Corruption of the Daleks

"Daleks don't do the can-can!"

Writer Alan Barnes

Format: Comic Strip 

Released: January-June 2026

Printed in: DWM 625-630

Featuring: Fifteenth Doctor, Mel, Fey

Synopsis

The Fifteenth Doctor takes former companion and current UNIT operative Melanie Bush on a TARDIS trip to 1920s Paris, but things are afoot and everything is not what it appears. 

Daleks from another dimension kidnap Melanie and timelines cross!

Verdict

Corruption of the Daleks was a great comic strip story! It has been a long time coming to get blogging this story as I have waited for it to complete, and after seven issues of Doctor Who Magazine it concluded meaning I could finally get in on the action. I'm definitely in favour of my approach now to blog the story as a whole rather than individual parts as I used to, as it means I've now experienced the story in its entirety and not reread any elements. I think it's the best way to consume an adventure and it's a good one. Of course, the current state of Doctor Who is pretty dire as a fan as I think we all know that the Fifteenth Doctor's regeneration at the end of The Reality War was premature. The third Disney+ series was clearly meant to continue with Ncuti Gatwa in the role and some sort of story with Susan, and you would have thought by that point the Daleks would have emerged to tackle this new incarnation. Unfortunately, that never materialised and it feels like a crime that he never got to tackle the Daleks as the most formidable and famous monster. Thankfully, with the current multimedia approach to Doctor Who, the Fifteenth Doctor's adventures never truly end and so this comic is a fine place to have him take on the Daleks for the first time. It's a shame that never happened on screen, but getting the visual here was brilliant. I do think we could have had more Doctor and Dalek interaction given that they never met on screen, but just anything was welcomed in all honesty. I thought it was a fun dynamic to have the Doctor travelling with Mel too and I think that could be the way forward for the comic strip at the moment as we venture into uncharted territory for the future of the television series. It's going to be a long time until we see the show back on our screens so the comic strip is going to be about as close as we get to a current run. There's potential there to do something special and I hope they don't let the opportunity slip! Having Fey return here for her first chronological encounter with the Doctor was intriguing and it was nice to see how normalised she was here before everything that she would go through alongside the Eighth Doctor and Shayde. It was great to blend comic strip eras and a fun twist of time to have her not yet meeting the Doctor. The setting worked really well and the allusions to City of Death were great fun. I much preferred the alternate dimension version of Paris though with its deranged queen who looked like a female playing card version of Davros. I know that sounds ludicrous but that's exactly what she looked like! Some royalty that. I thought Mel being kidnapped by the Daleks was a good direction for the comic strip to take and gave a strong sense of direction. The emergence of the Daleks was terrific with the disguise and the women wearing what were essentially Dalek dresses with a familiar eye on their headband was good. Really eery stuff. Grayling was a really enigmatic character and his connection and partnership with the Daleks was really good to explore. He looked like a perfect villain and that's obviously great. I thought it was a little simple for the Doctor and Fey to break his conditioning simply by being caught in a net, and from there he was basically done which felt like a bit of a shame. The Eiffel Tower being used as the Dalek tower was quite the image and so was that of it exploding! I must say, the artwork in this comic strip was nothing short of spectacular. It brought things to life and was so vibrant. My only qualm was I would have liked more of the Daleks! The theme of gods and magic was good though given the theme of this Doctor's era. Overall, a great comic strip and that final pane is a thing of beauty. 

Rating: 8/10