Izzy Sinclair

Isabelle Sinclair, also known as Izzy, was a human companion of the Eighth Doctor.

Orphaned at a young age, Izzy spent several of her developing years unsure of who she was or who she wanted to be. While her early years were light and uneventful, her teens brought a great distrust towards the authority figures in her life and she left Earth without telling her adoptive parents, trying to escape her mundane life. However, her vivacious and trusting nature eventually had tragic consequences.

Early life
Izzy was born on 12 October 1979, (COMIC: TV Action!) and was left at a bus shelter by her biological parents a few hours after being born. (COMIC: The Glorious Dead) She was later adopted by Les and Sandra Sinclair. (COMIC: Endgame)

At the age of eight, Izzy was told that she was adopted. The truth hurt Izzy, and she began to tell herself that she was a lost alien princess, and someday her alien parents would find her. (COMIC: The Glorious Dead) Because of her unknown ancestry, she chose to call herself Izzy S (for "Izzy Somebody") from then on. (COMIC: Endgame)

Joining the Doctor
When she first met the Eighth Doctor, Izzy was a seventeen-year-old science fiction fan and amateur paranormal investigator. She lived in the town of Stockbridge, England. She was a friend of Maxwell Edison. She met the Doctor after Max and she had stolen an artefact being sought by the Doctor's old enemy, the Celestial Toymaker. The Toymaker had put the entire town of Stockbridge into a pocket dimension and turned everyone into dolls save for Izzy and Max. The Doctor arrived in the midst of this, rescued the town, defeated the Toymaker again and took Izzy on board the TARDIS as his newest companion. (COMIC: Endgame)

Fight against the Threshold
The TARDIS landed in the city state of Tar-Ka-Nom, of which Izzy had been reading a tourist log about it's history. The Doctor ended up being implicated in a series of murders, Izzy tried to free by smuggling the sonic screwdriver in through a birthday cake, but was imprisoned too. Remembering the date, from the yet-to-be-written tourist log, as the date the real killer was captured, Izzy left an anonymous tip off on the identity of the real killer. (COMIC: By Hook or By Crook)

At one point, Izzy played a collection of video games on the TARDIS Time-Space Visualiser, one of which was Happy Deathday. (COMIC: Happy Deathday)

The battle for the Glory
In London, 2001, Izzy was nearly eaten by human-morphant hybrid Donald Stark before her memories of the Doctor repelled him, and was instead taken prisoner as leverage against the Doctor. She was saved by the efforts of Grace Holloway, after which the three of them were able to able to destroy the creature. (COMIC: The Fallen)

In 17th century Japan, after being separated from the Doctor following capture by clan Rikushira, Izzy was saved from Gaijin nano-drones by Sato Katsura. While infiltrating the Rikushira palace, Izzy's mind was forcibly read by Lady Asami for information on the future, which revealed to her the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, and drove her to madness. The nano-drones began a rampage using Asami's fury and imagery from Izzy's mind (a giant robot and a Godzilla-like creature), and Sato was mortally wounded protecting Izzy and the Doctor from them. The two saved him with a Gaijin hibernation chamber, unwittingly giving Sato immortality, to his grave displeasure. (COMIC: The Road to Hell)

After the TARDIS collided with Beep the Meep's starship, the two vessels ended up in the BBC Television Centre of a parallel universe. Beep proceeded to enslave the Doctor and the centre's occupants with black star radiation via a star drive, leaving Izzy alone against the alien until she ran into Tom Baker. She convinced the actor to confront Beep and distract him with his ramblings, allowing her to sabotage the star drive and break the Meep's mind control. Before leaving, Izzy explained her solution to the Doctor while showing him a copy of Doctor Who Weekly. (COMIC: TV Action!)

