Wormwood (comic story)

Wormwood was the main comic story of 1998 in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine. It concluded the long-running Threshold story line, which had been ongoing for several years. It also set up future narratives by introducing the gestalt character of Feyde, who would return in the much later story, Me and My Shadow, and ultimately empower Izzy to finally depart the Eighth Doctor's company.

Wormwood also featured what seemed to be "the Ninth Doctor". Although revealed as a narrative trick, the point of the deception was to see if DWM readers would accept a regeneration into a new incarnation exclusive to the magazine. Ultimately, nothing actually came of the plan, and the Eighth Doctor remained the "current" DWM Doctor until the arrival of Christopher Eccleston's Ninth Doctor.

Summary
The Doctor has regenerated, or has he?

The TARDIS arrives in Wormwood, an American village, in 1880. However, the Doctor and his companions soon discover they are not on Earth, but the Moon, and they have been lured into a final confrontation with their old enemies, the Threshold. After three thousand years, they are preparing to step out of the darkness and descend on the whole galaxy. Can Izzy and Fey survive in a world populated by ruthless Threshold agents, and what has happened to the Doctor?

Characters

 * Eighth Doctor
 * Izzy Sinclair
 * Fey Truscott-Sade
 * Shayde
 * Threshold

Continuity

 * The Threshold first appeared in COMIC: Ground Zero, where they killed Ace. Unknowingly, Izzy uses Ace's baseball bat to defeat them.
 * The mysterious box that the Threshold were being paid with in Fire and Brimstone is stated to have come from Rassilon, and was the gift of universal translation. It's also absent, having been dropped and lost in the same story.