The Last Regeneration (unreleased comic story)

The Last Regeneration was a two-page comic story pitch by Stephen Cole and Lee Sullivan to introduce the Doctor's last incarnation.

It was published in Robot #0 (July 1998), a limited run of "dummy mags" sent to focus groups that was ultimately never picked up by the BBC.

Characters[[edit] | [edit source]]

Plot summary[[edit] | [edit source]]

An amnesiac, ginger-haired Doctor is running from the Cybermen in a cold and filthy city of tall, metallic buildings. The Doctor recognises the sound of The TARDIS as it materialises to shield him from the Cybermen's beams. He opens the door to enter the TARDIS, stating "I am a Time Lord! I am... The Doctor! And I don't belong to anyone..."

Worldbuilding[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Doctor knows that he does not carry guns. He also knows the identity of the Cybermen, the TARDIS, and that he is a Time Lord called the Doctor.
The Doctor finds an apple core, a bag of jelly babies, a sonic screwdriver, a TARDIS key, and a "catapault" [sic] (slingshot) on his person.
The sonic screwdriver is the basic design first used by the Third Doctor. Likewise, the TARDIS key is the spade-shaped design also first used by the Third Doctor.
A Cyberman tells the Doctor that he will be like them.

Notes[[edit] | [edit source]]

This incarnation of the Doctor is a light-skinned man with ginger hair, sideburns, and green or blue eyes. (They inexplicably change between panels.) He wears a brown trenchcoat, a thin white scarf, a blue button-up vest with purple spots, a white undershirt, cream trousers, and brown boots.
The Cyberman's line, "You belong to us. You shall be like us.", is a direct quote of the Cyber-Controller's first words at the end of the second episode of TV: The Tomb of the Cybermen.

Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]

The Sci-Files[[edit] | [edit source]]

In 1997, Radio Times editor Matt Bookman's pitched The Sci-Files, a new magazine featuring comic strips for Doctor Who, Bugs, Superman, and Red Dwarf as well as a Wallace & Gromit humour strip.^[1]
Two mock-up covers were made for The Sci-Files #1. The first had Dean Cain's Superman, the cast of Bugs, Kryten from Red Dwarf, Mulder and Scully from The X-Files, and a panel from Radio Times Eighth Doctor comic. The second cover featured the Eighth Doctor, Dan Dare, Kryten, and Wallace & Gromit.^[1]
Originally, the Doctor Who comic would feature the Eighth Doctor. However, the Eighth Doctor was co-owned by Universal Pictures and required a licensing payment to Universal. This led to the idea of creating a new incarnation of the Doctor.^[2]

Robot[[edit] | [edit source]]

Robot #0 cover by Lee Sullivan and Matt Bookman

The Sci-Files was retitled Robot #0 (July 1998) and printed in a limited run (250 copies) of "dummy mags". These were sent to focus groups aged 13 to 30. Sullivan recalled that "kids didn’t rate strip art much and really didn't know much about Doctor Who".^[3]
Two mock-up covers were made for Robot #0. One with Lost in Space (1998) art by Garry Leach and one with Cyberman art by Lee Sullivan.^[2]
The magazine would feature a Doctor Who comic by Lee Sullivan and Stephen Cole (featuring a new incarnation of the Doctor), a Red Dwarf comic by David Pugh, and Zero Zone (an original comic by Garry Leach).^[2]
Lee Sullivan's new Doctor was ginger, a trait in common with "Merlin", a different future incarnation of the Doctor first seen in the 1991 Battlefield novelisation. Coincidentally, the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors would go on to express disappointment at not being ginger. In a 2013 interview, Lee Sullivan said he painted his Doctor's hair as "sandy" but said that it is "ginger-lite".^[3] Furthermore, the "Merlin" Doctor "thought he was the last" in Paul Cornell's 2020 story Shadow of a Doubt.
- Sullivan said he had Alan Rickman in the back of his mind while designing his Doctor, but he was not modelled exactly on him. He recalled being given carte-blanche for designing his Doctor and described his outfit at "Regency and Romantic looking".
Sullivan recounted he was given no guidance for the design of the Cybermen. So he, Cole, and/or Bookman did a "rework of their original design".

The idea was that [the Doctor] didn't know who he was and was on his last regeneration: I'm sure Stephen [Cole] had an idea of where it would go, but I would doubt that he fleshed it out more than a pitch.Lee Sullivan in 2013^[3]