Review by Ian Keogh
By the 40th century, technology has advanced to the point where mankind can visit the past, but only via a single time chamber maintained by the Central Knowledge Museum. They use it to ensure historical records are accurate by using artefacts to transport agents back through time to the period where the item was first used.
There’s little biographical information about writer Graham Baker, but his concept is broad enough to encompass fantasy, science-fiction and historical adventure. Recurring characters Danny Charters and Rollo Stones are bland heroic archetypes, meaning the situations they find themselves in provide the excitement, and Baker’s not short of ideas. The first mission proper is ostensibly to verify whether a skull is that of a werewolf, but the lads end up in a land so populated with mythical characters it sustains multiple two and then three page adventures. These move at a frenetic pace from trolls to vampires to a torture chamber in what must have been relatively scary stuff for the young boys of the 1960s who first read these strips.
It’s the art of Jordi Bernet contributing greatly to that, accentuating the terrors and packing them into small panels, yet unrecognisable as the art of the same man who’d later use such a reduced style on Torpedo. These panels are detail-stuffed and match the freeform ramblings of Baker’s mind. Bernet looks to be enjoying himself greatly as the threats encompass Greek myth, a giant ape, Merlin’s magic, robots and more.
The horrors of the opening story occupy the first quarter of the book, but they’re tame compared with the creativity that follows. Danny and Rollo next observe a villain called Eterno wipe out existence as it’s known, and then have to follow him and restore reality. It’s shorter, but even wilder than the opening shot, and Baker heads onward from there.
A lot of the 1960s work Rebellion reissues features art to be admired, but while the concepts are creative, it’s rare that the actual stories retain their spark. The sheer pace of The Legend Testers and some inventive twists mean this still ought to thrill younger readers.
