IN THIS ONE... A Napoleonic soldier takes a boy back in time to create a parallel history where France conquered Britain.
REVIEW: I really like the visuals in this one, with 170 years ago done in sepia tones, sometimes even eschewing inking in favor of colored pencils, but Ransom's photo reference shows its limits. It's the third story, and the leads are still dressed like they were in their first serial, so he seems to have had pictures from that story an no other. Further, when Lead shows up in extremis to turn anachronistic soldiers into lead figurines, he looks more like O.J. Simpson than he does Val Pringle. Still, the mix of past and present, and Ranson's illustrative choices, help make this a superlative strip to at least LOOK at. Now if only the French soldiers' dialog made sense to a native French reader...
The story is actually too intriguing for its short length. In the world of Sapphire & Steel, Time is evil and uses what it can - history, moments, charged relics - to try and screw with the order the agents evidently need to protect (it's all quite mysterious, isn't it?). In this episode, it's not so much that the Napoleonic-era soldiers are people from the past, but rather their images co-opted by Time/Evil. They try to make the young boy who "opened the gateway" (by finding an old anchor) change the original history so that the French spy can change the outcome of Napoleon's campaign. Had this been a full S&S serial, we could have better explored the lighthouse in the middle of a field of reclaimed land, the alternate reality Sapphire glimpses, and given Lead a lot more to do. As it is, it really is just glimpses and deus ex machinae. But the fact that I wanted more is a sort of success.
ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE VORTEX: Did the Master get his idea for the tissue compression eliminator from Lead, or vice-versa? Soldiers from the past coming out of the sea vaguely evokes The Curse of Fenric, but only vaguely.
READABILITY: Medium - Great ideas only marginally let down by the format.
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