A Hero is Nothing Without Enemies

In 23 books, Tintin, confounded criminals, stopped invasions and foiled dastardly plans. Some of his many enemies appeared time and time again including his arch-nemesis, Roberto Rastapopoulos, a Greek American business man with fingers in lots of illegal activities. In Cigars of the Pharaohs and The Blue Lotus he is the head of an opium smuggling ring. In the Red Sea Sharks he is a slave trader and a kidnapper in Flight 714. Needless to say, Tintin gets the upper hand but Rastapopoulos always escapes in the end.

Sometimes Tintin’s enemies are entire countries. Borduria, a fiction country originally model on Nazi Germany later became took on the mantle of the typical cold war Eastern Bloc country. After defeating their plot to invade Syldavia in King Ottokar’s Sceptre, Tintin once again confounds them in the Calculus affair and in the two moon books. Indirectly Tintin beats them once again in Tintin and the Picaros as the Bordurian government supported coup leader, General Tapioca.

Another of Tintin’s reoccurring enemies is Doctor J. W. Müller. Tintin first broke up his counterfeiting ring in The Black Island. Later he reappeared in Land of Black Gold as an agent provocateur before finally appearing in The Red Sea Sharks as a mercenary involved with Rastapopoulos. Müller may of been based on Georg Bell, a British adventure who supported the Nazi’s until the early 1930’s and was subsequently murdered by them.

Read the complete adventures of Tintin available from the Tintin Movie Store and see where Tintin’s adventures took place on the Tintin Map.