The Only Good Dalek (comic story)

The Only Good Dalek
Doctor:	Eleventh Doctor
Companion(s):	Amy
Main enemy:	Chief Strategist Dalek
Main setting:	Station 7, 41st century; Strantana
Key crew
Publisher:	BBC Books
Writer:	Justin Richards
Artist:	Mike Collins
Release details
Release number:	1
Release date:	16 September 2010
Format:	Graphic novel, 128 pages
ISBN:	ISBN 978-1-84607-984-9
Doctor Who - Graphic Novels
← Previous	The Age of Chaos
Next →	The Dalek Project

The Only Good Dalek was a new series graphic novel and the first of its format.

Publisher's summary

Top-secret Station 7 is where the Earth Forces send all the equipment captured in their unceasing war against the Daleks. It's where Dalek technology is analysed and examined. It's where the Doctor and Amy have just arrived. But somehow the Daleks have found out about Station 7 - and there's something there that they want back. With the Doctor increasingly worried about the direction the Station's research is taking, the commander of Station 7 knows he has only one possible, desperate, defence. Because the last terrible secret of Station 7 is that they don't only store captured Dalek technology. It's also a prison. And the only thing that might stop a Dalek is another Dalek.

Plot

"The war has raged for a hundred years - humanity is standing against the might and terror of the Daleks. All that is good against all that is terrible. Bravery, courage and determination against unfeeling, pitiless monsters... It is a war that may never end."

The TARDIS lands in a petrified jungle. The Doctor begins to recognise it but soon they find a window revealing they are on a space station. Then, there is a scream for help. The Doctor and Amy rush to help but the scientist who screamed transforms into a Varga plant. A Slyther then attacks the Varga Plant, allowing the Doctor and Amy to escape. The Doctor remembers the forest as the jungle on Skaro. They find a way out and run into SSS officers. The head of the group--Space Major Jay Bourne--questions them on what happened to the scientist. The Doctor uses the psychic paper to convince Jay that he and Amy are inspectors. Jay takes them to the base commander.

They are introduced to Commander Tranter, who tells them about Station 7, Earth's best-kept secret and what they believe can bring them victory over the Daleks. He gives them a quick tour and explanation, showing them the petrified jungle with the Slyther and Varga plants, Robomen, Ogrons, Mechanoids, Dalek weaponry and Dalek scoutships. He also shows them "harmless" Dalek prisoners that have had their guns removed and only work on static electricity.

Tranter then talks of Professor Weston and his plans to change the Daleks' aggressive nature - a plan he is against. He takes them to where Weston's laboratory should be, but they find a force field displaying outer space, as the whole section has dropped away. The Doctor's theory is confirmed that the station was once an ore station and concluded Weston dropped his laboratory section intentionally. Amy thinks she sees something moving out in space. Jay reports it, but Tranter shrugs it off. He is more interested in a demonstration about to be given. Kustler brings a disarmed Dalek into the room with a control. The Dalek mutant is still inside, so the casing works but it is operated by remote control. Other scientists are impressed, but the Doctor and Tranter both object. Tranter decides to consider it, but orders the Dalek to be locked away again.

Jay takes the Dalek, away with the Doctor and Amy accompanying her. They pass another SSS officer, who asked where the other Dalek is. Jay tells the Doctor they are fitted with tracers so he races off to find it. From what could be gathered, Hadleigh took the Dalek into the petrified jungle and it stayed there. A static feed is detected and the Dalek is revealed to have power. The Doctor instructs to cut the feed and intends to go after the Dalek. After some resistance from Amy, he convinces her to stay put and monitor the activity with Tranter. The Doctor, Jay and other officers enter the jungle but one is quickly grabbed by a Varga plant. At the same time, the Robomen begin attacking their guards and a nearby asteroid field changes course for the station. Scans show the asteroids are 78% Dalekanium. Tranter sends out a warning to the base and orders the fighters to be launched.

Meanwhile, the Dalek in the jungle is found drawing power from a Magneton. It knocks out another officer with the Magneton and says it is waiting to be rescued. The other officer grabbed by the Varga plant also attacks. The Doctor and Jay escape as the Vargas and Slyther come after them. Amy opens the doors to the jungle and lets them out before warning them about the asteroids while the Dalek in the jungle runs out of power and deactivates.

