Children of Bond - Flight 714

Flight 714 is the twenty-second and penultimate book in Hergé's much loved Tintin series of adventures and was first published in 1968. What is perhaps most extraordinary about Tintin is that he first appeared in 1929 (in Le Petit Vingtième, a children's supplement to the Belgian newspaper Le XXe Siècle) and yet Hergé was still plotting new Tintin adventures when he died in the 1980s. This enduring appeal proved beyond doubt that Tintin was an iconic and mythic character, a friend to millions of children in Europe and beyond. If you didn't grow up reading Tintin and Asterix then I can only commiserate because you missed out on an awful lot of fun. It would be no exaggeration to suggest that books like Tintin in Tibet and Explorers On the Moon are amongst the greatest graphic novels ever printed, their sense of wonder with Hergé's signature ligne claire style always evident no matter how many times you've opened those pages before.

Tintin is a reporter but we hardly ever see any evidence of this and he never seems to have to report to a boss or a place of work. The sense of freedom this gives the character (how many people in the real world can embark on exotic adventures at the drop of a hat?) is of course appealing. Tintin's main traits are his determination and sense of fairness and decency. We know he will always do the right thing and if villainy or some sort of injustice has occurred then our hero will not rest until all is right again. Tintin is also the underdog, an ordinary slight looking young man who battles criminal masterminds and dangerous organisations. He is handy in a fistfight and seems adept at flying planes and driving vehicles. He is brave, resourceful, level-headed, and thoroughly kind and decent. All in all, the perfect hero for a former boy scout like Hergé. 

Anyway, what is the plot of Flight 714? As they were the first men to step on the moon, Tintin and Captain Haddock - along with Professor Calculus and Snowy the dog - are on their way to an Astronautical Congress in Sydney which they have been invited to as honoured guests. At Jakarta's Kemayoran Airport while their plane refuels though, they bump into their old friend Piotr Skut from The Red Sea Sharks. Skut is now working as a pilot for the eccentric and notoriously grumpy millionaire Laszlo Carreidas, who famously hasn't laughed for many years. When Professor Calculus accidently accomplishes this very rare feat and makes Carreidas chuckle, the grateful millionaire offers Tintin and his friends a ride to Sydney as guests in his luxury prototype private jet.

Trouble soon looms though for our heroes when the plane is hi-jacked at gunpoint by the treacherous staff of Carreidas with the millionaire, Tintin, Captain Haddock, Calculus and Skut all becoming hostages. The plane is taken to the deserted volcanic island of Pulau-Pulau Bompa in the Celebes Sea where Rastapopoulos - Tintin's most famous old enemy - awaits. Rastapopoulos is determined to find out the number of the secret Swiss bank account held by Carreidas but the unexpected presence of Tintin and friends soon threatens to upset his plans as they all gradually begin to realise that there is something very strange indeed about this island...

As with Tintin and the Picaros, Flight 714 is another of those later Tintin books that is obviously trying to be more up to date and bring the character into the modern world. The book has a rather James Bondian plot that soon becomes very strange indeed with Erich von Däniken's (then trendy) theories obviously playing a role in the third act of the increasingly far out story. It's always interesting to read Tintin books and look at what they may have subsequently influenced and Flight 714 I suspect is a book that the writer of the film Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull owes quite a bit to. Indiana Jones meets Erich von Däniken meets James Bond would not be a million miles away from a fair description of Flight 714 at times. Another interesting parallel is with the television series Lost. In Flight 714 the characters find themselves trapped on a deserted jungle island as they battle/chase around and gradually begin to notice that there is something rather mysterious about the location. 'There's something funny about this place,' says Captain Haddock early on. 'A weird atmosphere.' He's not wrong either.

