Emperor of the Daleks (From Stockbridge to Segonus: A Doctor Who Magazine Comics Marathon, Part 20)

 Emperor of the Daleks: Collected Comic Strips from the pages of Doctor Who Magazine
by Paul Cornell, Lee Sullivan, Warwick Gray, John Ridgway, Dan Abnett, et al.

Collection published: 2017
Contents originally published: 1992-95
Acquired: December 2018
Read: November 2021

Now we're knee-deep in the Virgin New Adventures: this volume weaves in and out of them, with companions coming and going and changing, with little explanation. The strips in Evening's Empire at least had some explanatory footnotes, but if you don't know why Ace is suddenly wearing sunglasses and leather... too bad for you! This volume also embraces the style of the NAs a bit, with lots of seventh Doctor masterplans that the companions moan about. On the other hand, every story here bar one features an old villain from the tv show, which does not feel very NAish to me—nor, actually, very DWMish.

We also see a new regular writing stable emerge: Paul Cornell and Dan Abnett continue on, but Andrew Cartmel is gone, seemingly replaced by Warwick Gray. Lee Sullivan, Colin Andrew, and (thankfully) John Ridgway dominate art.

Pureblood, from Doctor Who Magazine #193-96 (Nov. 1992–Feb. 1993)
story by Dan Abnett, art by Colin Andrew and Colin Howard, letters by Annie Parkhouse and Peri Godbold

The Doctor and Benny come up against a Rutan plot to use a group of pre-cloning Sontarans (isolated from the rest of the species) to destroy the Sontaran species. I found it interesting to see Sontarans as a group to be defended, something the tv show rarely does with its alien monsters, but they really are the victims here. It's decent stuff, undermined by a pretty contrived scene where Benny gets the Rutan to spill its entire plan and admit that the "pureblood" Sontarans are going to die as soon as the Rutan have finished using them, which felt a bit kids' tv to me.

This is, of course, the comic strip debut of Professor Bernice Surprise Summerfield, who had recently become the Doctor's companion in Love and War. I was going to comment that the companion appearing out of nowhere is a thing DWM strip readers should be used to... but then I realized that's not actually true. New Doctors might appear without explanation, but in the previous decade of the strip, K9 is the only companion to appear without an introductory story. Obviously strip-original companions Sharon, Frobisher, and Olla all got introductions, but when Peri and Ace made their DWM debuts, in both cases, the strip maintained its own continuity by doing a story that brought them aboard the TARDIS, even if in both cases, it was back aboard. So Pureblood is actually the first time in DWM history a companion appears without explanation... which is a bit odd, as DWM readers were much more likely to have seen Planet of Fire and Dragonfire than read Love and War. I am not sure why this books-centric approach was taken, given the extent to which the strip had previously been determined to carve its own way, sometimes acting as if even the tv programme didn't exist! I don't know if it bothers me per se—I know well who Benny is by this point, so it's not like I was thrown—but it does kind of ruin the conceit of the DWM strip as a standalone narrative. Not even a helpful footnote to explain who she is!

from Doctor Who Magazine Winter Special 1992

Flashback, from Doctor Who Magazine Winter Special 1992
script by Warwick Gray, art by John Ridgway, letters by Alan O'Keefe

Not even John Ridgway can save this rather uninteresting plod into the supposed history of the Doctor and the Master.

Emperor of the Daleks! / ...Up Above the Gods..., from Doctor Who Magazine #197-202 (Mar.-Aug. 1993) and #227 (July 1995)
plot by Paul Cornell and John Freeman, scripts by Paul Cornell and Richard Alan, art by Lee Sullivan, letters by Annie and Starkings, colour by Marina Graham

Cornell, Freeman, and Sullivan provide a six-part Dalek epic that brings back Abslom Daak and the Star Tigers, and also plugs in between Revelation and Remembrance of the Daleks on screen, establishing how Davros went from prisoner of the Daleks to emperor of his own Dalek faction. It's fun, but it's not really about anything: this doesn't tell us anything about the characters involved, it doesn't really have any interesting themes. Daak's love dies for good finally, but it's not like it's a story about dealing with loss (I think Cornell could write a good one, but he's not trying to); it's more interested in plugging a continuity gap, but one never feels like the Doctor's manipulations might go awry. Still, it has its moments: I liked the sixth Doctor's role in the story, and Daak himself is always fun of course, and Lee Sullivan is the man you want if you want armies of battling Daleks. His reveal of Davros on top of the ice pyramid is excellent stuff.

I violated my usual rules (reading the strips in publication order within each volume) by reading the interquel story written two years later, ...Up Above the Gods..., between parts 2 and 3, where it would fit for the sixth Doctor and Davros. This had the effect of reducing the mystery somewhat, but it was kind of interesting. The story itself is fine; I think it would be fun to listen to Colin Baker and Terry Molloy perform this.

from Doctor Who Magazine #203

Final Genesis, from Doctor Who Magazine #203-06 (Sept.-Nov. 1993)
story by Warwick Gray, art by Colin Andrew, letters by Janey Rutter

The Doctor, Benny, and Ace cross over to a parallel universe where ...and the Silurians went much better, and the Doctor forged peaceful coexistence between humans and Silurians. I like that basic idea, but the story doesn't do much with it: swap all the Silurians here for humans, and it would pretty much be the same story; the villain is a very generic mad scientist.

Ace is suddenly back, again without explanation, and she's a bad-ass space solider. I think the awkwardness of this is less forgivable than Benny's non-introduction.