As the fighters near the "asteroids", Kustler insists they use their captured Dalek technology against the attackers. Tranter refuses but there is little choice. Tranter eventually decides to go along with the plan. Static power is cut and the prisoner Daleks are taken to be converted. As the prisoner Daleks are converted, Jay orders them to be numbered to tell them apart from proper Daleks. The sound of static pulses fills the base, taking control of the Ogrons and Robomen. Finally, the Dalek fleet abandons the asteroid camouflage and a great space battle begins. Most of the casualties are humans.

The converted Daleks are positioned on a balcony while the attacking Daleks dock the station. The Robomen and Ogrons also join the battle and overpower the guards. They arrive sooner than the Daleks who are busy cutting through bulkhead doors. The converted Daleks fight back and drive them away. However, the Daleks breach the station. The Doctor sends Amy back to the TARDIS while the Daleks arrive at the balcony. When ordered to fight back, the converted Daleks turn on the SSS. Many are killed, including Kustler. The Doctor quickly releases the docking clamps of the section they are in and the Daleks are sucked into space. The section falls to the ice planet Strantana below.

Still on the station, Amy and Jay find a damaged Dalek that went through conversion, numbered 3, but the Daleks capture them and move to destroy everything on the station in search of "the Abomination". With no luck they scan the jettisoned section and detect the Doctor. The Doctor meanwhile gets out of the section on Strantana's surface as it begins to sink in the planet's molten core under the shattered ice and go an explore, unaware they are being watched from afar. They are attacked by native creatures but saved by others who have undergone a process which tamed them and they are led a hidden base.

Meanwhile, Amy is interrogated aboard a Dalek ship about the Abomination. She believed the Doctor died in the descent, but is corrected by the Daleks. She knows nothing of the Abomination and is sent back to her cell where Jay is. Jay calls upon Dalek 3 they found on the station. It responds before the Daleks destroy Station 7 completely. A Dalek enters Amy and Jay's cell and the girls attack it. Its weapon is turned on Jay, and a Dalek gun is fired - but it is Dalek 3 destroying the Dalek guard. Dalek 3 instructs Amy and Jay to follow it to the hangar, where there is a scoutship. They escape the ship, but only because the Daleks allowed it to happen.

The scoutship crashes on Strantana but the passengers are unharmed. The Dalek detects the survivors' tracks and follows them. They are also being watched, like the Doctor who is now at the base and aware of it. The Daleks also arrive on the planet to continue their search. They find a Slyther stranded by the magma and recover it but one Dalek falls in. A signal from "their agent" is then detected and they follow it.

The base is powered by heat from the magma so no power can be detected. It turns out to be owned by Professor Weston. He has a Dalek mutant in a glass container and the processed natives are his work. He spies Amy and Jay with the Dalek and thinks them to be collaborators but is quickly corrected. They plan to attack the Dalek as soon as the trio arrives. Weston thinks he may have a use for the casing. The Doctor asks about the mutant which Weston claims he has successfully tamed. He claims it is "the only good Dalek" but Tranter claims it is "an abomination". The Dalek force on the planet is discovered as Amy, Jay and Dalek 3 arrive at the base. Weston sends his processed creatures to stop them and Tranter's agents also volunteer, if only to buy time. They are all killed very quickly.

When Amy and Jay arrive, Dalek number 3 goes crazy, announcing the Abomination, Weston's tame Dalek mutant, is so be exterminated. The Doctor and Weston quickly disable it and open the casing. Weston plans to use it to house the tamed mutant while the original mutant is taken out. Outside the base, a missile strike grants the Daleks entry. They work quickly, taking out the mutant from Dalek 3's casing as it recovers. It is placed in a liquid-filled container like the tamed one, but the on the container appears a mysterious crack that nobody notices...

Weston's research is put onto a disk and Tranter places the Dalek into the casing. The Doctor sets the facility to self-destruct, which will kill all the Daleks inside. The countdown begins. They have under 23 minutes to escape, while another Dalek mutant watches on having been left alone.

