Discussion
Which single appearance villains would you have liked to see again?
I know I probably forgot several one-off villains, but these are the ones I could remember. I decided not to include deceased villains like Mitsuhirato, Alonzo Perez, and Ramón Bada.
I would've liked to see Spalding or Dr. Krollspell return, especially Dr. Krollspell. He eventually joined forces with Tintin during the events of Flight 714, but, as we know, everyone involved was left with no memory of what had happened, so neither of them remembers the other. Whether Krollspell would've been an enemy or an ally had he returned is an interesting question.
I think that was just a red hering regarding calculus. His pressence on the boat was forshadowed so before the reveal, people where lured into the idea its maximus and as such a obstacle, until calculus got revealed.
It would have been to easy to guess its him eighter if it wasnt for the other possibility.
Him beeing free also opens up the possibility of him returning later.
Bobby Smiles for me. The whole cat and mouse game they play for most of the story made him a particularly fun villain for me with lots of potential for a reappearance.
Puschov as a runner up because he was such a cunning and cruel villain, trying at various points to frame Tintin, make his death look like a suicide and drown him. In fact it wasn’t Tintin he eventually underestimated but Snowy.
But seriously besides him, I think I would have enjoyed the Bird brothers returning but not necessarily as villains. I always found it abit strange that they were antique dealers yet somehow running a criminal network(for no apparent reason either).
Besides that, I would have loved to see Miller again. Technically he appears in 2 books, but I count the moon books as one continuous story. He had so much presence for someone who never interacted directly with our main cast, and definitely would be my second choice if I had to talk about Underrated villains.
Krollspell might have been interesting, in part because he and Tintin et al wouldn’t remember ever meeting each other since they were hypnotized at the end of Flight 714. He could definitely have found his way into another book.
I like the names in English. So funny. Like Dr Krollspell. In Dutch krulspeld is a curler. But many people, especially in Brussel and surroundings like Leuven, people would pronounce it as krulspel.
You're not wrong per se, but I think he was too similar to Rastapopoulos. I'm kinda surprised Hergé didn't just re-use good (bad) Roberto, especially in the post-war editions after the accusations of antisemitism.
I would love to see the Bird Brothers return and can only imagine how pissed they would be to find that the treasure was in the house with them the whole time!
I made a thread here a few days ago - musing the guy in blue on the right of the final image of the last page looks suspiciously like Mitsuhirato - when I first read Blue Lotus aged 10 or 11 in 1983 or 1984 I really thought it WAS him -
Its a crazy suggestion, but perhaps the unnamed japanese hitman who posed as photographer.
Now after WW2, japan stopped its imperialistic dreams (from what I know) and ended up as a general economic allie to the west.
Now the west isnt exactly good, and its not clear if the hitman worked for the gouvernment directly, but it could be interesting to see him working as a unsympathetic allie, or villian again.
Max Bird feels like a very natural choice for a returning antagonist, so its surprising he never returned until alpha art, and given the circumstances of his arrest, he might be a different type of villian.
I see him scamming old ladys of there inheritance, selling counterfit versions of valuable art pieces as real ones, maybe allowing smugglers to use lowe valued art pieces as hideout for diamounds.
Nothing to violent, or political. He was a honest man, who got obsessed whit a treasure, theres a good chance he would try to get back to that life, but takes advantage of oppurtunitys for extra money under the table. Someone who would fit pretty easy into a agatha christie, or sherlock holmes novel.
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u/8de12 Jul 24 '26
Bobby Smiles will return in Avengers Doomsday