Abslom Daak

Abslom Daak was a thuggish human criminal who embarked on a crazed vendetta against the Daleks after they took the life of his only love.

Biography
In the mid-26th century, Daak was convicted of "twenty-three charges of murder, pillage, piracy, massacre and other crimes too horrible to bring to the public attention". At the close of his trial, he was given the choice between vaporisation or exile as a Dalek Killer. He chose the latter. Out of a selection of many weapons, his choice was (and continued to be) a chainsword. Daak was transported to the primitive planet Mazam in the Dalek Empire, the Humanoid rulers of which appeased the Daleks occupying their world. He destroyed a Dalek task force single-handedly and rescued the Princess Taiyin, with whom he fell in love. She decided to strike out against her masters. She was killed by a Dalek survivor that Daak had overlooked, leaving Daak grief-stricken and vowing to exterminate every Dalek in the galaxy. (COMIC: Abslom Daak... Dalek Killer)

On the planet Phaester Osiris, Daak tried, without luck, to come onto Sarah Jane Smith while she visited that world with the Fourth Doctor. (PROSE: Scarab of Death)


 * Where this fits into Daak's personal history remains unknown. However, since his crew, the Star Tigers, did not put in an appearance, this might have happened before he met them.

With Taiyin's body alongside him in cryogenic suspension (he hoped that medical technology might one day revive her) Daak joined with the Draconian Prince Salander, Vol Mercurius and an Ice Warrior, Harma, who came to travel the galaxy in a small ship known as the Kill-Wagon. (COMIC: Star Tigers) He continued to kill Daleks, often armed only with an energy pistol and his personal chainsword. Fond of the bottle, Daak, remained a tough-talking ruffian, almost psychotically eager for battle.

He met the Seventh Doctor (who had heard of Daak) on the planet Hell after the Kill-Wagon had crashed there while while investigating Dalek activity. He thought his fellow Star Tigers had died in the crash. They found the Daleks mining a deadly gas, helkogen, out of the planet, taking it up to an orbital Dalek Death Wheel to build a genocide machine. Daak sacrificed himself by flying a captured Dalek hovercraft into the Wheel's reactor core, destroying the Wheel and the Dalek's plans. (COMIC: Nemesis of the Daleks)

Daak was plucked out of time just before his moment of death by a Dalek faction led by the Supreme Dalek and used to locate and lead the Seventh Doctor into a trap. Eventually he discovered that he had been tricked, and aided the Doctor, the Doctor's companion Bernice ("Benny") Summerfield (another native of the 26th century left without parents by the Daleks) and his old allies (who he learned had survived the crash) in defeating the Daleks once more. On Spiridon, Daak attacked the "wheelchair" part of Davros with his chainsword, crippling him. With help from Benny, Daak got over his fixation with Taiyin, but then nursed a crush on Bernice. (COMIC: Emperor of the Daleks)

Daak received an invitation to come to Cheldon Bonniface for Bernice Summerfield's wedding to Jason Kane, but, perhaps fortunately for all concerned, he turned it down, stating he still hadn't killed every Dalek in the galaxy. (PROSE: Happy Endings)

Other information
When cyborg hacker Psi was attempting to protect Clara Oswald from the Teller, he ensured that it would focus on his guilt by uploading the memories of some of the worst criminals in history, one of them being Abslom Daak (who, for some reason, is represented in Psy's upload by an artist's rendering rather than a photographic image). (TV: Time Heist)

Daak's ancestor
At least one of Daak's ancestors was also a criminal and, in 2009, was found guilty by Intersol for crimes against New Devonia. (COMIC: The Crimson Hand)

Daak's clone
A cryogenically frozen Daak was revived by Ace in 2573. Ace thought of him as the only Daak and, with Benny, tried to stop him from dying because, thinking him the real, original Daak and not a clone, they knew that Daak would die on Hell. He was killed while saving Ace from the gestalt intelligence named Pool. (PROSE: Deceit)

Behind the scenes

 * The mention of Abslom Daak in Time Heist marks the first confirmed instance of a character created for the comics being mentioned in a televised story. (Although a character of similar name to Muriel Frost is referenced in TV: Aliens of London is has never been confirmed that this is the comic strip character.) Daak's image appears among a menagerie of photographs of villains from Doctor Who, The Sarah Jane Adventures and Torchwood, however Daak is represented by an artist's rendering rather than a photograph of an actor or model.
 * An unnamed Daak made a short appearance outside of the Doctor Who universe in "Oasis" written and drawn by the original Daak team, Steve Moore and Steve Dillon, which originally appeared in the British comics magazine . In the story, featuring interstellar mercenary (co-created by Steve Moore, with Alan Moore, no relation) and his travelling companion, Mysta Mystralis (or Laser Eraser) an unnamed Daak tries to hit on Axel's Mysta, whereupon, not happy with his interest, she easily bests him. (Steve and Alan Moore, had, incidentally, specifically conceived of the Warrior universe as a parallel to the Doctor Who Universe and made the Chonarchs, parallel versions to the Time Lords of part of that universe, though they never put in an appearance.)
 * 1990 saw the release of "The Theme from Abslom Daak - Dalek Killer", composed by Dominic Glynn and Martin Smith, and performed by The Slaves of Kane. It was released as part of a promotional in Doctor Who Magazine and subsequently released in various mixes on two singles.
 * A variant of Daak's statement "Whatcha gonna do now, big shot? Suck me to death?" appears in Dalek, however unlike the helpless Dalek in the comic strip, the Dalek proceeds to do just that with his manipulator arm. "I'm gonna kill every last stinking Dalek in the galaxy!" is similar to the Ninth Doctor's promise at the closing of Bad Wolf.
 * Marvel Comics collected several of the DWM comic strips into a graphic novel entitled Abslom Daak - Dalek Killer which was released in 1990.
 * Marvel tried three times to bring Abslom out of the Doctor Who universe and give him his own unrelated strip. A similar character from their Blake's 7 comic, Valkac, was to be brought into the Star Tigers (with Harma and Salander bumped off) who would then be spun off out of the Doctor Who universe; this attempt was ended by Steve Moore quitting the comic. In 1990, Marvel UK tried to start a non-Who Daak miniseries by Dan Abnett. After that, Moore wrote a proposal for a ten-issue miniseries After Daak that would attempt the same thing, with a less heavy four-issue miniseries intended to run before it; this fizzled out, partly because Marvel US wouldn't allow 10-issue minis and because they viewed Doctor Who as a dead brand. The pitch for After Daak was put online at Altered Vistas.