Liberation of the Daleks (comic story)

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Liberation of the Daleks was a comic story published in Doctor Who Magazine, starring the Fourteenth Doctor, as portrayed by David Tennant.

In what was pre-emptively described by editor Marcus Hearn as an "unprecedented" move in the magazine's forty-three-year history, the strip was the first full story in any medium to star the Fourteenth Doctor, being printed a mere two-and-a-half weeks after the broadcast of The Power of the Doctor. The story picked up immediately from his regeneration at the end of that episode, officially beginning a line of stories that were effectively "in lockstep" with the television continuity for the first time in the DWM comic series.

Additionally, it was the first DWM strip since Children of the Revolution, twenty years prior, to feature the Daleks as a major force.

Plot

Liberation

From a sheer cliff face overlooking the sea, as a beautiful new day dawns, the Doctor has been born again. Returning to his TARDIS, the newly regenerated Fourteenth Doctor takes a look to see what the universe has to offer and is immediately distracted by a noise. Noting the changes in his new yet old body, the TARDIS suddenly dematerialises without his input; it is following Automated Protocol Epsilon Delta Rho, or in other words, is responding to a distress signal. The Doctor is only too happy to help.

With the TARDIS landing for the first time in this incarnation, the Doctor sees he is outside Wembley Stadium on Saturday 30 July 1966: the date of the 1966 World Cup Final. Wondering who is supposed to be in distress, he enters the stadium with the score at 2-2 by lying to a security guard and begins to ask the crowd one by one. Realising this method is futile, he starts discreetly scanning the crowd by pretending his sonic screwdriver is a microphone, not realising he is being watched by outside forces.

Suddenly, the sonic gets a signal three rows behind him, but not a distress signal. Instead, he spots a family of four glowing faintly blue. He confidently tells them that their psychic shields should be properly adjusted in public, and as they deny all knowledge, he sonics their disguises off, revealing them to be a group of four purple-skinned and space-suited aliens. The Doctor realises they are time tourists, there to see how "Hurst hits the crossbar, ball clips the line, referee says yes, England 3-2, Kenneth Wolstenholme, people on the pitch, Hurst again, 4-2", but they dispute this, pointing out that nobody is watching the match anymore.

Confused, the Doctor looks back towards the pitch where all the players have stopped. Hovering above Wembley is a giant, and terrifyingly familiar, flying saucer. As it opens up, the Doctor tries to herd the crowd out, telling them the game is over, but he cannot stop a fleet of several dozen Bronze Daleks from emerging and exterminating the players. With the Doctor stunned into silence and the time tourists looking smug, they question his assertion that the game was "all over", declaring that "it is now", as the Dalek invasion begins.

Daleks Invasion Earth 1966 A.D.!

With the Daleks landing on Wembley's field, claiming the human race to now be under Dalek control, a TV commentator tries to make sense of the events to the watching audience. They note that the British Royal Family has been safely evacuated from the Royal Box just as the Doctor dashes into it, drawing the Daleks to himself with the sonic and gaining the attention of the Supreme Dalek in their saucer.

The Doctor starts questioning whether it was them who sent the distress signal, calling them names and mocking them as he realises they simply wanted him to take notice. The Daleks aim their attention towards the Doctor and, right on his cue, start shooting exterminating rays at him. The Doctor begins to run, with the youngest time tourist noting the Daleks stopped caring about exterminating the football fans. The time tourists note that the Daleks are everywhere across Earth, and decide to visit other parts of the space/time zone to revel in the carnage.

The Doctor evades the Daleks' extermination attempts.

The time tourists go to all sorts of places, such as Carnaby Street in London, and the district between Haight Street and Ashbury Street and the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, each time taking gleeful selfies in front of the Daleks and screaming humans for their tel•e•pixXx social media account.

Meanwhile, the Doctor runs off to the TARDIS, mocking the Daleks on their missed shots. As the Supreme Dalek orders his drones to seize the TARDIS, a woman shows up at the door, handing the Doctor the World Cup's Jules Rimet Trophy, claiming the security guards at Wembley neglected to take it with them when they ran off. Presuming he is a policeman, she attempts to give it to him for safekeeping before someone tries to steal it again, but the Doctor rushes her inside the TARDIS at the same time a Dalek on a hoverbout grabs the TARDIS with a clamp. As it takes off without him, he yells at her to close the door as he promises to talk his way out. The Supreme tells its fellow Daleks to not engage with the Doctor in conversation. The Daleks all direct their rays at the Doctor and start firing at him, and he faces his fate defenceless with his eyes closed and fists and teeth clenched.

Dead Again

After the exterminations of the Daleks, the Doctor is shocked to find he is still alive and speaks to the Supreme Dalek. In return, the Supreme orders the Doctor's extermination again, and again, and again, with no effect. The Doctor points out that it is getting boring watching the rays pass right through his body, so the Supreme orders that the Doctor is to be brought up into the Dalek flying saucer.

