The Adventures of Tintin: Destination Moon - Hergé
The problem with Destination Moon is that it's really just a scene-setter for Explorers on the Moon. While the opening books of the other two double-length Tintin adventures, The Secret of the Unicorn and The Seven Crystal Balls, are essentially just the opening acts for the main adventures in their respective storylines, they each have their own strengths as standalone books and, arguably, the build-up in each even surpasses the follow-up. That certainly isn't the case with Destination Moon, which necessarily takes a rather long time to go into the preparations for Tintin and his pals making the first manned journey to the Moon.
Preparation for Destination Moon began in 1946 one must remember, and it was published fifteen years before the first moon landing, so this is quite a leap of imagination all the same. Hergé would research the subject thoroughly for all the latest post-war technical advances in nuclear technology and rocket science in order to make the adventure as realistic as possible, while still retaining the mystique and excitement of what would surely be the ultimate Tintin adventure for a journalistic investigator who has already explored much of the world – a journey into space.
While Hergé goes into the technical detail of the building of a rocket, considering in detail the requirements on board, going as far as to include a full-page blueprint of the rocket, and the technology involved in getting it off the ground, he does however try to prevent this from being too dry by mixing in the usual slapstick fooling around - The Thomsons, Haddock and Calculus all fulfilling their remit in this respect - and, of course, including some espionage elements, which if not leading to a great deal at this stage, do at least set-up well revelations in the sequel Explorers on the Moon.
As hard as Hergé tries to spice-up the story, there's no getting away from the fact that the slapstick and the science don't blend together terribly well. Some moments work however and make a memorable impression - the usually mild-mannered Calculus is revealed to have quite a temper when Haddock accuses him of "acting the goat", the Thomson's encounter with an X-ray machine leading to a hunt for a skeleton which is wonderfully laid-out, and there is some genuine tension on the spy front when a test rocket looks like falling into the hands of an unknown enemy - but the real fireworks in the story are reserved for Explorers on the Moon.
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