The 1995 Yearbook

Marvel Comics One Last Try (Mistitled as "One Last Chance" in the table of contents) The 1995 Yearbook

Published

1994

Turlough meets his double.

• The Deadly Assassin by Noe Geric

The Deadly Assassin by Noe Geric 4/10/20

After two forgettable strips in this Yearbook (The Naked Flame and Blood Invocation), I began to read the short stories. My first reading choice was for the Fifth Doctor and Turlough adventure: One Last Try (or One Last Chance as the table of contents names it).

The story has a nice idea but is a strange mess. I had no idea what was happening in the first scene, and it's not until the second page that everything is properly explained. The idea of an assassin who thinks he is someone else is quite interesting, but all the other 'twists' of the story were quite obvious. Turlough is the most useless thing of the text. He does nothing. He's just there. While the Doctor takes a great deal of the action, Turlough just find his double completely naked and that's all. There's no point for him to be here, and it could've been any other companion, because our dear Turlough hasn't any personality at all. He's as useless as he was on TV after The King's Demon. He stays in the background and just ask questions.

The end isn't interesting either, nothing is incredible. One Last Try is just a little story that you'll enjoy reading but that you'll forget immediately. I think the moral lesson that it tries to tell isn't interesting enough, and we've seen it already in Mawdryn Undead.

Some drawings illustrate the text, and it's actually pretty good. I mean, it is even better than the comic strips! The colours are warm, the characters good enough (even if only the Doctor and Turlough/Turlough's double are presented). It's odd when a text story has better drawings than a comic!

Conclusion: One Last Try isn't Steve Lyons' best work, but it manages to be good enough. It's enjoyable, but nothing more. Recommended for those who've got 15-30 minutes to kill. 7/10