Bringer of Darkness

"You're a living plague of fear and hatred."

Writer: Warwick Gray
Format: Comic Strip
Released: June 1993
Printed in: DWM Summer Special 1993

Featuring: Second Doctor, Jamie, Victoria

Synopsis

A special Dalek story! Victoria sees a new side to the Second Doctor as he challenges his oldest enemies! Her journal reveals an untold encounter between the Doctor and the Daleks and it reveals a dark side to our Time Lord hero...

Verdict

Bringer of Darkness was a terrific comic strip story and a great bonus to conclude the Land of the Blind graphic novel! This collection of comic strip adventures has certainly finished on a high and I've just been grateful to be able to read it free of charge thanks to the wonderful Libraries West catalogue. They really are doing me wonders with all of their inter-library transfers and they must be sick of putting my name on the reservations in the holds! Anyway, doing a story from the journal of Victoria was a brilliant idea and it was almost like the comic strip version of a Companion Chronicle audio. It worked really well and at just one part, I was very impressed with how much this story managed to achieve. It saw the Second Doctor encounter the Daleks following the events of The Evil of the Daleks and I loved how that story was referenced. The Daleks explained that the humanised Daleks were traitors and had been wiped out and that the Emperor had resumed control. So much for it being their fatal end then. I liked how the effects of Victoria's first meeting with the Daleks were extremely prominent in this story after they had killed her father and the Doctor initially not thinking about her well-being with them present was intriguing. He was very apologetic though as you'd expect of his second incarnation. Jamie was keen to get into action and showed no fear which I liked very much. The fact that there were just three Daleks was good and their threat was clear. Jamie wanting to just leave because they were hoping to send a signal to the greater Dalek fleet was quite surprising and I liked how quick the Doctor was to dismiss that. These were Daleks and they had to be stopped. The way he went about it was excellent and I loved how he fed them the information of his identity. Their refusal to shoot him and Jamie because of their proximity to the signal beacon was good and the ruthlessness with which the Doctor redirected the flow into blowing the Daleks up was quite uncanny. But it was efficient and showed just how dangerous the Daleks were. They needed to be stopped at all costs. Victoria wasn't so pleased though and her echoing of her departure in Fury From the Deep was quite interesting. This wasn't quite the Doctor she knew. She was stunned and horrified by his actions and that was incredibly fascinating because it was the Daleks he killed. The very beings who killed her father and she felt sympathy. Overall, an excellent comic strip!

Rating: 9/10