Doctor Who - The Dalek Project Review

Doctor Who: 
The Dalek Project
Written By Justin Richards
Art By Mike Collins 

The Doctor stumbles upon an archeological dig in France that is centered on trenches of World War One.  What they find in one of the chambers is quite intriguing to The Doctor.  It is a Dalek and The Doctor is curious to how it could have gotten there.  After defeating the revived Daleks The Doctor travels back to 1917 to figure out how they could be buried underground in an archeological dig.  What he finds is a Dalek invasion force embedded with both English and German forces in an attempt to take over the world.  It is up to The Doctor to see that history stays on course and to keep the Daleks from invading Earth.

The Dalek Project is a Doctor Who original graphic novel. It is the second on to come out and second to feature the Daleks.  Unlike in The Only Good Dalek The Doctor is without a companion.  Not that it matters much as he quickly befriends the servant Mary who helps him in discovering the Daleks plan. This leads to an all-out chase of action as the Daleks are trying to prevent The Doctor from stopping their plans.

The Dalek Project was an entertaining graphic novel if somewhat predictable.  The story has been done before with the Daleks using human agents to help in creating the new Dalek versions of 1917.  In a way it is clever but watching what happens during World War One seemed to be extremely farfetched even for Doctor Who and became a bit to convenient.  Like the mansion having all the doors being a portal to different places on Earth.   I did like seeing the different styles of Daleks but it seemed they were defeated a bit too easily.  But on a whole the story was entertaining to read and not all that bad.  The Dalek Project is a good easy to read story that you can sit down and enjoy during a rainy afternoon.

The art by Mike Collins is pretty decent as readers of Doctor Who Magazine will be familiar with his style.  He sure can draw Matt Smith pretty well and does bring out the expressions pretty well.  The Daleks and Dalek ship is drawn well also and what is important to me is the quality of art as bad art can really ruin the enjoyment of a good story and in the case of The Dalek Project the art is not a problem at all. 

The Dalek Project is a good entry to the Doctor Who original graphic novel range and even though the story is average it was enjoyable to read.  Here’s hoping they make more graphic novels for Doctor Who.
Grade B