The Glorious Dead (Panini Graphic Novel)

Written by Scott Gray, Adrian Salmon, Alan Barnes, Steve Moore

Artwork by Martin Geraghty, Adrian Salmon, Roger Langridge, & Steve Dillon

Paperback: 244 pages
Publisher: Panini UK LTD

Endgame had been a fresh start for the long-running Doctor Who comic strip, it not only began the adventures of a new Doctor and a new companion, but it just had a cleaner more focused tone than the strip had had for some time. The Glorious Dead is this new incarnation of the strip coming into it's own.  Scott Gray took over the major writing duties from Alan Barnes, who had really just become to swamped with other Doctor Who Magazine work, and the results are top notch.  While I love a lot of what Scott Gray did as the lead writer for the rest of the Eighth Doctor run, I have to say I think the arc featured in this book is possibly his masterpiece. 

It starts with a story called "The Fallen", which is followed up with several stories that build up to the big finale of "The Glorious Dead," and it is a top-notch run of stories that effectively serve as a genuine sequel to the TV Movie, and quite frankly, it is a better story than that movie ever was. We see the return of Grace and what happened to her following on from the movie, and I thought they did a rather good job of reintroducing her to the fold, building what was started in the movie, and bringing some weight to what her lone adventure with the Doctor did to her.

The storyline also reintroduces a Kroton, a Cyberman character that was introduced in the 70s in a couple of "back-up" strips, which were Doctor-less features in the early days of the magazine.  Kroton is sort of an odd character to me.  In his early stories from the 70s (both of which are featured at the end of this book as well), he is a Cyberman that struggles because he somehow has emotions.  The characters were kind of revamped as a wisecracking action hero during the Eighth Doctor's time, and I have to admit that while I still kind of like the character, it doesn't totally work.  It's hard to picture what Kroton sounds like...does he sound like a regular Cyberman? If so everything he says is hard to imagine. But the character is a key role in this storyline, so you take the rough with the smooth, as we so often do with this franchise. 

Another key player is Sato Katsura, a Samurai who had planned to commit an honorable suicide after avenging the death of his Lord, but when he is mortally wounded during the adventure, the Doctor saves his life using nano-probes and inadvertently makes him immortal. The inability to kill himself sends Sato on a very different path, a path that a certain sinister Time Lord takes full advantage of.

That is, of course, the Master, who gets a grand return from his "death" in the Eye of Harmony. His re-introduction is only hinted at in the opening story, but the reveal is subtle and an exciting tease for things to come.  When he is finally revealed to the Doctor in all his glory, it is not only a great story with a fine climax, but it also happens to have some of the best artwork the strip had up to that point.  It should be noted that this book represents the final days of the strip remaining in black and white, as the strip would move to full color following this. 

The major storyline in this Volume just works really well. Everything flows and builds to a grand finale, and I can kind of picture these comics as a series that could've been following the TV movie (though had the show ever been made into a series it would've never been this good based on what ideas those in charge seemed to have in store for the show).  I loved the stories, the art, the spirit of it all.  My only complaint is that they printed some of the stories out of order.  I get that they tried to put all of the major arc stories in the front, and then some of the one-offs that were published in between after, but I think the collection might've worked a bit better as a book if it ended on "The Glorious Dead" as a finale. 

But these DWM comics really seem like a good start to the Eighth Doctor's adventures, and I can kind of picture them taking place before the Audios and Charley and everywhere he has gone since Big Finish got McGann behind the mic. These strips are like the early days of his Doctor to me, this book plays really well as a sequel to the lone TV outing of the Eighth Doctor, and almost as if it was a well thought out season of television, and knowing Russell T Davies was a fan of the strip, it is rather hard to not think that storylines like this had some influence on his modern take on Doctor Who when he brought it back to television. It really is a great book!