Mezieres, J.C.; Christin, P.; Tranle, E. Valerian and Laureline: The City of Shifting Waters. Cinebook, Cantebury, Kent, 2010. Kindle AZW file.

Mezieres and Christin's Valerian and Laureline: The City of Shifting Waters, is the story of an agency charged with keeping the world safe. Set in a future time, the graphic novel follows the adventures of a hero named Valerian. Most people of this time in the metropolis city of Galaxity have plenty of leisure time. Valerian and his assistant, Laureline, spend most of their time traveling across space and time to fight villains who are not playing by the rules.

As this story picks up, Valerian and Laureline are enjoying a bit of time off, but are summoned to the Spatio-Temporal Agency headquarters. When they arrive, Valerian's boss informs them that the world's only political prisoner, Xombul, has escaped and managed to steal a ship that can travel through space and time. Valerian is horrified, knowing that it means potential disaster. For Laureline's benefit, the boss explains the history. The earth was struck by a series of cataclysmic events after a hydrogen bomb depot exploded in 1986. The resulting earthquakes, floods, and tsunamis brought about a virtual end to earth's civilization. The agency tracked Xombul to 1986 and Valerian is tasked with bringing him back to prison.

Valerian arrives in 1986 at the top of the Statue of Liberty, only to have the statue collapse before he can figure out a way down. The city is flooded and a group of gangsters picks up Valerian's unconscious body. He escapes and, realizing that the gangsters have nothing to do with Xombul, continues his search. He finds that some robots are operating from the United Nations building and elicits the gangsters' leader, Sun Tae, to help track them. They discover that Xombul is in charge of the robots, and they are forced to go to Xombul's headquarters, located in Yellowstone National Park.

They meet Xombul's only scientist, Mr. Schroeder. He is in Xombul's lab by force and helps them escape. Through a series of events, Valerian has Xombul in his custody, then loses him. By the time Valerian, Laureline, and Mr. Schroeder make their way back to the lab, Sun Rae is alone and announces that Xombul traveled to a space station, using a rocket ship that was supposed to be used by the president as an emergency escape to the satellite.

Valerian and Laureline find that Mr. Schroeder has been working on a time travel machine, though they know the first successful time travel does not happen for many years. They modify his machine and are able to travel to the space station. Valerian confronts Xombul but he boards a time travel machine of his own. That machine, however, is not configured correctly and it explodes. Valerian and Laureline return to earth with Mr. Schroeder and Sun Rae. Before they leave, they put the time machine back as they found it, knowing that humans had to follow their own path toward mastering time travel. As the story comes to a close, Valerian and Laureline are planning to take a short side trip before returning him. Dr. Schroeder is meeting with all the great minds left on earth with ideas for their next projects, and Sun Rae is meeting with gangsters and thugs, planning his next moves as well.