Title: Second Empire
Fandom: Dr Who
Categories: action/adventure, humour, CGI
Length: Super!Epic (714 full-size pages)
Warnings: War story (major character deaths), no Doctor in sight

Author Website: MechMaster's Lair

Summary:
General Xenol, Commander of the Dalek First Conquest Army, has a problem. He seems to be at odds with the Emperor over the future of the Dalek race.

Review:
This is a magnificent fully-CG webcomic charting the course of a civil war between our favourite floating pepper-pots, the Daleks. It's set fairly early in the Daleks' history — there is no time travel or more than usually outrageous technology, and no sight of Time Lords or their pesky companions. There are cameos from other Dr Who aliens (remember the Mechanoids?), but all the important action takes place between the Dalek factions.

The storytelling is a little slow to start with, leaving us with a bit much time to marvel at the gorgeousness of the CG design and rendering. That's OK, though, because the artwork is gorgeous, and most pages repay a second look for the little jokes scattered through the comic. While this is a war story, it is told with great humour and many parodies throughout. The segment with the Dalek James Bond is bizarre in a good way, and the grand, climactic single combat between Xenol and the Emperor can't be seen as anything other than a lightsabre fight. For all that, you do get drawn into the characters and the storytelling, and some of the character deaths really do bring a tear to your eye.

We don't really have a length gauge for webcomics, but at over seven hundred pages I feel safe in calling this a Super!Epic. An excellent epic too, and I say that as someone who isn't particularly visual. Go. Read.

Second Empire