Atlantis Mystery, is the fourth story and seventh volume of the series, and was published between October 1955 and Decembre 1956 in the Journal de Tintin before being published as a full story in April 1957.
While enjoying some holidays on the island of Sao Miguel, Mortimer makes an amzaing discovery that prompts him to ask Blake to join him. Mortimer suspects he is being watched and rightly so, as his car is sabotaged to delay him and Blake while a burglar attemps to steal the professor's discovery. The theft is prevented by a alien-like individual.
Blake and Mortimer then decide to go back to the site where the item - a chunk of an unknown radioactive metal - was found and bring more samples back. Their old enemy Olrik, mandated by a anonymous country, follows them in their exploration of the island's underground world. The three men are lost when a volcanic phenomenon cuts all contact with the surface. Wandering in the caves, Blake and Mortimer discover a whole mine of the metal, but soon fell victims to its radiation.
When they wake up, they found themselves in a strange, secret world: Atlantis.
The album was adapted into a two-parter episode in the 1997 animated series.
Tropes in this album:
- Bittersweet Ending: Atlantis is destroyed for good and the surviving inhabitants are forced to leave Earth, but they are now on their way to a new world where they will be able to live freely under the sun.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: thanks to the artillery being sabotaged by Magon's supporters, the invasion of Poseidopolis, the capital of Atlantis, becomes awfully one-sided, until the attackers manage to take the king's palace itself.
- Equal-Opportunity Evil: King Tlalak has no problem hiring foreign mercenaries or allying with Atlanteans defectors as long as it guarantees his victory over the empire.
- Evil Chancellor: Rather, evil Head of State Security. Magon is ideally placed to deflect any attempt to discover the plot he is leading against the basileus and Atlantis as a whole.
- Good Is Not Soft: Icarus is a honest and friendly man but he will not hesitate getting his hands dirty and shooting enemies to protect his country. When the dam protecting Atlantis from the ocean is destroyed, he leaves the defeated traitors to drown.
- Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: If Olrik had not sent Kisin and his brother to search for his enemies in the carnivorous forest, causing the latter's death, Icarus and Mortimer would have never gotten an opportunity to outrun the invading army and arrive in the capital right on time.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something:
- Unlike his uncle the basileus, Prince Icarus is very proactive regarding the defence of Atlantis and goes to investigate the minute he sniffs a plot against the empire, fighting along with Blake and Mortimer against traitors and their invading allies, at great risk for himself.
- On the villains' side, King Tlalak does not merely sits on his throne, he leads his men in battle and does not abandon them in defeat.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: We will never know what became of Mortimer's guide Pepe. Hopefully he was not killed by Olrik's accomplice after the latter's disappearance.