Time & Time Again, from Doctor Who Magazine #207 (Dec. 1993)
story by Paul Cornell, art by John Ridgway, letters by Janey Rutter, colours by Paul Vyse

DWM's 35th-anniversary story is a fun one, probably my favorite story in this volume. It's pretty simple: the Doctor has to find the Key to Time again, only each segment is hidden in the Doctor's own history. So we get a series of quick one-page encounters: Benny in the Land of Fiction, Ace sword-fighting the third Doctor, the seventh Doctor fishing with the sixth, Ace watching the cricket game from Black Orchid, and so on. It's nostalgic, but also a bit cheeky, which is a good balance to hit. I particularly liked the development of the relationship between the sixth and seventh Doctors from Emperor of the Daleks!; I can't think of another time Doctor Who has done something like this.

I will say that though I do love John Ridgway, he's not great with likenesses, so I don't think this plays to his strengths.

from Doctor Who Magazine #210

Cuckoo, from Doctor Who Magazine #208-10 (Jan.-Mar. 1994)
script by Dan Abnett, art by John Ridgway, letters by Janey Rutter

I think there's a good idea here that doesn't come off. The Doctor takes Benny and Ace to see a famous nineteenth-century woman paleontologist, clearly a fictionalized Mary Anning, only he wants to stop her from discovering something. But she's barely in the story, and her main contribution is to run off crying when a man is mean to her. I like the idea that Ace and Benny are disappointed with the Doctor's treatment of her... but she hasn't even been in the story yet when they get mad. This would work better if we met her and saw her discovery, and then the Doctor revealed his plan to undermine it.

I don't think Ridgway does a very good Benny, and his Ace has been better, too. On the other hand, I feel like this was the first Benny story where I could imagine Lisa Bowerman reading the lines. The scratchy lettering for the alien requires way too much work to read.

from Doctor Who Magazine #211

Uninvited Guest, from Doctor Who Magazine #211 (Apr. 1994)
script by Warwick Gray, art by John Ridgway, letters by Simon Weston

I think that after the Sontarans, the Master, the Daleks, the Silurians, and the Black Guardian, we probably didn't also need the Eternals, but this is the best returning-villain story in the book: a neat, creepy tale, which really plays to Ridgway's strengths. The Doctor at his most dangerous and most potent, using time itself as a weapon. I liked it.

Stray Observations:

• These days, once every couple years some writer reads Paul Cornell's Bernice Summerfield character description and remembers she's supposed to be amazing at reading body language, and so some audio drama plot point will suddenly hinge on this. I always find it unconvincing. But it happens twice in this volume, so it's a venerable tradition!
• The art of part 2 of Pureblood is credited to Colin Howard. Is he the same guy as Colin Andrew, or did someone get confused? Or did he draw just a single part!? I'm guessing confusion is the root cause here: there is a Colin Howard that drew some DWM covers, and I can't find any evidence he produced interior comics art other than this.
  
• I buy the way Cornell brought Daak back, but the retcon for why the Star Tigers aren't dead is pretty unconvincing. They were definitely dead back in Nemesis of the Daleks, so the "oh you didn't have time to check the bodies thoroughly" excuse doesn't quite wash. Still, I felt that story did them dirty, so I appreciate the retcon's intent, though they didn't do a ton in this crowded story.
• This is, I believe, Daak's last DWM story. Emperor of the Daleks! ends Daak's obsession with Taiyin, which Titan would ignore when it brought back the character two decades later.
• Emperor of the Daleks! part four is the first all-color DWM strip. I get it was the 200th issue, but I'm not sure it was the best choice.
• As someone who just read The Daleks from TV Century 21 last month, I appreciated that Cornell's Daleks kind of felt like those ones at times; I wish he'd leaned into it more, actually.
• This volume is the end of an era (after this, the DWM strip takes a very different approach), so it represents the last DWM work of a lot of people. ...Up Above the Gods... is, I think the last DWM writing of Richard Alan, a.k.a. Richard Starkings. I'm not sure if he continues to letter for the mag or not; I guess I'll see. Since writing for DWM, he's also wrote one comic for IDW, collected in Through Time and Space. Paul Cornell doesn't write for DWM again, either, but goes on to write much more Doctor Who, including more novels, comics for IDW and Titan, and of course several tv episodes. He also goes on to have a real non-Who comics career, including Captain Britain and MI13 for Marvel and Action Comics for DC. John Ridgway also finishes as a regular DWM artist here; I'm not really sure what he did post-DWM, except that he illustrated Cutaway Comics's recent Omega miniseries.
  
• Final Genesis does make sure to give us that NA staple, a journey into someone's mind, and even namechecks good old "puterspace."
• It's interesting seeing all these pre-Lisa Bowerman illustrations of Benny. I like how Colin Andrew draws her, but she doesn't really look like my mental model of the character. I also struggle to imagine Bowerman performing some of this dialogue.



from Doctor Who Magazine #207


• In his notes, Cornell claims that the fishing sequence in Time & Time Again is that one that precedes The Two Doctors... but Frobisher is there! Does this suggest that Frobisher's run of DWM strips is interspersed with Peri's tv episodes? Seems convoluted if so. If Peri and the Doctor leave Frobisher behind when they go to Space Station Chimera, they must come back for him later in time for The World Shapers, then drop him off again for The Trial of a Time Lord.
  
• Also, what's with the little robot fishing with Frobisher?

This post is the twentieth in a series about the Doctor Who Magazine comic strip and Marvel UK. The next installment covers The Sleeze Brothers File. 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
19. The Daleks