Preview: ‘The Legend Testers’ — Another Wonderfully Strange Bit Of Brit Comics History

by Richard Bruton

The latest in the Treasury of British Comics’ ongoing mission to bring us lost gems from the rich history of Brit comics continues with The Legend Testers, with early art from Euro comics legend Jordi Bernet.

As usual with these Treasury of British Comics reprints, we get a well-packaged moment of Brit comics history, important in that it’s one of Bernet’s first pro jobs. You may — in fact, you should, know Bernet from his work on Torpedo, where his stylised art was just a beautiful thing. Here, though, it’s very, very early in his career, his art lacking much of what would later define it, but still packed with so much of the talent he’d later display to such great effect.

There’s a moment in the intro by Bernet where he pulls back the veil on his art back in the ’60s, back before digital effects, back when it all involved very physical cutting and sticking things onto the art to get the greytone light effects he was after. It’s a truly lovely little moment that means you look at what Bernet did here in Legend Testers.

This is the complete run of the Legend Testers from Brit ’60s comic Smash! where, aside from the joy of looking at all that early Bernet artwork, you get the usual wonderfully over the top and quite ridiculous set-ups and plotting, all done at the frenetic pace that these two- and three-page strips demanded – got to get your opening, plot, and cliff-hanger into such a limited bit of panel real estate.

Anyway, it’s 3900 AD, and Rollo Stones and Danny Charters are the Legend Testers – employees of the Central Knowledge Museum, tasked with taking exhibits back through time to see if they’re genuine or not.

Now, you’d think this would be plenty to fill a strip with, right? Nope, not back in Brit comics, where a concept was only good enough if it went past merely unusual and interesting and veered off into the absolutely bizarre. So, instead of Legend Testers doing a deep dive into history, as it does in the opener, they decide just going back to look at real artefacts isn’t enough. Nope, they’re now headed back in time to investigate all the spooks and the supernatural and the out-and-out strange and start using the time machine to check out all the myths and legends of the past. Oh, this is just the sort of out-there inventiveness and just plain kooky stuff that all these Brit comics were so good at.

But anyway, this is yet another thoroughly entertaining romp of a thing. Wonderfully bizarre, super fast paced ridiculousness in the plots, with Stones and Charters investigating werewolves, the fabled elixir of life, the crown of Zeus, the crystal orb of Merlin, the King of Beasts, the legend of the Metal Men, and the Crown of the Kebi. Every one of them super fast, three pages and cliff-hanger, three pages and cliff-hanger, three pages and cliff-hanger … repeat, repeat, repeat.

Just to give you one example of the heights to which the Legend Testers would go, here’s a bit from The Crystal Orb of Merlin tale, where Stones and Charters have headed back to fabled Arthurian times, only to see the evil Black Shield get his dastardly hands on it, using it to view and then create weapons from the future. Sure, he starts small, a revolver, rifles, only to get a little more inventive, with tanks and gigantic robots. All of which arms races its way to the finale, and yes, Black Shield goes there…

Yep, as so many of the Legend Testers tales end, Stones and Charters are saved by the time machine whipping them away from disaster and certain death. But no, it doesn’t get tired, it just adds to the charm of this one.

Yes, it’s cliched, and it’s way too fast for its own good at times, and it’s basically a one-trick pony of a thing, each storyline following a very familiar pattern. But, like so much of these Treasury reprints, there’s a real charm in Legend Testers, a joy in seeing just how ridiculous things can be taken. And of course, there’s all that fantastic Bernet art to take in along the way.