IN THIS ONE... A military badge resurrects a treacherous officer with the secret to a devastating weapon.
REVIEW: While the comic strip's usual tropes are present - there's a kid involved, a combination of factors brings someone back from the past who means to destroy the world, and Steel doesn't have very much to do - The Meeting Place diverges from the formula in several ways, just enough to make this a stand-out story. So there's this odd military badge that can't be identified, and a kid gives it to his psychic mom to check out, and that's enough for the Evil (Time) to release an eye patch-wearing officer who immediately runs off. Our temporal agents have to figure out who he is, and in an unusual sequence for the series (in print and on TV), they actually do research, question experts, up to and including Winston Churchill! So they even do a bit of time traveling, more than the usual one-panel-and-back. What they uncover is a military secret - a weapon so dangerous, Churchill had all materials destroyed and the two men who held the secret killed when they tried to sell it to the enemy.
Sapphire's plan takes it to the next level. Rather than allow the officer to somehow resurrect his partner, a scientist, from which point the Evil can use them to destroy the world, she proposes they seek the second man in time themselves. The time vortex - if we can call it that - is more Phantom Zone than what we see in Doctor Who, and having control of the situation, our heroes can be present when the two villains meet. Sapphire turns back time to the exact day they were mowed down by loyal British soldiers and back they go into the bowels of the forgotten past. It's cool, it's epic, it's well drawn, and it feels different enough from past stories to hope for a similar relaxation of format in future strips.
ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE VORTEX: Dark forces using World War II to set up the Apocalypse recalls Doctor Who's The Curse of Fenric, though that story won't be broadcast for another 9 years, relative to the comic. We see an actual vortex as the agents time travel.
READABILITY: Medium-High - I quite like this one!
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