Liberation of the Daleks

"Me, immune from extermination!"

Writer: Alan Barnes

Format: Comic Strip

Released: November 2022 - November 2023

Printed in: DWM 584-597

Featuring: Fourteenth Doctor

Synopsis

Picking up immediately with a new regeneration and a familiar face, the return of the Doctor's deadliest enemies – the Daleks! – sees him do battle across multiple versions of his old foe across domains both real and not.

Verdict

Liberation of the Daleks is a fantastic comic strip adventure! This story really is an event and whilst it’s a bit of a shame that it’s taken fourteen months to complete, the fact that it’s the opening story for the Fourteenth Doctor is nothing short of extraordinary! It’s a huge coup for Doctor Who Magazine and what better way to have the Daleks return to the comic strip than for them to stick around for an entire year! And it was quite a celebratory story for the Daleks as the artists got a huge chance to show off. Designs old, new and previously unseen were present and that was just wonderful. I’m a huge football fan so starting things at the 1966 World Cup final was intriguing to me, even if I had to relive mentions of England winning the sport’s biggest prize. The less of that the better! It’s a quick dive into action for the newly regenerated Fourteenth Doctor and I still can’t believe that this serves as his first chronological adventure. I’m in adoration of that. We see the cliff that was beautifully shot for the Thirteenth Doctor’s final moments in The Power of the Doctor and I definitely got that new Doctor feeling by seeing this new incarnation with a familiar face in unfamiliar surroundings of the rather horrific neon TARDIS interior of his predecessor. I really can’t wait to see the new TARDIS interior as I wasn’t a fan of the most recent one. Just seeing the Fourteenth Doctor with the Thirteenth’s sonic screwdriver was fun too because it doesn’t look right in his hand. It’s another less than stellar design so having the Daleks get to destroy it on two separate occasions was a delight. Good riddance! In saying that though, I’m not a massive fan of the next version though with it being a bit of a hodge podge collection of the modern era designs. It just looks like a jigsaw puzzle put together from multiple sets. Anyway, back to the story at hand and playing with the idea of artificial Daleks was fascinating. The story was obviously released over fourteen consecutive months and I have been reading each month in DWM, but without catching up on the previous parts. So when I sat down tonight to read all fourteen parts in one sitting, I was delighted with the familiarity and everything firmly tying together. There’s so much to enjoy. I love that we get to see the red Dalek Supreme from The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End, but the better highlights are seeing the Dalek Emperors from both The Evil of the Daleks and the famed Dalek comics of the 1960s. That was sublime. Both cliffhangers of their reveals put a big smile on my face. The artwork was outstanding as well. It was a joy to see so many different versions and the three that the Doctor mentions not having met yet looked very interesting! I hope we get encounters with them at some point soon. Georgette and her artificial counterpart fitted into the companion role well but the psychoplasm version perished in empathic style. The Daleks being angry at their predicament of not being real was fun and Georgette being involved in Dalek studies wasn’t something the Doctor enjoyed. Her contraption of the Dalek Dome was extraordinary but he wasn’t a fan. Not in the slightest. The suffering of millions put into a tourist attraction. If she knew about the Doctor then surely she’d know he wouldn’t approve! Overall, a wonderful comic strip!

Rating: 9/10