Destination Moon (1953)
Destination Moon Review
Destination Moon is the 16th volume of The Adventures of Tintin comics series by Belgian cartoonist Herge. It was published in 1953 and it is a flawed, but fun installment.
Tintin and his friend Captain Haddock receive an invitation from Professor Calculus to come to Syldavia, where Calculus is working on a top-secret project in a secure government facility to plan a crewed mission to the Moon. This was the first of a two-part arc done in the vein of a couple of previous two-volume storylines. My main gripe with this comic is that, similar to ‘The Seven Crystal Balls’, it felt too much like a prelude to the main story in the second comic.
Just like the aforementioned entry, Destination Moon felt very much like a mystery story that would then lead to a larger and more interesting adventure tale. While I did hugely admire Herge’s attempt to write a realistic story about a trip to the Moon, he was ultimately too concerned with the science behind it all, leading to an overly convoluted comic that was cluttered with scientific facts.
With that being said, it still largely works because it was so darn engaging, charming and funny. The humor here was fantastic with Captain Haddock being our reliable source of jokes, but Calculus was also quite amusing this time around. This just might be his best use in the entire series as he is the one responsible for the entire trip. We also get to see him fall out with Haddock and that was very well explored.
The villains needed to have been better and the story was in desperate need of suspense, but I also liked that it was so lightweight as it led to a more effervescent read. Tintin and Snowy got some moments to shine themselves. The illustrations are stunning and the attention to detail mesmerizing with the rocket being particularly well explored. It’s a comic that stood the test of time due to very realistic scenarios and depictions of the rocket’s interiors. The cliffhanger ending was also superb.
