DALEKS – Red for Danger

DALEKS:  Red for Danger

Written by David Whittaker and Terry Nation

Illustrations by R. Jennings, J. Woods, A.B. Cornwell

First Published in The Dalek Book 1964

Main Characters:  The Daleks, Jeff and Andy Stone

Summary:

Four months after the daleks took his brother Jeff and sister Mary, Andy Stone finally gets an indication of where the Daleks might be keeping hold of Jeff.  A dying man tells him that he might be found at the dalek’s smelting works.  Andy makes his way there and manages to break in.  He finds Jeff chained up in a laboratory where he’s making an anti-rust coating for the daleks.  With Andy’s help he adds a small amount of explosive to the formula and watches as the next batch of daleks are coated with it.  As the daleks dry out, the explosive disrupts them and Jeff and Andy are able to make their escape.

Length:

Eight pages, with about a third taken up with illustrations.

Illustrations:

The first illustration shows Andy Stone breaking into the dalek smelting plant (something that doesn’t actually happen until two pages later).  The second illustration is of Andy passing by a line of jet ore-cars.  The third illustration shows Andy looking down on Jeff in the laboratory and the fourth shows the pair escaping.  The fifth illustration shows Jeff and Andy running through the forest and the final illustration shows Jeff in the laboratory, with Andy hiding under the table (from a scene about three pages previous).

Fitting In:

The plot continues the story that started in the comic strip “Invasion of the Daleks”.

Continuity:

The invasion is now well under way, with Venus totally under dalek control.  There are giant dams on the planet and at least eight major roads.

The daleks dependence on metal/static electricity is implied by the fact they’re laying metal roads all over the surface of Venus.  Daleks rust (don’t tell that to the ones patrolling underneath the Thames then).

Lead is very rare on Venus.  Night falls quickly on the planet (the times in the story are given in hours and months but it’s never stated if they’re Earth or Venus times) and the atmosphere is very moist.

The formula for Lead Azide is PbN6.

Once more the idea that daleks cannot see the colour red is called into doubt by the fact that their anti-rust coating is a dull red colour.

Locations:

Venus

Comments:

After a strong opening comic strip, the first text story in the saga is rather dull.  There’s little in the way of action, suspense or depth of plot and the daleks are presented as being rather fragile creatures (they get headaches from the explosions which are seemingly small enough to be invisible to the naked eye).  They also seem less than security conscious than usual.  Read it if you want the complete story but, if you’re only looking for the highlights, skip it.