I had heard quite a lot about this book, and none of it was good. I also knew that the author of this book, John Peel, was the same guy who wrote the trainwreck that was Timewyrm: Genesys. So I did not go in with high expectations.
And yet those expectations were blown out of the water.
So, yeah. I have a few criticisms of War of the Daleks, but overall I really liked it. There are some Doctor Who stories that are tying to make specific commentary on things, and then there are some that are just trying to be a fun low-brainer sci-fi adventure. War of the Daleks is very much in the latter category, but that's not a bad category to be in. I will say in tone and structure, it feels a lot more like an episode of tv Doctor Who than a novel (which makes sense, given the story's origin as a rejected tv story), but again, that's not a bad thing.
First of all, the characterization of the Doctor and Sam are on point. We finally have a story that manages to not have a major conflict between the two of them - Sam gets a little jealous every time the Doctor interacts with a woman, but she keeps that to herself and is never a dick about it. (As an aside, this story provides the best justification possible for the comic line running at the same time to make their companion a lesbian. I'm not bothered by Sam being somewhat horny for the Doctor, but like. I now understand why they wanted to avoid that for Izzie. Also hey we got a great coming-out story out of that too). Sam also spends a good amount of time angsting about not being helpful enough, but at the same time proves to be very helpful at a couple key points at the end of the book. We also get to put her hardline idealistic pacifism in a Dalek story and see how well that holds up. I have less to say about the Doctor's characterization, but he still feels very in-line with what we've seen of the Eighth Doctor so far.
The side characters are... okay? They're not great, but mostly not terrible either. There are two introduced early on who are both made out to be unlikable so we won't be bothered when they die, which is whatever, but there are some decent characters too. The stand-out is Chayn, who manages to survive the whole book despite being blatant companion bait.
Finally, we have Davros and the Dalek Prime. While the Dalek Prime is technically a new character (Peel had inserted it into a bunch of novelizations but this is its first, like. Official story.), it is well characterized as the current leader of the Daleks, and Davros is just as smart and insane as he's always been. The whole plot of the book is basically the Dalek Prime's master plan to eliminate Davros's supporters from it's ranks once and for all, and once the extent of that plan becomes explicit, it's a pretty impressive plan, and a lot of what feel like oversights on the Daleks' part earlier on in the book make a lot of sense once the full extent of what Prime is up to. It is perhaps telling that there are, in effect, two separate climaxes to the book - one following the Doctor and the Thals making their escape, and one following the battle between Davros and Prime.
And, oh yeah. I need to talk about the Thals.
Hhh. I said I had a few criticisms of War of the Daleks, and the way the Thals are handled is probably the biggest one. They show up into the plot well before the Daleks do, and the book very intentionally Nazi-codes them and what they're doing, which I found incredibly interesting. The book talks at some length about how the Thals entire culture revolves around fighting the Daleks at this point, and I think examining how they've resorted to leaning into fascism in order to fight fascism could be a really cool concept to explore. The problem is that this is mostly forgotten about once the Daleks actually show up properly, and the Thals and the Doctor's party (who, up until that point had been fairly directly opposed to each other) become allies against the Daleks. It's a missed opportunity, and given how this point isn't really explored much, I feel like including it ends up detracting from the book.
Knowing me, you might suspect that this book's now-infamous main reveal - that the Movellan War and destruction of Skaro were faked for Davros's benefit - would piss me off. But, actually, it doesn't.
I get annoyed by continuity errors, yeah. But if those are being used in the service of storytelling, I become so much less bothered. And, sure enough, the reveal here is actually pretty important to the story in how it is used to characterize the Dalek Prime as a master planner who has an ego to rival Davros. It also helps that while Peel pretty clearly intended Prime to be telling an accurate account of the Movellan War and destruction of Skaro, there is a surprising amount of wiggle room. Davros rejects this story as nonsense, and the way Prime tells this story changes at different points. We also see an independent party (a Mechon) confirm that the Daleks did fight the Movellans at some point. Since we know from other EU stories that the Movellan War at least was fully real, I tend to interpret this scene as the Dalek Prime pulling the universe's biggest This Was the Plan All Along, but honestly I think the story works well enough even taking him at his word. Honestly there's a large amount of buildup to that reveal, too - it's not a curveball that comes out of nowhere.
