In the nineteenth of the English language series of the Adventures of Blake and Mortimer, the adventures are all Mortimer’s. Blake makes only two short appearances at the beginning and end of the tale.

Receiving a posthumous inheritance from a former foe, Professor Mortimer recklessly dashes off to investigate. What he finds is a secret laboratory hidden near the ruins of a medieval castle. And sitting in the middle of the abandoned lab is a time machine with prerecorded operating instructions. Curiosity gets the best of him, and he tries it out landing himself back in the age of dinosaurs. Where he soon finds himself being attacked by them. Narrowly escaping this peril, he jumps back into the “chronoscape” and jumps forward to the 14th century, where he enables the escape of a fair damsel in distress before jumping forward into the 50th century where his appearance sparks a revolt against a tyrannical authoritarian world government that maintains rigid control over the Earth’s population using mind control. Needless to say, our hero saves the day before returning to the present with an explosive “BROOM” sound effect. Then what happened to him is, of course, covered up by the British and French governments.

M. Jacob’s line much like that of his fellow countryman Hergé, with whom he worked, has the same ligne claire illustration style. His crisp cartoons are accompanied by extensive expository text at the top of all of his panels. The result is a delightfully melodramatic science fiction adventure about a diabolical time trap with a high word count. ( )