The Final Chapter [COMIC/1998.2.12 ~ 5.7]

★★★★☆

  This is a must-read comic for most purely because one panel looks like a homage to that famous Neon Genesis Evangelion: The End of Evangelion cover (displayed below).

  On a more serious note... Neverland, anyone? Not very surprising for me to compare the two adventures, seeing as how they were both penned by Alan Barnes. He's a brilliant writer, probably one of my favourites when I take into account just how many stories this man has written for the Eighth Doctor on comics and on audio, and he always has a firm grasp on making action inside his narratives as exciting as possible. Speaking of, there's plenty of action in The Final Chapter; TARDISes are blown up, British secret agents come face to face against fantasy creatures, a mysterious cult sheds their knives and the Doctor (as mentioned in another review) sacrifices himself yet again to save the day. This time, there's a madman of a Time Lord (which isn't a tall order) who wishes to change the planet's entire history by wiping out Rassilon on his fateful day in the distant past, and the Doctor has to wire himself up to a giant TARDIS and be the mobile battery to end the madness. If nothing else, this is a comic filled to the brim with insane ideas... and me being somewhat an ideas person, I had a wonderful time reading it. 

  Such is the scale of this thing that you'd be forgiven for thinking of this as the finale piece of the first Eighth Doctor comic run, when in reality this is the calm before the storm. There are a million things happening in this comic at the exact same time, and while it can sometimes become overwhelming, I'm having too much of a blast reading it to have any real grievances. The Final Chapter wastes no time in showing just how shady Time Lord society is, introducing the lovely Shayde again and proving to be an unexpected sequel to The Stockbridge Horror. If any of these tick your boxes, there's no reason for you not to jump in. From top to bottom, it's entertainment to the maximum effect -- and it has one truly insane ending.