The Penta Ray Factor

Ugh. My worst fears were realised and The Penta Ray Factor is, indeed, as generic as Power Play. If possible, it’s even worse! The story sees the Daleks arrive on the planet Solturis, wheedle their way into the ruling elite’s trust, steal the planet’s super weapon, make deals with a traitor and get blown up.

So much of this story echoes Power Play, I wonder whether they just took the first story and tweaked bits here and there. The two human leads in the story are a man and woman much like the two from Power Play only this time instead of a blond woman and a brunette man we have a brunette woman and a blond man. The traitor in the original story was the girl’s uncle, in this story the traitor is her grandfather’s cousin (which make him some sort of blood relative to her but I’m not going to waste time working out how many times removed he is). The Daleks make a deal with the traitor and they all end up dead, just as they did in Power Play.

There are a few interesting aspects to the strip, and a couple of strange ones too. Firstly, the Solturan civilisation seems to be vaguel Roman Empire-like with the ‘just’ leader decked out like a Roman general, and the other character’s clothing echoing a similar style. In a similarly Roman-esque vein, the leader has a ‘soothsayer’ of sorts, Lurr. Strangely, he has a ‘bowl of tomorrow’ which, initially seems to be magic. Later in the story it is revealed to have vaguely technological workings (although how the ‘bowl’ works isn’t really explained). The bowl allows him to see visions of the future and he warns his leader of the threat the Daleks pose although his warnings fall on deaf ears. The bowl also leads to his death as the traitor, his cousin, realises that he can see the future and will work out who has betrayed the Solturans to the Daleks, therefore stabbing him rather dramatically (and decidedly Julius Caesary).

Another interesting aspect is the relationship between Lurr and his granddaughter. It struck me as a little Doctor/Susan ish. In one frame, she refers to him as granddaughter and he to her as ‘child’. It’s only a little hint, but I wonder if the writer based their characters on the leads of the TV series.

There is a ridiculous sequence where the Daleks steal the eponymous Penta Ray by taking a huge box into the Penta Ray Room, taking out a fake Penta Ray and swopping it for the real one. All this happens off screen but it reminds me of the Emperor Dalek’s inflatable imitation from Duel of the Daleks. The Daleks do seem adept at making facsimiles of things. All this does it cement the opinion that the Solturans are complete idiots. Although, to be fair, the Daleks aren’t much better as, for the second comic strip running, the Emperor and most of the fleet depart the planet before the fat lady has sung. The remaining taskforce are then wiped out by the Solturans. I suppose it is indicative of the Daleks’ supreme arrogance that they believe they have won before the final axe has fallen but you think they would have learnt a little from the mistakes of Alvega.

The Daleks, again, seem characterless in this strip. The scheming is present but the vitality the characters had in Duel of the Daleks is still missing. Hopefully future strips will reintroduce this more appealing side to the Daleks.

The final frame though, where the Emperor declares they will not return to Solturis because he has received a worrying message from Skaro makes for an intriguing cliffhanger into the next comic strip, Plague of the Daleks.