About: the special executive! (feature)

about: the special executive! was an article by Alan Moore in issue 5 of The Daredevils discussing the creative history of the Special Executive. It was accompanied by a pin-up of the Special Executive by Alan Davis.

Summary
Moore starts the article with the admission that, as a former comic fan, he harbours a "secret and unhealthy passion for continuity between seemingly unrelated stories" which influenced his work in the pages of Doctor Who Magazine.

Following the writing of Star Death, Moore began thinking about the complications of time travel warfare, coming to the conclusion that a group of specialists would be needed to understand the twists and turns of a time war. These musing lead to 4-D War, which introduces the "manimal" Wardog and his Executive and kills off member Viridian in two panels of her introduction! The next story, Black Sun Rising introduces Cobweb and Zeitgeist, as well as Millenium (who swiftly dies). Black Sun Rising was originally to be drawn by Steve Dillon, and so Dillon did the character designs for the new Executive members.

As Moore didn't write another story for Doctor Who, "the Special Executive were seeming cut down in their prime before [he] could explain who they were, how many there were of them, how their odd time-based powers functioned, or any of the rest of the material [he] had planned." Now, a few years later, Moore has convinced his editors to let him bring back the Executive and explore members such as Fascination and Legion who had been previously unseen.