Eve of War

odd little 60s origin story for the daleks but definitly not a recommend avoid these i fear

The next strip in the series sees the arrival of the Daleks’ arch nemeses, the Mechanoids. I was looking forward to their arrival immensely and I have to admit to being a little disappointed. That said, this strip clearly acts as a prologue to a larger, ongoing story, so I can forgive it a little. I don’t know what it is about the Mechanoids but they make me smile. Their one television appearance isn’t the most auspicious of debuts but the fact that various people, Terry Nation included, thought they might be able to compete with the Daleks for ultimate Doctor Who monster is amusing. Following in the wake of failed attempts of Voordmania and Zarbimania, it’s a wonder the writers and production team ever thought they could top the Daleks. It took 3 years before another monster struck the public psyche in the same way, when the Cybermen arrived in the Antarctic.

I love the fact that the Mechanoids got to be toys in the 60s and that they had a complete makeover to become the Daleks’ recurring antagonists. Their only other return to the series was in Big Finish’s audio The Juggernauts which did some interesting things with them but, again, didn’t exactly set the world on fire. But still, I love their weird spherical design and complete impracticability of being either service robots (as their initial TV appearance showed them to be) or as conquerors of the galaxy (as the comic strip would have them be).

The strip itself, though, keeps the Mechanoids on the sidelines. We really only see two or three of them, including their leader the Menoin. We discover very little about who or what they are except that they object to the Daleks encroaching into what they consider their part of space. They prefer subterfuge (using a weird ray to send one Dalek insane and hiding in a space cloud) to all-out war (at least at this juncture) and have weird, spherical spaceships, which is a nice contrast to the saucer design of the Daleks.

The Daleks, for their part, are furthering their plans for universal domination. A few months have passed since the destruction of the Dalek city in the previous story and it has been completely rebuilt (along with, presumably, more Daleks). They are also building a spacestation as a waystation between Skaro and planets too far away to reach in a single trip. It is here the Mechanoids first attack them. The consequences of this initial encounter between the Daleks and Mechanoids is to put the robotic globes on the Daleks’ list of ‘things to be destroyed’, but little else of real impact occurs during this strip.
Interestingly, the artist for the comic strip clearly changes halfway through this story. The initial artist, Richard Jennings is replaced by Ron Turner, whose artwork is much cleaner, bolder and more pop-arty in styling. I much prefer it to be honest, although it is jarring for it to happen part way through a story. One striking aspect is Turner’s different take on the Dalek design preferring to draw them far more like the Cushing Movie Daleks. The Mechanoids become a little grander when Turner takes over, but both he and Jennings draw them close to their TV appearance.

It will be fun to see where this war between the Daleks and Mechanoids goes but, strangely, the next story, the Archives of Phryne sees a total absence of the Daleks’ new enemies, as the Daleks go on the search for weapons to defeat them.