Finding themselves aboard Qutrusian Cargo Freighter X-703, under assault by space pirates led by Grast Horstrogg, Izzy and the Doctor then met Kroton, a Cyberman who had regained his individuality and a sharp wit. The three resist the pirates and follow the TARDIS after it is brought by Tobal Reist to a nearby asteroid, and as the pirates fought for control of both the ship and the superweapon the Eraser, the Doctor stole the weapon's power source while Izzy ordered the Eraser to self-destruct. Kroton then saved the both of them as the self-destruction eradicated the asteroid's atmosphere, joining their travels in the TARDIS. (COMIC: The Company of Thieves)

On Paradost, Izzy and Kroton bore witness to the Church of the Glorious Dead as the Ash Wraiths ravaged the planet, becoming fugitives after the Doctor vanished into the the Glory. After helping to destroy the Wraiths, she was shrunk by a tissue compression eliminator wielded by Chruch Cardinal Morningstar, though uniquely she survived the shrinking. Captured by the Cardinal, he revealed himself to her as Sato Katsura, having allied with in his scheme for control of the Glory to take revenge on the Doctor while turning Earth into Dhakan in a holy war. As Sato was forced to fight a vengeful Kroton who believed Izzy dead, Izzy herself escaped capture and reached the TCE, restoring her to full size. With a Mnemonic crystal she had gotten on Paradost, she diffused the fight by convincing Sato to repent with her experience as a fugitive, and letting Kroton experience the life he lost from cyber-conversion. Her actions revealed to Esterath that Kroton was worthy of being his successor as controller of the Glory, ending the conflict for control the Doctor and Master were engaged in, reverting the destruction the Master and Sato had wrought, and giving Sato the peace of death. (COMIC: The Glorious Dead)

Continued adventures with the Doctor
Izzy joined the Doctor in inspecting Blueberry House, an institute for rehabilitating robots with “severe programming deviancy”, where she was trapped inside a chamber with the mechanical patients in a scheme to force them into being subjected to an Adjuster to restore their "normal" programming. Instead, however, she befriended the robots, revealing to the Doctor the sentience and society they had developed. Allying with the egglike Emperor Zero after correctly suspecting the Doctor was in danger, she helped them break out of the chamber and intercept the Adjuster after Andrelina Hastoff tried to silence him with the machine. She and the Doctor remained after the robots mourned Zero following his sacrifice to destroy the Adjuster and overthrew the institute staff, capturing Hastoff in the process. Before leaving, she had a heartful goodbye with a ducklike robot who said "goodbye" as its first words to her, and would go on to tell their story and her role in it for generations to come. (COMIC: The Autonomy Bug)

The Doctor once took Izzy to Jora, where all native life forms were affected by the Syntax. Izzy fell under its influence, and saw Jean-Luc Picard whilst hallucinating. (PROSE: Syntax)

Wanting to solve the mystery behind the disappearance of the 56th issue of Aggrotron!, one of her favourite comics whilst she was growing up, Izzy had the Doctor take her to her local comic shop the day the comic released, where the Suits destroyed all the copies and tried to wipe her memory of the incident. The Doctor traced the incident back to the comic's extraterrestrial publishers and the culprit to 51st century native Derek O'Dell, who had adopted the identity of Aggrotron! 's star character Courtmaster Cruel to become a vigilante hero in his time. Derek confided his motive was to suppress the twist of Issue 56 that the Courtmaster was a woman, which greatly shocked Izzy. To the Doctor's bewilderment, she agreed with Derek that it should stay secret. (AUDIO: Izzy's Story)

The Doctor swapped the Crystal of Consciousness with an identical duplicate, which Valis stole. Valis restrained the Doctor and Izzy, having them at his mercy, when the fake crystal backfired on him upon it being placed in Valis' psychic web. Izzy mocked this substitution as obvious. (COMIC: Death to the Doctor)

Losing her body


After trying on some bright new clothes from the TARDIS wardrobe, Izzy witnessed as the ship was swallowed by a gigantic, snake-like spacecraft called Ophidius. Exploring the inside, Izzy and the Doctor met Destrii, an amphibious alien who looked like a humanoid fish. Destrii gained Izzy's confidence and friendship, both finding they enjoyed old Earth television shows like Star Trek, only to trick her into switching bodies with her to evade capture by the aliens who controlled Ophidius. When Destrii (in Izzy's body) was apparently disintegrated by a vengeful Mobox, Izzy had to deal with the possibility she would be in an alien body for the rest of her life. (COMIC: Ophidius)

