To The Last Page

The one with the mummy There's the temptation to regard the first parts of all the Tintin two-part adventures as lesser scene-setting setting works for the main course ( Destination Moon surpassed by the exploits of Explorers on the Moon , The Secret of the Unicorn establishing the adventure in Red Rackham's Treasure , and here with The Seven Crystal Balls clearly being "eclipsed" by the Inca adventures of Prisoners of the Sun . In many ways however there is just as much if not more interest in the earlier parts of these stories, which tend to have a rather more serious tone than is usual in Tintin books whereas their second-halves fall back on the usual exotic adventuring. This is particularly the case with The Seven Crystal Balls . On the surface, it would seem to be little more than a mature version of the Egyptological themes of one of Hergé's earliest (and consequently most underrated) solo adventures, the hugely entertaining Cigars of the Pharaoh . Once a...