The penultimate chapter of the Doctor Who event of 2016! Things get worse for the Doctor – across four separate time zones! The Ninth Doctor gets too close to the enemy – he has lost Rose, and whoever is responsible is going to pay dearly! The Tenth Doctor’s companions offer a terrifying sacrifice. On prehistoric Earth, the Eleventh Doctor digs deep and gives back with interest. And on Gallifrey the Twelfth Doctor is faced with the most momentous choice of his life…!

There’s blood, sweat and tears in this issue as the Doctors begin to strike back. Two of them, the Ninth and the Tenth, become particularly reckless – and ruthless – because they think they have lost their companions and so have little left to lose. As Nine puts it: “Messing with the TARDIS, that was their first mistake. But this? This changes everything, because now I won’t stop until I find out how… And once I know, I’ll make them pay!” His successor echoes that sentiment: “OK, Cybermen. If you thought I was dangerous before, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

In the heat of these battles, the artwork suffers somewhat. The Tenth Doctor often doesn’t look much like David Tennant, and the Ninth appears to be wearing eyeliner. However, Ivan Rodriguez and Walter Geovanni’s renditions (with ink assists from Nelson Pereira and Rob Lean) of the giant CyberKing are suitably mighty, and there are some neat pixellation effects as the Eleventh Doctor fights the system from within – rather like he did, or will do, in Nightmare in Silver, it has to be said.

This is a real nostalgia-fest, as the Doctors mention Sky-Trenches, Transduction Barriers and other Time Lord technobabble, a Cyberman declares that, “You belong to us! You shall be like us!”, and the Twelfth Doctor notices that Rassilon has had the Panoptican redecorated – and he doesn’t like it!

With just one more instalment to go, hopefully I will like the conclusion…

7

Richard McGinlay