Although Flight 714 is generally very well regarded I find it slightly less satisfying than some of the other classic Tintin adventures on the whole. It's still fun but the story lacks the globe-trotting and/or European atmosphere that one associates most with Tintin - the action restricted to the jungly island with Tintin and company escaping and being chased etc around Pulau-Pulau Bompa by Rastapopoulos and his goons. Rastapopoulos is a little disappointing here and mostly played for laughs rather than shown as a particularly brilliant or menacing adversary. Rastapopoulos is the most famous of the Tintin villains (he is, one could argue, to Tintin what Blofeld is to James Bond or Moriarty is to Sherlock Holmes). Rastapopoulos was first introduced - at least in a striking visual prototype - in a Tintin in America cameo (sitting next to film star Mary Pickford) and then featured in The Cigars of the Pharaoh, The Blue Lotus, The Red Sea Sharks and Flight 714.

Flight 714 contains plenty of Hergé's trademark humour although it's more spread out here and therefore Captain Haddock gets off fairly lightly. Carreidas, Rastapopulos, Calculus and Allan - the chief crony of Rastapopulos - are all given some of the accidents and pratfalls that would usually go the long suffering Captain's way. The grumpy but noble Captain Archibald Haddock is Tintin's best friend and a constant if often reluctant companion on his adventures. Haddock usually wants nothing more than peace and quiet in the books but always finds himself dragged along on Tintin's adventures out of a sense of duty. It was the merchant marine veteran Haddock (named by Hergé after the "sad English fish") and not Tintin who ultimately came to be Hergé's avatar the most in the books.

Tintin was Hergé when the young artist and former boy scout began writing and illustrating the stories but the increasingly weary Hergé seemed to make Haddock his new alter ego as he grew older. Haddock - a drunken wreck when Tintin first met and rescued him in The Crab with the Golden Claws - injected some flawed humanity into the series to counter balance the pure idealism and straight ahead heroism of Tintin. Haddock is known for his colourful vocabulary when it comes to insults and his love of Loch Lomond brand Scotch whisky. Haddock is a courageous and decent character who is able to accept himself for what he is. One is always aware that Hergé greatly admired this. There is a great joke early on though where Haddock mistakes the disheveled Carreidas for a down and out at the airport and slips five dollars in his hat when he drops it, and the game of 'Battleships' between the Captain and Carreidas on the private jet is good fun too.

There is also a great comic passage involving Rastapopoulos where he has Carreidas injected with a truth serum to get the secret bank account number out of him - only for Carreidas to then truthfully reveal absolutely everything crooked about his life (except for the bank numbers of course!) starting with him stealing a piece of fruit back in 1910! Rastapopulos then accidently becomes injected with the truth serum himself after a struggle and the two men argue over who has been the most dishonest in their lives! 'You doctor,' says Rastapopulos to his assistant. 'I promised you forty thousand dollars to get the account number out of Carreidas. And all the time I'd made a plan to eliminate you when the job was done. The same goes for the others. The Devil himself couldn't do it better!'

There is a fair bit of action, shooting and running around in Flight 714 with the spectacular location making a nice backdrop. The drawings of the Concorde style private jet of Carreidas circling the island and trying to land on the tiny airstrip are nicely done too and we see it fly over the sails of an old ship in a great panel. It's as if Hergé knew he was coming towards the end of Tintin now and just wanted to have a big, almost cinematic adventure for the characters. The action is just on the verge of becoming a little samey and repetitive when it switches to the subterranean world of the island and takes on a more mysterious and surreal aura with telepathy and Tintin and Haddock perplexed as the secrets of Pulau-Pulau Bompa are slowly revealed. There are some lovely illustrations of stone statues, caves and volcanic eruptions in these sections. One novel thing about Flight 714 is that it is an experience that the characters - save for Snowy of course who can't speak! - have no memory of whatsoever afterwards. It is like the forgotten Tintin adventure.

Flight 714 is not really in my top tier of Tintin adventures but by most other standards this is still very entertaining and amusing stuff with lovely illustrations and the usual exciting spirit of adventure. That a layer of X-Files type mystery is thrown into the mix adds to the overall interest of the story - which occasionally veers towards being a little too straight ahead and action oriented after a great opening. A good read on the whole though, this is one of the more cinematic and famous of the Tintin stories and recommended.

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