Up Above the Gods

"Where did the rage that created the Daleks come from?"

Writer: Richard Alan
Format: Comic Strip
Released: June 1995
Printed in: DWM 227?

Featuring: Sixth Doctor

Synopsis

Having rescued Davros from his creations on Skaro in his TARDIS, the Doctor offers him an army of Daleks, with the possibility that they be lifted from their obsession with mindless universal domination...

Verdict

Up Above the Gods was a great little comic strip and it served as a lovely little addition to the Emperor of the Daleks! story. We didn't get to see an awful lot of the Sixth Doctor in that story, just one part and a few panels of a six-part story but here we get a wonderful look at him conversing with Davros inside the TARDIS. That in itself is quite an extraordinary feat and I really did enjoy that the Doctor was trying to have a normal conversation with his enemy. He just couldn't understand how a mind as clever and intelligent as Davros' had turned so evil and had created the Daleks. The Doctor seemingly failed to understand, according to Davros at least, that the evil had always been there and there wasn't anything specific that turned him. I really liked that there was a mention of the ancient war between the Kaleds and the Thals and following The Daleks, we often forget that it was the Kaleds who fought them first. The Daleks were a result of this conflict but the Doctor was now hoping that they could be used as a force for good. It was good that Davros failed to give his word that he would use the Daleks on Spiridon for a force of good and that tied in nicely with what happened in the comic strip that this story added to. I was quite intrigued to see this story printed next in the graphic novel that I am currently getting through as it was released two years later and followed by stories two years its previous, but after reading it made perfect sense. That is the advantage of a graphic novel as when this was originally released, I doubt the memory of Emperor of the Daleks! would have been fresh in my mind. I thought the Sixth Doctor was very good here and Colin Baker's likeness was well captured on the page making for some good characterisation which is always beneficial to a story. The Doctor offering Davros a frozen army of Daleks from the aftermath of Planet of the Daleks was quite incredible but when everything fell into a plan that we have already seen unfold, it wasn't quite as horrifying as it first looked. The story fed perfectly into the titular story of this graphic novel and was a really nice addition. Overall, a great comic strip!

Rating: 8/10