8th Doctor DWM #1.2 - “The Keep” by Alan Barnes

Arriving in the 51st Century, the Doctor and Izzy discover a settlement on a barren Earth, which houses the secret to humanity’s survival.

The Keep was a little bit of a step up from Endgame in my opinion. With a much more classic idea and a touch of comic book weirdness, I think this certainly appealed to me quite a bit more. It’s also interesting that, despite being half the length, this had much better pacing than Endgame.

I really like the idea of a living artificial sun and the bits and pieces of world building we get are quite good. The Amazon Desert especially makes for a great setting. The art, whilst by the same team, seems like it managed to pin down the likenesses of our characters a bit better this time.

There was honestly a nice poetic quality to this story and the dialogue was certainly a step up from last time. Shame it just kind of ends though. Like, there’s stuff going on with (vaguely racist) tribes outside the titular Keep but they’re just dropped at the end. Curse of the length I guess but it felt very sudden and avoidable. 

Izzy is sidelined and I don’t have much of an opinion on her still but the ending was quite interesting, I wonder if this plot line will return. This was a pretty enjoyable story but that weird ending and a feeling of missed opportunity really hurt it.

6/10

Pros:

+ Great setting and concept

+ A small but significant step up from the last story

+ There was a wonderfully contemplative element to this

Cons:

- Ends super suddenly

- Could’ve done with a few more pages in length