“Alice Cooper: The Last Temptation – Book III” by Neil Gaiman

All Hallow’s Eve. Hallowe’en. The first day of the death of the year. Folk beliefs about this day go back forever. On Hallowe’en, they say, the Gates of Hell swing wide, and the dead and the damned ride out from dusk until dawn. On Hallowe’en, they say, the dark spews out all the nightmares, all the pain, all the death; and the hurt and the hate take shape and form. That’s when they can hurt you—or so they say.

Those are the opening lines from the final installment of Gaiman’s graphic novel trilogy featuring Alice Cooper. The events in this issue all take place on Halloween, which is appropriate. Young Steven returns to the Theatre of the Real to face his inner demons and the ultimate temptation: to enjoy a life of eternal youth in exchange for sacrificing his “potential,” letting go of his dreams of what may be and what he could become.

This terrified me, truly. I’ve reached the point in my life where I can look back and see the mistakes I made, where I’ve sacrificed my dreams, and where I’ve failed to reach my potential. For a long time, this tormented me. I was plagued with the thoughts of what might have been. Thankfully, I’ve reached a place of acceptance where I realize, like Steven in this tale, that it is best to just live life, that pain and shortcomings are what form you as an individual. I no longer allow my regrets to torture me. I know that everything I have been through has brought me to this place, and it’s a good place.

At one point in the story, the showman (Alice) tells Steven: “When you become the thing that scares, there’s nothing to be scared of ever again.” This really struck me. It made me think about cycles of abuse. I suspect that most abusive individuals were often abused themselves. The deep fear that they must have experienced causes them to become the scary person that previously tormented them. It’s a sad but true statement.

To sum up—I loved this entire trilogy. It is nothing short of amazing. The artwork is great; the story is riveting; there are no flaws that I can see. One could say I’m biased because I love Alice Cooper and Neil Gaiman, but the truth is, I approached this series with very high expectations, and this tale surpassed those expectations. So I’ll conclude with another quote from Book III which alludes to Shakespeare and P. T. Barnum:

The show’s the thing. The show. And the show must go on.

Click here to read my review of Book I.

Click here to read my review of Book II.