Can the Doctor save his friends from their time-twisting fates? Will former library assistant Alice Obiefune find peace – or be marooned far from home? Will ARC ever be able to become whole again – or will its body be reduced to atoms? Will Jones fulfil his cosmic rock-god destiny – or die among the stars? After being taken over by the Entity during a clash between futuristic cyborgs and ancient Romans, he has gone missing. And having rejected the Doctor, will the TARDIS ever forgive the Time Lord for what he has done…?

Series co-writers Al Ewing and Rob Williams have teamed up for this issue and the next, as more than a year’s worth of plot arcs come to a head in The Comfort of the Good.

We were left with a major cliffhanger at the end of the last issue, with our heroes facing (among other calamities) being cut off from the TARDIS, stranded in time and space. The Doctor describes a bond of trust that exists between a TARDIS and its pilot or pilots, which prevents the ship from falling into irresponsible hands and being misused as a weapon. This is why it has rejected him now – for his unethical actions of late. It does beg the question of how various renegade Time Lords, such as the Master, the Rani and the Monk, have in the past been able to operate their own TARDISes. Did those ships agree with their pilots’ dubious ethics? Were they evil TARDISes?

Returning artist Simon Fraser provides some particularly cartoonish work this time around. Ironically, though, this is more in evidence during the Doctor’s earthbound scenes than in the dreamscape occupied by Jones – which, for the most part, is rendered in a naturalistic style, despite activities such as floating through space. It’s in the Doctor’s anguished face that most of the distortion occurs, as if to emphasise the trauma he is suffering… and the shock he receives on the final page.

This gripping episode really races towards its conclusion. We were left with a major cliffhanger at the end of the last issue… but that’s peanuts compared to the end of this one!

9

Richard McGinlay