The Deal by: Steve Parkhouse with art by: Dave Gibbons

 

The Deal is written by Steve Parkhouse with art by Dave Gibbons.  It was released in Doctor Who Monthly issue 53 (June 1981) and is reprinted in its original form in Doctor Who: Dragon’s Claw by Panini Books.

 

Steve Moore only stayed on Doctor Who Monthly for a single year before moving onto other things in the comics world moving onto Star Wars before starting work on Warrior, a series of British anthology comics while artist Dave Gibbons stayed on until October 1982, another full year.  Moore was replaced by another Steve in the seat of writer, Steve Parkhouse, who would begin Doctor Who Monthly’s longest run so far of comic writers, from June 1981 to March 1985, a run of nearly four years.  Parkhouse’s initial strip, The Deal, continues the style of the Moore strips, telling single stories over 8-10 pages in only one, maybe two, issues.  This would be the style until the end of the Fourth Doctor’s comic run, however, with Parkhouse comes a very different tone for the comics.  While Moore’s stories were generally campy fun with the Doctor taking companion Sharon and K9 through wacky space adventures, The Deal sets out to be story with a bitter ending and overall a darker tone.

 

The Doctor crashes onto a planet during a series of intergalactic wars, a mercenary’s spaceship causing the TARDIS to have interference.  In the eight pages that comprise this comic the reader gets a real sense of just who this mercenary is and while it is slightly one note, that one dimension is enough to imply the horrors of war turning people who once may have been good to evil.  The Doctor only acts under duress in this story, with our mercenary threatening his life in exchange for passage off the planet.  The Doctor is only willing to advises, leading into a short sequence of dealing with the war, but the real kicker is the ending.  The mercenary is left on this planet to die exclaiming that this was not part of the deal, the deal being a through line the comic has about war and what the Doctor is tasked to do.  This ending is genuinely bleak: while the mercenary is not by any means a good person, he is still a human being and the Doctor’s actions come across as quite inhuman.  The Doctor here is a pacifist with the zany edge of Tom Baker’s characterization of Season 17, while wearing the Season 18 outfit.  This is all aided by Dave Gibbons’ art which as always is wonderful, though this time the setting of a barren planet doesn’t give him a lot to work with when it comes to artistic expression.

 

Overall, The Deal is a rousing success for Steve Parkhouse, showing that Parkhouse isn’t afraid to return to telling stories with weight.  While his comparison to Mills and Wagner’s sweeping eight part epics is yet to be seen, this one is a great start, though still shallow as a single issue comic of eight pages kind of has to be.  8/10.