All sound and fury signifying nothing.
Creative Staff:
Story: George Mann & Cavan Scott
Art: Ivan Rodriguez
Colors: Nicola Righi
Letters: Richard Starkings and Comicraft’s Jimmy Betancourt
What They Say:
The storming conclusion to the 2016 Event! Universes will live and die, and timelines will be changed for ever. You MUST NOT MISS this staggering finale!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
And like that, the fifth and final issue of this event comes to a close. While not all resolutions have endings, and not all endings have resolutions, this story more just stops than anything else.
The Cybermen have won. After getting access to the Time Lords and their technology through the deposed Rassilon, the metal monsters turn on their would-be Cyber King and make him part of a huge battery designed to destroy and reshape the universe in their own chrome image.
Twelve also gets plugged into the batter and this connects him to his other incarnations, allowing him to see them fail again and again and again no matter what stratagem they employ. Soon Twelve realizes that it will take the combined efforts of him and Rassilon to defeat the Cybermen, but can they put aside their lifetimes of mutual animosity to save all of time and space, or should we prepare to forsake flesh and blood for chrome and oil?
I think we all know how this will play out, and I’ll give credit to Mann and Scott for crafting a suitably Who solution to the problem, but ultimately the story just fizzles out at the end, and thanks to time travel, there are no consequences or real repercussions.
Certainly that’s a card that Who stories have played every so often, but this time it feels particularly hollow. It’s difficult to say just why. It could be that the narrative was split over too many timelines and too many protagonists. It could be that the Companions didn’t get enough panel time, thereby depriving us of their much-needed perspective. It could be that the Doctors never got to interact—something that I know I was hoping to see happen. Whatever the reason, this miniseries died with a whimper, leaving me empty and wanting more.
On a positive note, the art was much more consistent this time around with Ivan Rodriguez handling sole pencil and ink duties. Still, there were times when his characters looked slightly off model.
In Summary:
I don’t like writing negative reviews, but there’s just not much here that appealed to me. I’ve enjoyed the works of George Mann, Cavan Scott, and Ivan Rodriguez in the past, but this collaboration just didn’t come together. Dr. Josh gives this a….
Grade: C
Age Rating: N/A
Released By: Titan Comics
Release Date: November 16th, 2016
MSRP: $3.99