Reacting badly, Izzy had a breakdown in her bedroom in the TARDIS, lashing out at the Doctor when he tried to help, refusing his comparisons of her experience to his own regenerations. Shortly after, Izzy began to suffocate as her new body needed to be submerged in water periodically. The Doctor carried Izzy through the TARDIS to the swimming pool, submerging her in the water. Izzy then learnt how to breathe in her new body, and apologized to the Doctor for pushing him away. Izzy then dressed herself in her old clothes, sans shoes as they no longer fit her feet. (COMIC: Beautiful Freak)

At the TARDIS's next stop in Coyoacan, Mexico on the 1941 Day of the Dead, Izzy was found by Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera after being hit by their car when fleeing a Torajenn that had just stolen the flesh of a local couple. While Diego sought after and aided the Doctor, Izzy saved Frieda from a Torajenn that had appeared as her father, and the two went out to warn the city of the aliens posing as the spirits of the dead, Izzy herself setting off fireworks that disrupted the Torajenn's disguises. During this, Frida helped Izzy come to terms with her condition, relating to her through her experience recovering from a broken spine, and personally saving Izzy from a Troajenn who appeared to her as her real body. After the crisis, Frida painted Izzy a portrait of her human self. (COMIC: The Way of All Flesh)

The Doctor then took Izzy to the marine research submarine Argus on Kyrol, where Dr. Alison Lavelle was able to help her better adjust to Destrii's biology. While enjoying a swim in the sea outside the sub, she was the first to encounter the humanised Daleks, and was taken away to their hidden city of Azhra Korr separately from the the Argus crew. As tensions escalated between the human crew and the Daleks, the former began to reject her due to her alien appearance, and when she attempted to retrieve the TARDIS from underwater, one of Kata-Phobus's tentacles stopped her. Following the Daleks' self-destruction to kill the creature, she and the Doctor were about to enter the TARDIS and leave when Hassana and Helioth, the powerful twins of the Horde, kidnapped her, under the belief she was Destrii. (COMIC: Children of the Revolution)

When she awoke, Izzy discovered she had been taken on the order of Destrii's mother, the Matriax Scalamanthia of her homeworld planet Oblivion, who wanted her "daughter" to prepare for her wedding by fighting a duel to the death. (COMIC: Oblivion) Meanwhile, trying to trace Izzy's whereabouts with the help of his former companion Fey, the Doctor discovered that Destrii in Izzy's body was still alive, (COMIC: Uroboros) and arrived on Oblivion with her to both save Izzy and switch their bodies back. As Izzy was put into the arena against Lady Tetronnia, Destrii arrived just in time to stab her adversary in the back, after which Hassana and Helioth chose to swap back their minds. In the process, Izzy and Destrii saw into each other's minds, and Destrii saw how finding out she had been adopted made Izzy withdraw emotionally, unable to trust herself or admit she was a lesbian, while Izzy saw how Destrii suffered an abusive childhood, made into a lethal warrior, and only found respite from her uncle Jodafra and the 1960s Earth television he had let watch.

After Destrii killed her mother in a fit of anger, unleashing the Horde who bestowed upon her the powers of their leader, Izzy used her newfound insight into her counterpart's life to remind her of her need for freedom, ultimately helping her lead the Horde off the planet and into Jodafra's chronon capsule. Finally coming to terms with who she was (and sharing a goodbye kiss with Fey), Izzy asked the Doctor to take her back to Stockbridge so she could make amends to her adoptive parents. The Doctor dropped Izzy off at the moment she began travelling with him. From her parents' point of view, she had never left. (COMIC: Oblivion)

Later life
Izzy survived the Cyberman invasion of Earth in 2005. (COMIC: The Flood)

By December 2008, Izzy had taken to travelling the world. She found "something amazing" in Kabul. (COMIC: The Stockbridge Child) At some point, she began working for Médecins Sans Frontières‎, making her a doctor who travelled.

