (according to Robert Mammone and Brian Hudd's 'Roses' (DWM 214, 1994)(https://tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Roses_(short_story))). Not sure what the significance of this would have been, though it shines a creepier light on the Doctor's relationship with Rose.
Susan was a grandchild of the Doctor and Patience, who was rescued by the Doctor from Gallifrey's culling of non-Loom-born children (according to Lance Parkin's Cold Fusion (1996). This sort of feeds into Marc Platt's Lungbarrow (1997), where Susan was a grandchild of the Other, who threw himself into the Looms to be later sort of spat out as the Doctor.
Irrelevantly, that Tardis Data Core entry also includes the subheading 'Giving humans a try' which sounds incredibly either sexual or culinary.
Even worse have been the attempts to portray Susan's life after she leaves the Tardis:
Adrian Mourby's Whatever Happened to Susan Foreman? (1994) had her attraction to David prove nothing more than a brief crush.
John Peel's Legacy of the Daleks (1998) presented her marriage with David under strain as she had to make herself appear older to disguise her alien nature. It also revealed she and David were too genetically incompatible to have children and killed David off.
Whether for better or worse, Andy Lane's Here There Be Monsters (2008) had her keep her alien origins completely secret from David (tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Here_There_Be_Monsters_(audio_story)).
Marc Platt's An Earthly Child (2009) made her a widow whose son, Alex, was then killed in Nicholas Brigg's To the Death (2011).
Mark Gatiss's 'Fellow Traveller' (2020) yet again killed David, this time by virus (to be fair, this was written for Adventures in Lockdown), and had Susan wander the Earth alone for 50ish years (tardis.fandom.com/wiki/Susan_Foreman).
Paul Cornell's 'Father's Day' (2005) and Chris Chibnall's 'The Woman Who Fell to Earth' (2018) both suggest she's dead; Tony Lee and Mike Collins's 'Dead Man's Hand' (2013) suggested she was merely somehow lost. Either way, Susan's War (2020) puts her squarely in the Time War.
One of the few bits of added lore I've liked comes in Simon Guerrier's The Time Travellers (2005), where the Doctor, aware that their adventure involving time travel technology might well attract the Time Lords' attention, resolves to find a bolthole for Susan. Of course, that's slightly tarnished by the fact he turns out to be wrong and the don't catch up with him until 'The War Games'.
Anyway, Doctor Who and an Unearthly Child...
I should just add that, with the novelisation of the first broadcast story, plus the arrival of the neon 80s logo, it feels like a good time for Putrid Ham to take another break - hopefully not as long as the last one - to, if nothing else, prevent every page becoming a rantier facsimile of the last. It'll be back probably around the new year. Not sure. I'll put a sign up.
Anyway, Doctor Who and an Unearthly Child...
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