15. Land of Black Gold (1948–1950)
Land of Black Gold (French: Tintin au pays de l'or noir) is the fifteenth of The Adventures of Tintin.
It
was first published in Le Petit Vingtième from 1939 to 1940, but ended
in mid-adventure. It was later redrawn, colourised and published in
Tintin magazine and in book form from 1948 to 1950. Both these versions
were set in British Mandate of Palestine. In 1972 parts of the story
were again redrawn in order to set it in the fictional state of Khemed.
The
world is on the verge of war when car engines begin exploding all over
the world. The root cause appears to be tampered fuel supplies.
Following different leads, Tintin and Thomson and Thompson set off for
Khemed (a fictional country in the Middle East) on board a petrol
tanker. Upon arrival, the three are arrested by the authorities under
various charges. The Thompsons are cleared and released, but Tintin is
kidnapped by Arab insurgents (in the original release he was kidnapped
by Jewish terrorists and then by Arabs).
In
the course of his adventures, Tintin comes across an old enemy, Dr.
J.W. Müller (see The Black Island for back story). He also meets his old
friend Senhor Oliveira da Figueira. When the local Emir Ben Kalish Ezab's
young son is kidnapped, Tintin suspects that Müller is responsible. He
goes after Müller and in the process discovers that the doctor was the
agent of a foreign power responsible for the tampering of the fuel
supplies.
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