Overall, I found War of the Daleks to be a surprisingly good book, and one I heartily recommend. And given that Alien Bodies is my next book, I suspect we might actually get a streak going.
The Shared Dalek Universe of the 1960s: A Case Study
In 2011 (a little over ten years ago!), El Sandifer cited my dearly-beloved 1960s Who Annuals as examples of stories which ended up influencing the TV series many years down the line despite making an unrepentant hash of continuity.
Her first example is that the Doctor is called Dr. Who, and that he alternates between being from Earth on one page, and not being from Earth three pages later. I would point out that TV was doing much the same thing in those days, and went on flip-flopping basically until Jon Pertwee, so it’s not a terribly good argument to begin with.
However, she spends more time pondering the Daleks of the comics. These Daleks, she notes, are very different from those on television at the time. There are hordes of them, they travel in fleets of saucers, and they’re ruled by the Emperor. This contradiction, she argues, later fed back into the TV series in the RTD era, when huge fleets of Daleks became the norm and, earlier but still well after the first burst of Annuals, in the form of Patrick Troughton facing a very different Dalek Emperor in The Evil of the Daleks.
In no way do I wish to undermine Sandifer’s ultimate conclusion that “canon” in the sense of diegetic consistency is a red herring of little importance, and what matters for any sane definition of ‘canon’ is whether a story is referenced at all, not whether it’s contradicted.
However.
Having gone back to 1966′s The Dalek Outer Space Book, I have made a very startling discovery, in the story entitled The Secret of the Emperor. The rest is after the cut; I will leave you with a delightful panel from this story, showing the “bewildered” Dalek Emperor being bullied by knights at the Battle of Agincourt. (This is one of my favourite Doctor Who images ever, and if it doesn’t put a smile on your face I am not sure I want to take you seriously.)
So, famously, when he debuted in the comics, the Dalek Emperor was not the giant, static Dalek later shown on television in The Evil of the Daleks and The Bad Wolf of the Ways; instead, he was golden, squat, and had a bulbous head; to house all the ego, one expects.
Thus, most people will point at the fact that when the Doctor met “the Emperor” in The Evil of the Daleks, he resided in a huge tower-like casing in the Dalek City, as evidence that although ideas received a first treatment in the comics which later made it to screens, no direct continuity was intended; the comics’ Emperor was an alternate, a first draft, to be discarded once a more definitive TV portrayal emerged.
And yet, of course, it is somehow appealing to think of the two as the same Dalek, isn’t it? John Peel (Dalek writer voted most likely to be a 19th century Victorian man who stumbled into a time eddy; it’s mostly the remarkable sideburns) spent a lot of time in his Dalek novels establishing the life story of the Dalek Prime, the First Dalek Ever, who transitioned from the globe-headed casing to the towery Evil one and then deeply regretted it, what with the “getting killed by his own infighting troops with no way to escape”.
But this is usually viewed as a retcon. A cute retcon, an admirable retcon even, but a retcon. My good friend and esteemed fellow canon-welder, @rassilon-imprimatur, espoused such a view four years ago:
Well, all of this is, if you’ll pardon my French, bollocks. John Peel didn’t make anything up, except for the snappy name of “the Dalek Prime” as a designation for the individual. The Dalek Emperor in Evil of the Daleks was always the Emperor of the 1960s comics, and there is a very good reason for his seemingly-contradictory change of appearance. What’s more, I am not talking about murky authorial intent: these are things that the discerning Dalek fan in 1967 was meant to have known.
Let me wind back the clock to 1966. A Dalek master-plan is unfurling, a multi-media agenda spanning several years, more ambitious perhaps than even Time Lord Victorious in its scope; for the ultimate aim of a small cabal of men including David Whitaker, Terry Nation and Brad Ashton is nothing less than spinning the Daleks out of Doctor Who and into their own non-BBC TV show — to be made in America, and in colour, if you please!
