The eighteenth instalment of Doctor Who? was printed in DWM 81 with a cover date of October 1983, and comically addressed the topic of Daleks' ability to climb stairs, some years before the TV series would more seriously tackle this same topic in Remembrance of the Daleks.
Summary[]
The Fifth Doctor helps explain how Daleks can navigate stairs.
Characters[]
Worldbuilding[]
- The Doctor explains that "a lot of viewers" have wondered how the mighty Dalek race cope when comfronted with a common or garden staircase.
- The Kaled mutant exits its casing after opening its dome and carries the casing up the stairs with its hands and legs.
Notes[]
- This story marked the first appearance of a live Dalek and of the mutant within in the series after the previous issue's instalment featured an unmoving Dalek casing.
- The organic Dalek creature is drawn with three-toed, frog-like hands or feet, consistent with the webbed claw visible in The Daleks, rather than with the more familiar tentacles of later Dalek designs.
- This was not the only time that Tim Quinn and Dicky Howett tackled the question of Daleks' ability to climb stairs in a comedic, invalid context, as it was also the subject of the third and final Secrets of the Daleks comic page in The Doctor Who Fun Book.
- This was the nineteenth Doctor Who? strip drawn by Dicky Howett.
