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Doctor Who: The Return of the Daleks
148 pages, Paperback
Published September 10, 2024
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About the author
Steve Moore
225 books45 followersSteve Moore was a British comics writer known for his influence on the industry and his close connection with Alan Moore (no relation). He was instrumental in guiding Alan Moore early in his career and collaborated with him under pseudonyms in various projects.
Moore contributed extensively to British comics, particularly in anthologies such as 2000 AD, where he helped shape the Future Shocks format and wrote for Dan Dare. His work extended to Doctor Who Weekly, where he co-created Abslom Daak, and Warrior, where he revived Axel Pressbutton. His involvement with Marvel UK included writing for Hulk and Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D..
Outside of comics, Moore had a deep interest in Chinese history, mythology, and the I Ching, which influenced much of his writing. He edited Fortean Times and contributed to works on the unexplained. His novel Somnium explored his fascination with the moon goddess Selene.
Later in his career, Moore scripted Hercules: The Thracian Wars, which was adapted into a film in 2014. He ultimately retired from mainstream comics to focus on non-fiction and research, maintaining his lifelong engagement with esoteric studies.
Moore contributed extensively to British comics, particularly in anthologies such as 2000 AD, where he helped shape the Future Shocks format and wrote for Dan Dare. His work extended to Doctor Who Weekly, where he co-created Abslom Daak, and Warrior, where he revived Axel Pressbutton. His involvement with Marvel UK included writing for Hulk and Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D..
Outside of comics, Moore had a deep interest in Chinese history, mythology, and the I Ching, which influenced much of his writing. He edited Fortean Times and contributed to works on the unexplained. His novel Somnium explored his fascination with the moon goddess Selene.
Later in his career, Moore scripted Hercules: The Thracian Wars, which was adapted into a film in 2014. He ultimately retired from mainstream comics to focus on non-fiction and research, maintaining his lifelong engagement with esoteric studies.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
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September 20, 2024It can be hard to remember now anyone who's so much as looked at the TARDIS funny gets their own Big Finish spin-off, but there were times when Doctor Who didn't have much of an expanded universe. The Daleks and, gods help us, the Quarks had their sixties adventures, but none of that gets a mention in the intro here, Dez Skinn taking his usual approach where the story begins with the involvement of Dez Skinn. To be fair, Marvel's launch of what was then Doctor Who Weekly did represent a new dawn at the very least, the same ethos and some of the same talent responsible for the contemporaneous launch of 2000AD unleashed on what nobody was yet calling the Whoniverse, telling stories of what the show's aliens got up to when the Doctor wasn't around.
At the same time, there are definite echoes of the other licensed SF book Marvel was doing on the other side of the fishpond, the first Star Wars comics. As there, reference material wasn't so readily available as it would be now, so things can sometimes be amusingly off-model, compounded by the way that now, anybody working on equivalent titles would be at least a bit of a fan, whereas back then, they were comics professionals doing a job. True, superfan Jeremy 'Not That One' Bentham researched and consulted, but you still get occasional bum notes like the Cybermen short-circuiting when they get wet – a classic pulp solution to killer robots that was surely already past its use-by date in 1980. Although with the number of other stupid vulnerabilities they've had over the years, hell, what's one more?
But in any case, that's an exception. Yeah, the stories here tend corny, very much showing their roots in a boys' adventure comic market where having something blow up each week counted for more than subtle characterisation. But Steve Moore, who writes everything in this volume, usually found some way to introduce a little flair along the way, as in the first and title strip, set on a planet that saw the pepperpots off many years before, and starring a big-name filmmaker. "The viewing public's fed up with futuristic science-fiction movies! So we're going to give them something different... A historical drama about the Daleks!" And then, of course, the real thing comes back during filming... That's followed by Throwback, whose star Kroton would come back years down the line, and whose core concept of an anomalous Cyberman with a soul has been reused endlessly since the show returned.
Still, as much as I like the wizard of Shooter's Hill, the art here is probably a bigger draw than the writing, given the illustration duties are shared between Steve Dillon, David Lloyd and Paul Neary. Neary, bless him, being perfectly solid but very much the Lepidus of this triumvirate. Hell, for me even Lloyd, as well as he does mood, doesn't sing in monochrome like the undoubted star of the volume, Dillon, who is already unmistakably himself, and also gets the best gig because he's the one who gets to co-create and mostly draw the volume's breakout character, Abslom Daak – Dalek-Killer. This swashbuckling nihilist is where the punky 2000AD energy really explodes, simultaneously looking forward to the other great British SF project of the dawning decade, 40K (that chainsword!). And Dillon was a key part of that not just in how he drew Daak, but in deviating from the first Daak story's script (to Moore's initial displeasure) to downplay the sadness and play up the rage: "I'm gonna kill every damned stinking Dalek in the galaxy!" I've read the Daak stories so many times since I first found a copy of their old collection (never dreaming at the time that the writer would one day offer me a Kit Kat), but I was never tempted to skip or skim a single panel this time around. Classic stuff.