For over a year now, a Dalek story arc has been running in the pages of TV Century 21, tracking the early rise of the Dalek Empire and its early interactions with 2060s humanity. Though the Daleks encroach over other parts of the book, including the headline stories, the bulk of this story arc comes in the form of weekly one-page comics making up one long serialised history of the Daleks, under the minimalist title of The Daleks.
Also under the solo brand of “The Daleks”: Annuals, an exclusive audio story, and, of course, toys. Time for Phase Two. It is time to end the Daleks’ endless confrontations with Dr Who on television, and set the stage for a new status quo able to support the TV series Nation dreams about.
Important background: Terry Nation, famously, does not like the Dalek Emperor. Whitaker made him up without consulting Nation, who maintains that the highest rank in the Dalek hierarchy should be the Dalek Supreme. The Emperor was hard to do away with in the comics, since he was basically the protagonist of the TV21 strip, but one imagines Nation was keen to jettison him from the world of the planned TV series.
I am speculating, of course, but I picture Nation sitting in his office, pondering the two great thorns in the side of the Independant Daleks Masterplan.
Thorn one: the Daleks are entangled with the Doctor both diegetically and symbolically; unless something can be done, the Daleks will remain “the Doctor’s enemies”, and a show where they commit evil and the Doctor fails to show up would ring false with the kids watching. The Daleks must be removed from Doctor Who in a sensational and definitive manner, or the whole enterprise is a nonstarter.
Thorn two: I, Terry Nation, have foolishly allowed David Whitaker to shape the lore of the Daleks, and he has made this Dalek Emperor guy very central to early Dalek history, leading up to the 22nd century Dalek Invasion of Earth that most of the Doctor’s subsequent conflicts with the Daleks have stemmed from. But I do not like the Dalek Emperor. I wish I could get rid of him in my new status quo.
…………Aha.
A triumphant Terry Nation adds a post-it note to the ever-widening corkboard representing the multimedia Dalek Masterplan setting up the TV series, which must already include things like “convince Jean Marsh to come back as Sara Kingdom”. Notes distilled from this corkboard will form the backbone of The Dalek Outer Space Book, this year’s Dalek annual, which exists principally to set up the prospective main characters of the new TV series: Sara Kingdom and Agent Mark Seven, of the Space Security Service.
The new post-it note reads:
Construe the Daleks’ enmity with the Doctor as a personal enmity between the Doctor and the Emperor, a la Sherlock Holmes and Moriarty. Have the Doctor triumph over the Emperor on TV in a big ‘event’ story.
Result: the Doctor-vs-Daleks storyline is over; the Emperor is dead; I get everything I ever wanted.
(Except maybe a pony.)
Then he phones David Whitaker, smirking all the while like an evil genie preparing to grant a badly-worded wish.
“Good news, old chap, I’ve decided you can write a new Dalek story for the BBC, all by yourself. I promise I won’t interfere.”
*confused and delighted David Whitaker noises*
“ And you can even bring in that Dalek Emperor of yours. Yes, you heard me!”
*Whitaker enthusiasm intensifies*
“Ahhh, but there’s a catch. The Dalek Emperor must DIE.”
Of course, like all good Faustian bargains, this is irresistible even though it is ruinous and the victim knows it to be ruinous. Whitaker agrees to the scheme. He and Nation begin planning out the events of the great finale of the Dalek-Doctor confrontation, which will hit the screens in 1967 as the mildly racist, but otherwise quite well-loved, ‘The Evil of the Daleks’.
Quickly enough, it is decided that Patrick Troughton crouching to berate the short and bubble-headed Golden Emperor would look silly. If the Emperor appears on TV, alongside human performers, then it should tower over them. Besides, this is to be the archvillainous Dalek Emperor’s last stand, and certain traditions must be followed.
Hence another task is added to the bucketlist of the Dalek Outer Space Book: tell the story of how the Emperor transformed from the globe-headed dwarf to some huge and terrible towering form under the Dalek City, for the Doctor to stumble onto later. This rebuilt Emperor may be teased, but must not be truly seen or truly defeated in the book; that would defeat the whole idea.