In 2016, she was going to return to Stockbridge for Max's sixtieth birthday when the Twelfth Doctor asked for her help in taking down Josiah W. Dogbolter. Izzy delivered a knockout blow to Dogbolter via the complete Blu-Ray boxset of The X-Files (her gift for Max), and watched him get arrested in his own time, before taking a TARDIS trip to Cornucopia for Max's birthday party. She caught up with Destrii there.

When the Doctor asked if she'd made up with her parents, she laughed that she was thirty-six now and that issue had been solved years ago. (COMIC: The Stockbridge Showdown)

Legacy
The Tenth Doctor told Gabby Gonzalez about Izzy, along with several other former companions. (COMIC: Vortex Butterflies)

Parallel universes
Lizzy Sinclair was an alternate version of Izzy that was a lizard. She was a companion of Tardis Tails. (COMIC: The Glorious Dead)

Personality
Izzy was brought up watching science fiction on TV and reading books by authors as varied as Iain M. Banks and H.P. Lovecraft, including 'The Devil Rides Out'. She felt she was ready to travel with the Doctor, but found she was mistaken, and that real life far exceeded fiction in fantastic and terrible ways. During and after the Doctor's abduction by the Master, Izzy was left to cope with a morose Kroton and to deal with a failing resistance to the Ash Wraith invaders. (COMIC: The Glorious Dead)

Izzy frequently watched Star Trek: The Next Generation on VHS before travelling with the Doctor. (AUDIO: Izzy's Story) She had a poster of Darth Vader in her bedroom aboard the Doctor's TARDIS. (COMIC: Beautiful Freak) She was an atheist. (PROSE: Syntax)

After swapping bodies with Destrii, Izzy's burgeoning self-confidence was first shaken and then strengthened when she came to terms with the change and the successful return to her body. The ultimate realisation of that growth was when she could tell the Doctor she was ready to go home and kissing Fey, accepting her sexuality. (COMIC: Ophidius, Oblivion)

Behind the scenes

 * The revelation that Izzy is a lesbian makes her the first unmistakably LGBT companion, and the first modern-day Earth companion without a heterosexual orientation. Chris Cwej was implied to have had sex with a man in Damaged Goods, but he's from the future and it's written with such subtlety that the sexual act is easily debatable. By contrast, Izzy is fully and clearly shown to passionately kiss Fey, and to have dialogue which confirms her feelings. A relationship between Liz Shaw and Patricia Haggard had been implied in P.R.O.B.E., but was not made explicit until When to Die in 2015.
 * Izzy's birthday is the same as the first publishing date of Doctor Who Weekly, as noted in the comic story TV Action!
 * Izzy was the Eighth Doctor's most frequent companion in the comic strip, appearing in nearly all of the Eighth Doctor's appearances between 1996 and 2003. Her time with the Doctor saw the coming and going of both Kroton and Fey as companions. An older Izzy made a cameo appearance in the last regular Eighth Doctor comic strip story, The Flood (DWM 353) and narrated part of the story. She also appears in the short stories Syntax and Illumination by David Bailey, published in the Big Finish Productions Short Trips anthologies Short Trips: Life Science and Short Trips: Christmas Around the World respectively, set during her time with the Doctor.
 * Izzy later made a cameo appearance in the comic story Death to the Doctor! in which various aliens recount how different incarnations of the Doctor defeated them. One was bested by the Eighth Doctor, and Izzy is seen in his flashback. She was most recently mentioned by Fey in the 2018 comic strip The Clockwise War.
 * Izzy became one of the few comic strip companions to be given life by an actor when Jemima Rooper portrayed her in the 2009 Big Finish Productions release Izzy's Story. Rooper's performance as Izzy was praised by Alan Barnes, creator of the character and writer of Izzy's Story. Barnes said "she 'got' the character the second she spoke her first line, absolutely - walking the line between 'utterly adorable, give her a hug' and 'slightly irritating nerd' like she was born to play it!" (VOR 5)