The Daleks send a Slyther to attack the Doctor and the others but it is killed by their Dalek. Unfortunately, in doing so, the route is blocked. Weston knows of another way but bulkheads are required to be opened. Jay volunteers to return to the generator room and open them there. There she finds the lone Dalek mutant but realises it is the tame one and that Tranter put the original one back in its casing. At that moment, Tranter arrives and announced "Mission compromised. Exterminate!" and attacks Jay. She is rescued by the Doctor who distracts Tranter by disrupting his eye scope with his sonic screwdriver. The Doctor is then able to piece together the real story of Tranter. When he was captured on the front lines, the Daleks interrogated and implanted memories into him while programming him. He only believed he fought his way out of the ship but really he was set free along with other prisoners who had been programmed as Dalek agents along with him. He was programmed to take the job as Station 7's commander which is how the Daleks found it. The Doctor strikes Tranter, knocking his scope off and freeing him from Dalek control. The Daleks lose their signal connection with him and the Doctor destroys the device. They rush to warn Amy and Weston that the Dalek they are with is still evil. Tranter goes off to try and disable the reactor to save Weston's Dalek.

Amy and Weston are tricked by the Dalek and their route is cut off by two more. Weston passes Amy the disk of his research. The Doctor and Jay sneak up on one of the Daleks and Weston distracts them, pushing Amy to safely while the Daleks kill him. The Doctor takes a pipe and freezes the ice arch, apparently trapping the Daleks. They easily break free, however, and concern themselves more with the extermination of the abomination. They arrive at the reactor and shut off the countdown as Tranter reveals himself. He attempts to convince them he is still under Dalek control but it quickly discovered. He shuts down the base's safety measures and runs for it. The Daleks try to enable them again but the controls are damaged. Tranter is caught again. The Abomination is located but its tank smashes and it curls a tentacle around a switch, finishing the countdown. It croaks: "Exterminate". The base begins flooding with magma, killing the Daleks and Tranter.

The Doctor, Amy and Jay make it to the surface before the magma can claim them. Two Daleks, one of them Dalek 3, correctly predict an eruption. Dalek 3 is destroyed for failing to keep the facility safe. The surviving Dalek spies the Abomination but it too late to act. All the Daleks in the base fall victim to the flowing magma, the ships on the surface are unable to take off, and those that try to fly away themselves are unable to make it to before the eruption, which destroys them all. The Doctor, Amy and Jay look from a safe distance.

The Doctor fixes the crashed Dalek scoutship for Jay before he and Amy say their good-byes and leave in the TARDIS. Amy asks if Weston's work will be of any use but the Doctor thinks not. He claims there is "no such thing as a good Dalek".

Jay makes contact with another SSS officer who knows what it is like to be a prisoner of the Daleks and (apparently) arranges her a safe passage in flight. But she is seen to have a scope over her eye and the Daleks hear everything she says as Jay approaches the Dalek saucer hidden in an asteroid field...

The Dalek war still goes on, but Amy is confused as to how Weston's data will do humanity any good if it won't work. The Doctor answers by telling her that it represents the one thing humans have that the Daleks can never destroy: Hope...

Characters

• Eleventh Doctor
• Amy Pond
• Hadleigh
• Jay Bourne
• Commander Tranter
• Kustler
• Professor Weston
• The Abomination
• Slyther
• Strategist Daleks
• Dalek Drones
• Scientist Daleks
• Dalek 1
• Dalek 2
• Dalek 3
• Dalek 4
• Chief Strategist
• Sanders
• Avern
• Gribbin
• Phelps

Worldbuilding

• Tranter mentions how the humans re-took Caridos from the Daleks in '94 (most likely 3994) and captured some of their Robomen.
• Tranter received a field promotion at the Fall of Pythagoran.
• Tranter was reported killed at the Siege of Logario but was actually captured by the Daleks.
• The Doctor calls the petrified jungle by name, although it is referred to as both a forest and a jungle.
• Sanders leads Gamma Team, equipped with Anti-Varga suits and tranq guns.
• The Daleks use distronic explosives in their missiles.