Hence, The Secret of the Emperor, a story which sees the Emperor becoming self-conscious about his own efficiency and letting the Scientist Daleks rebuild his casing from scratch. The final page is a splash panel, a delightfully nonsensical diagram of the mechanical components of the new casing.
The almost surreal array of colours and shapes is so arresting as to obscure an important detai. Many have seen this page over and over, and yet still missed it. The recent(ish) ‘Anatomy of the New Dalek Emperor’ artwork from Time Lord Victorious clearly looked at this page for reference, in spite of the fact that the TLV Emperor is much more inspired by the old Emperor than the rebuilt one.
Let me spell it out for you: look at the Scientist Daleks in the top right and centre-left. Look at them.
The new Emperor is huge.
And what else?
That Scientist on the left is plugging huge wires snaking from the wall into the tower-casing.
He now resides in the Great Hall of the Dalek City.
The background wall is a weird checkered pattern.
In addition, the following facts are seeded throughout the earlier pages of The Secret of the Emperor.
The point of moving to the new casing was to grant the Emperor increased brain capacity (suitable for concocting masterplans).
He acquired said increased brain capacity to help the Daleks attempt to overcome humanity once and for all.
The Emperor has recently had a trautmatic but eye-opening experience with time travel.
Ignore the fact that the Emperor was here depicted with what appears to be a still fairly bulbous, and golden, head, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this is very, very direct setup for how the Doctor finds the Dalek Emperor in The Evil of the Daleks — tower-like, in an imperial throneroom in the Dalek City, with a checkered wall pattern, planning out a complicated scheme to harness time travel as a means of defeating humanity once and for all!
Yes, the designs don’t quite match — but how could the artist behind the visuals of Secret of the Emperor have known precisely what Shawcraft would build, a year later, based on the same basic description by Nation & Whitaker? The parallels far outweigh the minor differences in execution. (It’s worth noting that elsewhere in the Outer Space Book a different artist drew what was clearly intended to be the Golden Emperor as a large, golden, but normally-proportioned Dalek, so it’s not like the visual descriptions of these scripts were exceedingly precise…)
The rebuilt Emperor is never seen in the Outer Space Book outside of this ‘dissection’: he is heard throughout The Brain Tappers but kept carefully off-panel, and his new and dangerous new casing is pointedly not destroyed in the story’s conclusion. Well, of course not. That’s what Dr Who is for.
tl;dr: it is not a post hoc retcon, or even a secret, that the round-headed Emperor of the comics became the Dalek Emperor of Evil of the Daleks. A holistic view of the state of Dalek media in 1966-1967 shows that, in fact, it was the whole point that this be the Emperor of the comics; and that the comics had begun setting this up long before Patrick Troughton encountered Edward Waterfield on TV.
And thus, to circle back to Sandifer’s 2011 post, it is not enough to simply say that the “seemingly non-canon” comics inspired the show down the line. In fact in this instance, what appeared on Doctor Who existed for the benefit of the Daleks spin-off — not vice-versa!
A/N: The day, should it ever come, when Gordon Tipple reprises his ‘Old Master’ from the TV Movie at Big Finish will be a strange one indeed, because his voice in the deleted prologue is… ahm… how to put it…
so according to some doctor who canon, the emperor in parting of the ways was, in fact, the first ever dalek, and it’s a very safe bet that if you’re dealing with a dalek emperor other than davros in classic who or associated timeframes up to and including the last great time war, that’s the one
A/N: The First Doctor meets the First Dalek! …Seriously, why hasn’t this happened yet? Sure, the Second Doctor in “The Evil of the Daleks” implies that he has never met the Emperor of the Daleks, but surely there could be workarounds. Big Finish have done worse with River Song.
A/N: Reintroducing the Dalek Prime, Emperor of Skaro, as well as a particularly willful Magnodon.
This comic was originally released on my Twitter account on September the 12th, 2020, in celebration of the return of “the Round Boi” to mainstream Doctor Who via the first issue of Titan’s “Time Lord Victorious” comic, Defender of the Daleks. However, I am unabashedly using the original Ron Turner design for the Dalek Prime, rather than the fairly underwhelming 2020 remix, which, for some reason, removes the wreath of crimson headlights.
