The Sentinel!

"I, it was, who stood and watched the ascent of creation!"

Writer: John Tomlinson
Format: Comic Strip
Released: 18th November 1989
Printed in: The Incredible Hulk Presents 7

Featuring: Seventh Doctor

Synopsis

When the Seventh Doctor meets an ancient being named Seneschal who claims to have been responsible for human evolution itself, the Time Lord chastises him for meddling. Predictably, the being gets angry and chases the Doctor away. Too late, the time traveller understands that Seneschal has taken a sample of his DNA, with which he can, given billions of years, create a new race of Time Lords.

Verdict

The Sentinel! was a very good little comic strip and a great continuation of the Nemesis of the Daleks graphic novel. I thought it was an intriguing adventure and continued the solo travels of the Seventh Doctor very nicely. The dialogue was good characterisation of Sylvester McCoy's seventh incarnation and I do think that this comic strip has arguably best-captured his likeness in this graphic novel collection. His arrival on Earth during the Cenozoic era was a mightily interesting setting and I almost thought the image of the apes would lead to a mini story on the lines of something similar to Planet of the Apes. That is one of my all-time favourite films so I was quite excited but despite what followed being nothing like I had envisioned (or maybe hoped for), I still very much enjoyed. Seneschal was a brilliant character and his laying claim to causing human evolution was quite bold! I really liked it though and considering how long he had waited for man to get as far as it had at this point, his disappointment seemed warranted. The subtle reference to Earthshock was excellent and I liked how intelligent Seneschal was. He knew all about the Doctor once he had woken up and the Time Lord was quite shocked by that. The continued use of the Doctor seemingly representing the Time Lords in this collection is something that has struck my interest and whilst I do hope it would lead to something, I will be very surprised if it does. The Doctor walking around with a plaster on his head seemed like a harmless artistic inclusion but its relevance to the story actually turned out to be wonderful. I did wonder when I first saw it who had applied it but it actually turned out to be rather genius. The idea of Seneschal getting bored of humanity only to then get some Time Lord DNA to play around with was really good. It may take him quite some time for this DNA to evolve into the level of Time Lord that the Doctor is currently at, but it would be much more worth the wait than was the case with humanity. The idea of the Doctor being the catalyst for a new race of Time Lords was excellent and one I really enjoyed. That was especially enhanced once the Doctor realised in the TARDIS just what had happened. I'd love a sequel exploring the aftermath of this story but I do like the ambiguity if one does not arise. Overall, a very good story!

Rating: 8/10