The Daleks (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 19)

 The Daleks

Collection published: 2020
Contents originally published: 1965-67
Acquired: September 2021
Read: October 2021

Written by Angus Allan, Alan Fennell, Terry Nation, David Whitaker
Illustrated by Richard Jennings, Eric Eden, Ron Turner

The Daleks was a sequence of one-page strips that ran in the anthology comic TV Century 21 from 1965 to 1967. It was reprinted in restored form as a "bookazine" by Doctor Who Magazine in late 2020; I added it to my DWM marathon, placing it between Evening's Empire and Emperor of the Daleks by virtue of the fact that some of the strips were reprinted in DWM at around that time, in issues #180-93. A flimsy excuse, but hey, it's my marathon.

These stories do not feature the Doctor; they are usually told from the perspective of the Daleks themselves, though occasionally other characters become the protagonists. It begins with the beginning of the Daleks—at least as it was envisioned in 1965, with the Daleks being mutations due to the war between the Daleks and the Thals. There are no Kaleds or Davros here. The stories then move forward through time, following things like the Daleks exploiting a crashed spaceship to develop space travel, their first invasion of an alien world, their battles against the mutations of their own world, an attempted uprising by a Dalek named "Zeg," their war with the Mechanoids, their discovery of a planet called "Earth," a new Dalek fad of protecting beauty, and so on.

from TV Century 21 #20
(script by David Whitaker, art by Richard Jennings)

The plots kind of don't matter; the science is often (always) nonsensical. But there is a pure delight to be find in a story that causes you to root for the Dalek Emperor or hope that the Daleks do invade a planet. The Daleks might be metaphors for fascism in other stories; in these, they're just pure force, and the joy of the stories is in seeing them sweep up their enemies in all forms. Nothing stops a Dalek!

The art is amazing. We have two distinct styles. Richard Jennings's is more painterly and more detailed, more traditionally "British comics" in its appearance. A Dalek being destroyed from the inside by a malevolent flower is an amazing sight! He's later succeeded by Ron Turner, whose more abstract style communicates the pure power of the Daleks, layouts bursting with energy. I was particularly taken by the set of strips focusing on Agent 2K, an android dispatched by aliens to prevent a Dalek-Mechanoid war from breaking out.

from TV Century 21 #66
(script by David Whitaker, art by Ron Turner)

It's definitely aimed at seven-year-olds, but I found it the exact kind of read I needed when stuck at home sick, and I appreciated getting to read these for historical reasons: the Dalek Emperor originally appeared here, and this is also the source of the Dalek lettering later used across numerous Doctor Who tie-ins (though it's only actually used in about a dozen strips, curiously).

This post is the nineteenth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers Emperor of the Daleks. Previous installments are listed below:

1. The Iron Legion
2. Dragon's Claw 
3. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume One
4. The Tides of Time
5. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Two
6. Voyager
7. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Three
8. The World Shapers
9. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Four
10. The Age of Chaos
11. The Transformers Classics UK, Volume Five
12. A Cold Day in Hell!
13. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 1)
14. Nemesis of the Daleks
15. Death's Head: Freelance Peacekeeping Agent (part 2)
16. The Good Soldier
17. The Incomplete Death's Head
18. Evening's Empire