Year: 1951

Important Characters: Tintin, Snowy, Captain Haddock, The Thompsons, Professor Calculus, Colonel Jorgens, Frank Woolf

French Title: On a Marché sur la Lune

The second part of the moon adventure was a chance for Hergé to work free from the constraints of science. Apart from fundamental facts such as gravity, which he uses to comical effect in many sections of the story, nothing was known about the moon or manned space flight, so he was free to use his inventive qualities. He does not become too fantastic however. The strangest thing Tintin finds on the moon is water. In fact, at one point he relies on something from a previous adventure (The Thompsons' hair sickness) for diversions from the storyline.

Hergé plays with the concept of gravity to great effect. For example, the moments where Haddock sees his whisky turn into a floating ball and where he leaves the ship and almost becomes a satellite of Adonis. These are some of the sections that were influenced by Heuvelman's first version of the story.

The underlying hints of espionage in the adventure are finally realised on page 39 of Explorers on the Moon. This is when Colonel Jorgens appears and the treachery of Wolff the engineer is revealed. Wolff is probably Hergé's most ambiguous characters. He is more a victim than a villain, forced into his actions by his weakness for gambling. He is a tortured character more in tune with the creations of Graham Greene than Hergé. Wolff is an example of how the world of Hergé is a lot less black and white than some may think. The letter which Wolff leaves behind on the rocket before disappearing into space would always leave Hergé unsatisfied. His comments on the circumstances surrounding the message give a good idea of the pressures the 1950's strip cartoonist was under:

`In his letter of farewell Wolff wrote: "Perhaps by some miracle I shall escape too...." This was the result of the intervention of a number of thinking people who were troubled by the fact that there was a suicide involved. But not at all, I replied, it's a sacrifice! The soldier who blows himself up with the bridge, will the church refuse him a place in heaven? But I had to get out of this impasse and I finished by giving in and adding this stupid sentence about a miracle. No miracle was possible; Wolff was condemned and he knew it better than anyone.'

Whatever the quality and ingenuity of the story, Destination Moon and Explorers on the Moon have not got the bite of most of the other adventures. This is a natural result of the scientific constraints placed upon the author. The next adventure brought Tintin back to more down-to-earth adventures.