The Last Word

"Simply tell it like it was!"

Writer: Gareth Roberts

Format: Comic Strip

Released: May 2001

Printed in: DWM 305

Featuring: Seventh Doctor, Ace, Benny

Synopsis

Whilst the TARDIS traverses the time vortex, the Seventh Doctor is attempting to write a novel about his adventures with Benny and Ace, but he's struggling to find the right opening. Sending Ace and Benny off to opposite ends of a temporal nexus, the Timewyrm makes an unexpected return! 

Verdict

The Last Word was a decent comic strip adventure! This one actually kicked off my reading of The Age of Chaos graphic novel but with only a short window of time to do a blog entry today, I couldn't start with the titular epic. Instead, we got delved right into a new adventure with the Seventh Doctor, Ace and Benny to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Virgin New Adventures novels! I think that's a really nice idea and it finally gives me an explanation as to why there was a random gap of a story left unmarked in the middle of the Eighth Doctor's comic strip run. I'm still yet to finish that off with The Flood graphic novel, but having a Seventh Doctor insert with a one-part celebratory comic was a nice idea. I was taken aback by the story actually being in full colour as I don't recall that being the case for a DWM comic before the Eighth Doctor's run. This one was definitely vibrant and one thing that I noticed right from the off was how different Ace was presented. I'm still at an incredibly early stage in my reading of the New Adventures where Ace, at least on some of the front covers, looks very much like she did on television so to see how she was depicted here was quite something! She looked cool in every sense of the word and definitely in with the era, and it's crazy to think that she was the current companion for so long, and even here twelve years after Survival was broadcast she's still kicking around. She and Benny didn't have an awful lot to do in the comic strip which wasn't much of a hinderance given that it was only seven pages long. They were basically pawns in the bigger game the Doctor had in play which I thought was fun and something you can always draw back on, especially for a mini anniversary story. Having the Timewyrm come back is a good idea on paper and I really like that we got a firm visual for what it looked like. However, having a monster defeated in a few pages seems off considering that it took four books to do so at the start of the New Adventures! Ace's reaction to seeing it back was excellent. I thought the idea of having the Doctor writing a book of his adventures with Ace and Benny was fun because of the anniversary it was celebrating, and the suggestion of him writing 'new adventures' for them all was a delight. A simple yet effective play on words that I really liked. Puterspace was fun to explore with the idea of it being a realm of data being something I enjoyed. The artwork showing that was also subtly different which I liked and was important in marking it as different. The resolution was a little too easy and convenient, but with only seven pages to play with it couldn't really be any other way. As a whole, I thought this was a short and sweet celebration of the New Adventures books where it was nice to get some colour and visuals to go with it! Overall, a good story.

Rating: 7/10