At the same time, there are definite echoes of the other licensed SF book Marvel was doing on the other side of the fishpond, the first Star Wars comics. As there, reference material wasn't so readily available as it would be now, so things can sometimes be amusingly off-model, compounded by the way that now, anybody working on equivalent titles would be at least a bit of a fan, whereas back then, they were comics professionals doing a job. True, superfan Jeremy 'Not That One' Bentham researched and consulted, but you still get occasional bum notes like the Cybermen short-circuiting when they get wet – a classic pulp solution to killer robots that was surely already past its use-by date in 1980. Although with the number of other stupid vulnerabilities they've had over the years, hell, what's one more?
But in any case, that's an exception. Yeah, the stories here tend corny, very much showing their roots in a boys' adventure comic market where having something blow up each week counted for more than subtle characterisation. But Steve Moore, who writes everything in this volume, usually found some way to introduce a little flair along the way, as in the first and title strip, set on a planet that saw the pepperpots off many years before, and starring a big-name filmmaker. "The viewing public's fed up with futuristic science-fiction movies! So we're going to give them something different... A historical drama about the Daleks!" And then, of course, the real thing comes back during filming... That's followed by Throwback, whose star Kroton would come back years down the line, and whose core concept of an anomalous Cyberman with a soul has been reused endlessly since the show returned.
Still, as much as I like the wizard of Shooter's Hill, the art here is probably a bigger draw than the writing, given the illustration duties are shared between Steve Dillon, David Lloyd and Paul Neary. Neary, bless him, being perfectly solid but very much the Lepidus of this triumvirate. Hell, for me even Lloyd, as well as he does mood, doesn't sing in monochrome like the undoubted star of the volume, Dillon, who is already unmistakably himself, and also gets the best gig because he's the one who gets to co-create and mostly draw the volume's breakout character, Abslom Daak – Dalek-Killer. This swashbuckling nihilist is where the punky 2000AD energy really explodes, simultaneously looking forward to the other great British SF project of the dawning decade, 40K (that chainsword!). And Dillon was a key part of that not just in how he drew Daak, but in deviating from the first Daak story's script (to Moore's initial displeasure) to downplay the sadness and play up the rage: "I'm gonna kill every damned stinking Dalek in the galaxy!" I've read the Daak stories so many times since I first found a copy of their old collection (never dreaming at the time that the writer would one day offer me a Kit Kat), but I was never tempted to skip or skim a single panel this time around. Classic stuff.
September 15, 2025
Two years before Terence Dudley bungled up the idea of a spin-off with K9 and Company and way before Big Finish made the genre take up a giant space in their lineup, it was with DWM, at the time called Doctor Who Weekly, that ran with the idea of telling stories within the Doctor Who universe without the Doctor, with Steve Moore taking on sole writing duties for this first volume alongside a host of artists like Steve Dillon, Paul Neary and V for Vendetta’s David Lloyd (the writer he collaborated with making a contribution in the other back-up collection). There seems to be two styles of writing here; half being adventure-action romps like the titular Return of the Daleks - the premise of the Daleks invading a planet that’s attempting to make a movie based on their defeat there leads to some god-tier iconic imagery - and Deathworld which pits the Ice Warriors with the Cybermen, the first time classic monsters fight one another in a way not seen until 2006’s Dalek and Cyberman showdown in Army of Ghosts/Doomsday, and the other being of a more contemplative and character-driven tone; highlights from this end are The Final Quest where a ruthless Sontaran meets his doom and Twilight of the Silurians in which takes place during the last days before the Silurians hibernate themselves under the Earth’s core.
Of course, the most iconic stories out of the bunch feature two characters who would later re-appear in the DWM strip; Kroton, a Cyberman who slowly becomes overwhelmed with emotion and humanity but realising that he will forever be an outcast amongst both Mondasians and humans (the second strip even going so far as to have ghost story themes to double down on his tragedy and torment) before briefly travelling with the Eighth Doctor and Izzy and of course, Abslom Daak: Dalek Killer, whose two original stories I remember distinctly from the Altered Vistas adaptations I watched over and over as a kid - they were certainly my dad’s personal favourite.
Of course, the most iconic stories out of the bunch feature two characters who would later re-appear in the DWM strip; Kroton, a Cyberman who slowly becomes overwhelmed with emotion and humanity but realising that he will forever be an outcast amongst both Mondasians and humans (the second strip even going so far as to have ghost story themes to double down on his tragedy and torment) before briefly travelling with the Eighth Doctor and Izzy and of course, Abslom Daak: Dalek Killer, whose two original stories I remember distinctly from the Altered Vistas adaptations I watched over and over as a kid - they were certainly my dad’s personal favourite.
January 8, 2025
Doctor who b-sides:
Cybermen who feel, Sontarans
and Dalek Killers
Cybermen who feel, Sontarans
and Dalek Killers
March 23, 2025
These are really 2000 AD style adventure stories that happen to feature Doctor Who monsters, but that's not a problem.
November 24, 2025
3.5/5
A very mixed bag I found. Some stuff here I really loved - especially the Kroton stories - and some that did absolutely nothing for me. Especially it reaffirmed my dislike of Abslom Daak, who I find quite possibly the most insufferable recurring Doctor Who character of all time.
A very mixed bag I found. Some stuff here I really loved - especially the Kroton stories - and some that did absolutely nothing for me. Especially it reaffirmed my dislike of Abslom Daak, who I find quite possibly the most insufferable recurring Doctor Who character of all time.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews