The Adventures of Tintin: Prisoners of the Sun

Prisoners of the Sun picks up where The Seven Crystal Balls left off. Professor Calculus was kidnapped by members of an ancient Peruvian cult. Dressed in ceremonial garb, the cultists were recovering artifacts that an expedition team had removed from a sacred temple in Peru. Along the way, they find Calculus committing a blasphemy by wearing a consecrated bracelet the professor found. Kidnapping the professor, the worshipers head back to Peru, where they will ceremonially kill Calculus for his sacrilege. 

On their tail is Tintin, his faithful pup Snowy, Captain Haddock and the bumbling detectives Thomson and Thompson. Upon setting foot on South American soil, the rescuers are immediately on their own. But when Tintin defends a young boy being harassed by a pair of rough looking tourists, the young reporter makes a new friend who just happens to know the location of Professor Calculus' prison: the Temple of the Sun!

When I reviewed the previous book, I commented how Herge added all this extra stuff that unnecessarily stretched out The Seven Crystal Balls into a two-parter. Though I wanted to read the rest of the Tintin books, I was afraid that despite the variety of locales, each book was going to be a carbon copy of the previous edition. Prisoners of the Sun eased those fears. 

A trek through the Andes. Misadventure with astronomy. A mysterious plague. Mummified Peruvians. What more could you ask for?! Yes, Thomson and Thompson are the comic relief as usual. But they manage to up their buffoonery game each book. The absent-minded nature of Professor Calculus can get really annoying (Just ask Capt. Haddock.) But at least he's only in this thing for a few pages. 

Another fun adventure. Thrilling. A good length with a new character that I hope makes a return!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.

The Adventures of Tintin: The Seven Crystal Balls

Members of an expedition to Peru and Bolivia are falling ill from a mysterious malady. One by one, the men have contracted a sleeping sickness. Even more odd is that every day at the same time, those slumbering patients cry out in agony and then resume their sleeps.

Meanwhile, Captain Haddock is having trouble adjusting to his new found wealth and fame. The absent minded Professor Calculus has settled in at Haddock's lonesome estate, conducting experiments. But otherwise, the two gentlemen keep to themselves.

As more members of the South American expedition succumb to the sleeping sickness, Detectives Thompson and Thomson recruit Tintin to help investigate the mystery. There's a lone clue found at each of the victims' places of residence: broken glass. As Calculus knows the last remaining member of the team to stay clear of this sickness, the professor is tasked with introducing everyone and establishing a guard around the final survivor. Haddock comes along to provide added protection.

One night, the mystery deepens when an intruder dressed as a Peruvian native holding a glass orb, terrorizes the house. A series of hi-jinks ensues and the final explorer succumbs to the sleeping sickness when the invader smashes the crystal ball releasing a strange knockout gas. Meanwhile, a member of the team has gone missing and their disappearance will see Tintin and crew heading to Peru!

The Seven Crystal Balls was another Herge triumph. However, I felt like instead of this book ending with a cliffhanger, Herge could have cut a couple of superfluous scenes and completed everything in one nice package. Take out the scene at the opera. Eliminate all the slapstick at the mansion with the intruder. Just have him knock-out the last member of the expedition and let that be that. Plus, when the teammate of Tintin gets kidnapped, instead of throwing some red herrings at us, just have Tintin and company head over to Peru and go from there. 

So this is a good story. It's just excessive. 

Herge wrote 24 total Tintin adventures. And thanks to this one and Red Rackham's Treasure, the previous tale, I do very much want to read them. I just hope that there's not too much of a  formulaic plot to the point that each book is a direct copy of the ones before. That kind of thing could get boring real quick. 

I guess I'll just have to keep reading to find out. 

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.

The Adventures of Tintin: Red Rackham's Treasure (2023 Comic Book & Graphic Novel Reading Challenge)

Many of the intrepid boy reporter Tintin's adventures have colorful names. The Blue Lotus. The Black Island. The Crab with the Golden Claws. In Red Rackham's Treasure, Tintin and his sea faring friend, Captain Haddock search for the missing treasure of the notorious pirate, Red Rackham.

Spinning off of Tintin's previous adventure, The Secret of the Unicorn, Tintin finds the treasure map of Sir Francis Haddock. An ancestor of Captain Haddock, Sir Francis was responsible for ending the career of Red Rackham, after the raider plundered his stores of treasure. However, Sir Francis' ship, the Unicorn was sunk during the battle with Rackham, sending the booty down to Davy Jones' locker. Consequently the nobleman was the Unicorn's only survivor, marooned for about two years on a nearby island.

Tintin, his faithful dog Snowy and Captain Haddock are assisted in their search for buried or sunken treasure by those bumbling but brave detective twins, Thomson and Thompson, as well as the hard of hearing scientist, Professor Cuthbert Calculus. 

Many readers mistakenly believe that Thompson and Thomson are twin brothers. This mostly due to how nearly identical the two detectives look and their strange way of repeating each other's sentences. Having an 80's British pop band be named Thompson Twins after the duo probably didn't help confusion matters any either. Tintin creator Herge, based the two on his real life father and uncle, who were identical twins that wore matching bowlers and walking canes throughout adulthood. In the original French translation of Tintin, the pair are known as Dupont and Dupond.

Red Rackham's Treasure marks the first appearance of Professor Cuthbert Calculus. Based on the Swiss scientist Auguste Picard, Calculus is as brilliant a developer but a lot more prone to accidents. Picard made record breaking hydrogen balloon flights in an experimental bathyscaphe. Professor Calculus' prototype underwater shark sub gets stuck in a field of seaweed. Calculus' hearing troubles are points of levity in the Tintin series, much to the annoyance of Captain Haddock. But thanks to the relentless persistence of Calculus, events of this graphic novel benefit Haddock greatly in the end.

As for Red Rackham, why was he given that nickname? The pirates real first name was John. He did not have red hair nor a ruddy complexion. Rackham earned his nickname from the dashing red cape that enrobed his neck and the massive scarlet plume atop his cavalier headwear.

Completing this review completes Task #21 (Has a Color in the Title) of the 2023 Comic Book and Graphic Novel Reading Challenge.