Notes

• A preview of the first few pages involved Skaro, a Slyther and a man turning into a Varga plant. An extra page shown on Amazon.co.uk featured members of the Space Security Service, Ogrons and Robomen.
• Only Drone, Scientist, and Strategist model Daleks feature in this story. This comic features a higher rank of the Strategist Daleks the Chief Strategist.
• A Mechanoid shell is among the artefacts recovered from one of the worlds ravaged by the Daleks.
• The idea for a graphic novel was first proposed by Justin Richards in 2008. It was to feature Daleks in the First World War, and be titled The Dalek Project. However, for various reasons, The Only Good Dalek was made in its place. One such reason is explained in an interview with Richards in The Dalek Handbook, in which he said The Dalek Project felt too much like a Tenth Doctor story. However, in September 2012 Richards and Mike Collins will publish a new version of The Dalek Project as the second BBC Books graphic novel.[1]
• Although evidence suggests the story is set in the 41st century, not long after the events of Mission to the Unknown and The Daleks' Master Plan which took place in 4000, the war is said to have lasted for a hundred years. This suggests the Daleks of the New Dalek Paradigm have rewritten Dalek history in some way, as Marc Cory claims in the original timeline that the Daleks disappeared from human space not long after 3000.
• Because Justin Richards was unaware the Dalek design was changing, the story was originally to feature the bronze Dalek design from 2005 and the Daleks would be made dependent on static electricity once more by having their slats removed. This idea was changed when Richards received photos of the New Dalek Paradigm. (REF: The Dalek Handbook) However, he also seemed unaware that Steven Moffat intended the New Paradigm design to act as a Dalek officer class rather than a replacement design. (REF: The Brilliant Book 2011) Following series 6 of Doctor Who in 2011, the 2005 design of the Daleks have appeared in every televised Dalek story apart from Resolution and Destination: Skaro as of November 2023, and the last onscreen appearance of a Paradigm Dalek as of November 2023 was in the series 7 episode Asylum of the Daleks.
• The types of Daleks shown in this comic are the New Dalek Paradigm from the Eleventh Doctor's era on TV.
• Amy references the replica Skaro forest like The Byzantium (TV: The Time of Angels)

Continuity

• When talking with the team on Station 7, the Doctor mentions that he has worked with Bret Vyon and Sara Kingdom (TV: The Daleks' Master Plan) to gain the team's trust, prompting the station commander to comment that the Doctor has impeccable credentials but must have started fighting Daleks at a young age, suggesting that this takes place within a decade of Mavic Chen's attempted takeover. The Doctor responds "you have no idea."
• A Time Field Crack appears on a tank that holds a Dalek creature. (TV: The Big Bang)
• The Daleks refer to Professor Weston's genetically pacified Dalek as "the Abomination", a name they have often used in the past to describe beings they loathe and/or fear. (PROSE: Remembrance of the Daleks, TV: The Parting of the Ways, The Stolen Earth)
• Amy refers to previously seeing Daleks "pretending to be good". (TV: Victory of the Daleks)
• Amy refers to the forest on the Byzantium. (TV: Flesh and Stone)
• The Doctor explains that Magnedons were used by the Thals as a power source. (TV: The Daleks)
• A Drone Dalek having a Dalek Strategist killed for failure is similar to two Daleks giving the same punishment to the Dalek Commander in COMIC: The Dalek Revenge
• The Doctor mentions the Thousand Year War, calling it "a nuclear fire that burned for a thousand years". (TV: Genesis of the Daleks)
• Outlines of different Dalek designs are displayed on a screen on a wall. These designs include the first Daleks, (TV: The Daleks) the Special Weapons Dalek, (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) a Time War Dalek (TV: Dalek onwards), and possibly Davros.
• When the Doctor mentions Skaro, he is sure Amy will recognise it. The two of them travel to Skaro in GAME: City of the Daleks. As Skaro is not mentioned to Amy before City, this story must take place some time after that.
• The Doctor claims that when a Dalek casing loses power, the Dalek creature inside doesn't die but rather stays inert until power is restored. This is a possible reference to The Curse of the Daleks where the Daleks in the Dalek City from The Daleks are revived by explorers once they reactivate the power. Something similar would later happen in The Dalek Project where the Daleks on a crashed ship are revived by an external power source even after being inactive for a hundred years.
• The Twelfth Doctor would later meet another so-called "good Dalek" which he named Rusty, sharing the scepticism of his predecessor. (TV: Into the Dalek)

Cover gallery

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  Graphic novel cover

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  Full cover

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  2016 edition with The Dalek Project

External links

• The Only Good Dalek at the Doctor Who Reference Guide