Doctor Who has never had an illustrious history in the comic-book world, only delving into the land of panels and speech bubbles through its sister magazines and compliation publications, so the announcement of The Only Good Dalek came as a somewhat surprise, said to be launching a new series of 11th Doctor graphic novels that would be regarded as canon to the TV show. The Only Good Dalek takes place somewhere between Cold Blood and The Pandorica Opens, leaving Amy wiped of memory of her husband Rory and the Doctor trying to find somewhere to "make it up" to her. Here, we see the TARDIS (with no explanation whatsoever for once) arrive on Station 7, before encountering a menagerie of classic Dalek-related adversaries (I won't spoil them for classic-series fans, but sufficed to say there are some nice surprises) and spying an experiment by humans to convert the Doctor's feared arch-foes into weapons against their own kind. It's typical Who stuff, and the premise certainly doesn't come as a shock for this reviewer, but there are definitely some twists and turns which, while not posed to set Who-canon on fire, will catch readers off guard, and remind long-time devotees of the classic strategic factor the Daleks had been missing until the new Paradigm was created in Season 5. The feeling that it is simply stealing from televised Dalek stories does occasionally crop up at times, and often the art-work can leave a little to be desired, but The Only Good Dalek is a captivating start the new Who comic franchise.
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