IN THIS ONE... Sapphire and Steel must rescue a pair of children from a lost fantasy land.
REVIEW: There's no denying that Ranson has hit his peak, artistically. This foray into a Tolkienesque fantasy world is absolutely gorgeous, with interesting page layouts, bizarre animals, Time as an evil fairy, etc. The only misstep art-wise is that Sapphire and Steel don't change costumes to match their surroundings the way they usually do and look like they're out for a jog in their blue track suits.
That said, while we've had sorcerers and demons in the strip before, inventing a whole lost island that was swallowed by the North Sea in the "Dark Ages" (they really mean antediluvian times), filled with dwarves, elves, wizards and fantasy animals (vulture men, etc.), NONE OF WHICH SURVIVE ON EARTH after the island sinks... well, that's a step too far. Time of course wants to change the course of "history" so that these fantasticals continue to exist and never let primitive man - at this point, slaves of the dwarves - take over the planet. Throw in a lot of invented fantasy names and my eyes start to glaze over (the land itself, Gronandyl, isn't pulled from Scandinavian folklore are stated, so much as a homonym for a Belgian dog breed). And to further break the mold, Time manages to turn itself into a big troll so it can have a physical fight. We're way off the show here. I know the series isn't exactly hard science-fiction, but writing it as a fantasy, even if it allows Ranson to do his best work, is really kind of insane.
READABILITY: Medium - But only for the art. The story is so off-model as to only deserve a Low or Medium-Low.
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