Only minor spoilers this time.
The Comic
The first thing I notice is that, within the comic series itself, there
appears to be nothing to mark the break between one story and the next.
Rather like the original program itself, in fact! Still, as with the TV
series, there are definitely serials (or perhaps chapters), so it makes
sense to give them names. This second chapter in the sequence is over
twice as long, at seven pages, which becomes fairly standard - seven out
of the next ten stories are this length.
The story itself is not as strong as the first, but then origins are
always a good hook (which is why superhero comics and film series reboot
so often). What is clever here is that for a long time it feels like a
simple incident, one that doesn't progress the overall narrative; but
then, in the final instalment, something key happens that expands the
canvas on which future chapters can work.
The Daleks are well-characterised. They are clever and devious, but also
limited in key ways (although how they have managed to rebuild a city
without slaves is not explained, despite this being a key point last
time). There is a nice nod to The Chase, and the various betrayals that happen meant the story held my interest.
Unfortunately, the heroes of the piece are - once again - young,
attractive, white humans (or at least indistinguishable from humans),
while the villain is ugly and purple. This feels less extreme than last
time - it's not something we've escaped in the half-century since, after
all - but it still rankles a little.
One welcome artwork change is that the Daleks are now portrayed with
their correct proportions (the title panel changes to reflect this
partway through the story). The continuity-obsessed part of me can
easily justify this, happily: the first, overly-tall Daleks were
prototypes, and they have now improved the design. The Mark 2, perhaps.
A less happy change is that the inking on the fourth through sixth
instalments is much lighter and less detailed. This makes everything
look sketchier, and definitely takes away from the atmosphere.
Fortunately the original inker is back for the finale, a very nicely
done page in which the climactic event - the launch of a spaceship -
distorts not only the panel where it happens, but bends the next row up
as well! A simple trick that gives a sense of enormous energy.
TV Century 21
Time for some background. The first comic to feature anything from the world of Doctor Who was the venerable TV Comic, which had already lasted 673 issues before the Doctor came on board. TV Century 21
was a different beast, and had the Daleks - in colour! - out of the
gate. The new comic was focused mainly on Gerry Anderson's stable of
shows, and cleverly pretended that they all fitted together when they
were clearly not designed that way - something us Whovian continuity
obsessives would know nothing about, of course.
Throughout much of the 1960s, Anderson's shows (Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds, and so forth) were massive - in fact, for a while, TV Century 21 (later simply called TV21)
was by far the biggest comic on the stands. It took a unique tack,
dating the issues a century in the future and presenting itself more
like a newspaper, as if reporting on events in the world of the future.
More details can be found in Stuart Palmer's narration of The Story of TV Century 21, an extra on the remastered Genesis of Evil VCD, which is accompanied by a slideshow of covers from issues featuring the Daleks.
Published:
Dates: 13rd February to 27th March 1965
Rating:
Comic: 4/10.
The Animation
One of my problems with the story in the comic was that the Daleks had
apparently built their city on their own despite claiming to need slaves
for handiwork. The VCD addresses this straight away, with a narrated
series of still shots showing the Daleks' extermination and capture of
survivors of the neutron bomb. It's just what was needed to set the
scene.
Unsurprisingly, this is a much less sophisticated animation than the
previous one. The sound quality is poorer (I had to really concentrate
to make out some of the dialogue), Palmer hasn't quite got the pacing of
the Dalek voices he was to develop later, and some of the scenes are
not cut at quite the right point. More importantly, the human characters
have no lip sync at all, and are often shown in still shots. It feels
much more like a recon than the last!
At just over half an hour for a comic that is more than twice the
length, this is a faster-paced adaptation. Some of the cuts are neat,
using techniques such as zooming in on the emperor's eye, and I can see
the seeds of a very good director in Palmer's work here. In a way I
would be much more impressed if I hadn't just watched what he produced
later on!
VCD Extras
Dalek Cutaway is an animated guide to the Dalek machine. There have been a number of these published in books; this one is based on Terry Nation's Dalek Special (1979) and The Doctor Who Technical Manual,
which I haven't seen. I mostly like it, but the teletype-style text
comes up at too slow a pace for me (I'm a fast reader), which means I
spent some of the time waiting for the next word to appear. Still, a
good effort.
Rating:
Animation: 3/10.
(I should note that I am judging the animations by pretty much the same
standard I use for professional work; 3/10 is therefore not as bad as it
might sound!)
Next Time:
Duel of the Daleks.
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