Endgame (Panini Graphic Novel)

Written by Alan Barnes & Scott Gray

Artwork by Martin Geraghty, Sean Longcroft, & Adrian Salmon

Paperback: 212 pages
Publisher: Panini UK LTD

The Seventh Doctor's tenure in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine had been kind of a mess.  The days during his television tenure were often one-offs delivered by a variety of different writers and artists.  There was rarely a consistent look or a consistent tone.  The best period was really right after the show was cancelled and people who had been involved in the show turned to the comic to continue the adventures of the Doctor and Ace...but once the Virgin books kicked in, those people became occupied with that venture, and the comics again became kind of messy, and they tried so hard to make it fit the continuity of the books that they would often write stories that required some knowledge of what had been going on in the books just to make some confusing detail make any sense. So when the  1996 TV Movie premiered and the magazine was given a brand new fresh Doctor to lead the strip...they managed to assemble a small team that could focus, and they actually made something that was fun to read again. 

Endgame represents the launch of Paul McGann's Eighth Doctor in the strip, and the opening story really showcases writer Alan Barnes and artist Martin Geraghty's plan to put a new stamp on the strip, one that has decided to sever ties with the Virgin line of books (which pretty much came to an end right after the Eighth Doctor took over as well) and it's continuity. They delve back into the strip's own rich history, with the Doctor returning to Stockbridge and reuniting with Maxwell Edison, we see the return of Shayde in the book.

There is also the introduction of another resident of Stockbridge, Izzy Sinclair, the girl who becomes the Eighth Doctor's companion for a good chunk of his run in the comic.  Izzy is a really well-written character, who comes to life immediately as someone who the kind of folks that were probably reading a magazine based on what was then a defunct sci-fi show could relate to.  Izzy is an awkward sci-fi nerd who's adopted and whose closest friend is the middle-aged alien hunting geek Max Edison. 

I think that what certainly sets this book apart from the bulk of the Seventh Doctor run, is that it kind of feels like a season of the show. I'm a big fan of the Big Finish audios that McGann has been doing since 2001, and as such, I've become a big fan of his interpretation of the role.  The comics collected in this book were written before he really gotten a chance to bring that interpretation to life, so they based this version of the character entirely on his one appearance on TV.  What strikes me s that they did such a good job bringing him to life, with a little more depth than the TV movie actually offered up...and they somehow got it pretty close to what McGann eventually really did with the role.  To me, this book plays sort of like a decent first season for his Doctor.  It may be a little rough around the edges, but Barnes stories are pretty solid, the artwork is gorgeous, and there is a decent running storyline featuring the Threshold (a villain which was introduced during the final strip featuring the Seventh Doctor), and we get other great additions like Fey Truscott-Sade, and the great fake out twist that comes for the story that pretty much brings this batch of comics to an end.

Ultimately, there may be a few areas where some fine tuning could have helped, but this is a vastly better set of comics than most of what came during the Seventh Doctor's tenure. The strip felt like it got some of it's mojo back under the Eighth Doctor.  It helps when you've basically been given a Doctor with only one appearance and you have carte-blanche to just do whatever you want with it. There must've been a real sense of freedom after being shackled to the Seventh Doctor and his book line. And it really shows.