Meanwhile in 1966, the time tourists visit Mount Rushmore and take a picture when the Daleks come and add the Supreme Dalek on the rock face. Inside the saucer, the Doctor continues to mock the Supreme Dalek, who orders that he will be taken to total physiological examination, but the Doctor does it right in front of them with his sonic screwdriver. Upon doing so, he notices that nothing has changed and that regeneration would not normally make him immune from Dalek fire. Knowing he cannot be harmed, he climbs onto the Supreme Dalek's casing. Knowing it wants answers, he promises to give them if they call off the invasion of Earth. The Daleks comply, temporarily halting their invasion. In front of the Great Pyramid of Giza and the destroyed Great Sphinx, the time tourists are worried because in their view it is not time for the Daleks to go; they call in demanding why the Daleks are leaving Earth.

Above Earth, the Doctor examines the Daleks and explains that the drones appear to all biologically identical, so they are fake, while he is real, explaining why they could not kill him. In response to that, the Supreme declares the Daleks are real and attempts to prove as such, ordering their saucers into Formation Red Icosahedron around the planet. It tells them to use pulsator beams, and with a colossal explosion, they seem to destroy Earth right in front of the Doctor, to his utter horror.

Earth Shock!

To be added

Characters

References

Notes

  • This story is set immediately after The Power of the Doctor.
  • This was the first Doctor Who Magazine comic story to feature the Fourteenth Doctor. The first words spoken by the Fourteenth Doctor in his comic book tenure are; "All right then, universe - what have you got for me today? What's that whauw-ing?"
  • This was not the first non-televised story to feature the first full, post-regenerative story for the Doctor, as the audio story Light the Flame was the War Doctor's first post-regenerative story.
  • This story, which featured the 1966 World Cup Final, ran concurrently in part with the 2022 FIFA World Cup, which saw England knocked out by France in the quarter-finals.
  • As detailed in DWM 584's The Strip of a Lifetime, an article printed on the pages, this story was overseen by returning showrunner Russell T Davies himself, with Scott Handcock, specifically to make the TV series and DWM comics end up "in sync" for the first time. To account for this, a break in tradition saw the Fourteenth Doctor make his comic debut immediately after his regeneration scene, rather than his first full TV appearance like previous Doctors.

Liberation

  • In order to avoid spoiling the appearance of the Daleks, the story title was given on the spine as simply "Liberation Part 1", was not given at all on the magazine's contents page, and does not appear in the strip itself until the final page.
  • The time tourists' line, "'All over'? Well... it is now" is based on the famous final words of Kenneth Wolstenholme's BBC TV commentary of the World Cup final.
  • The yellow text box in the first frame reads "Born Again, Again", a reference to Born Again, the 2005 Children in Need special.

Daleks Invasion Earth 1966 A.D.!

Doctor Who Magazine #585

Dead Again

To be added

Earth Shock!

To be added

Production errors

  • In Part 1 when the Doctor's TARDIS displays the notification for activating Automated Protocol Epsilon Delta Rho, its screen shows the Greek letters "ΔΣΡ", meaning "Delta Sigma Rho", instead of the correct "ΕΔΡ".
  • The tail of the last speech bubble in Part 1 is slightly cut off.

Original print details

(Publication with page count and closing captions)
  • DWM 584: (6 pages): Next Issue: Daleks Invasion Earth 1966 A.D.!
  • DWM 585: (6 pages): Next Issue: Dead Again
  • DWM 586: (6 pages): Next Issue: Earth Shock!
  • DWM 587: (6 pages): Next issue: The Atrocity Exhibitio

Continuity

v • e
DWM Fourteenth Doctor comic stories
Solo
Donna
v • e
Post-regeneration stories
For the purposes of this list, a "post-regeneration story" is one in which the after-effects of a regeneration is actually and initially depicted and the Time Lord fully settles into their new body. For this reason, Rose is not included below, even though it is commonly thought of as a "post-regeneration story". It doesn't actually include a clear scene of regeneration, and the preponderance of stories in other media confirm that the Ninth Doctor has not immediately regenerated prior to the story.
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Regeneration is usually considered a biologic process exclusive to Time Lords and a few other species. However, some consider Regeneration to also be a "post-regeneration story", though neither describes anything close to a biological process.
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For the purposes of this list, a "Dalek comic story" is one in which one living, authentic Dalek plays a part within the confines of the story, outside of flashbacks to previous stories and cliffhangers that lead into the following story.
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Because of the ubiquity of this race, no attempt will be made here to list every appearance in every medium. Instead, we focus on comic appearances here, and invite you to explore a complete list of appearances elsewhere.
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