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Spalding was a former secretary of millionaire Laszlo Carriedas and an associate to Roberto Rastapopoulos who appears in Flight 714.

History[]

During the beginning of the adventure he is depicted in, Spalding is introduced at the airport to Tintin, Captain Haddock, and Professor Calculus by Laszlo Carriedas as his secretary and general servant. However, after they board Mr. Carriedas' private jetplane, Spalding alongside pilots of the aircraft, Paolo Colombani and Hans Boehm, betray and terrorize Mr. Carriedas and Tintin's alies onboard. It is then later revealed when they are landed on the Sondonesian island of Pulau-Pulau Bomba that Spalding is afflicted with Roberto Rastapopoulos, a long-recurring enemy of Tintin, who has intents of seizing Mr. Carriedas' wealth.

After a long string of events on the island, Spalding alongside Rastapopoulos' other associates are hypnotized and abducted by an extraterrestrial spacecraft of affliction to Mik Kanrokitoff, a Russian scientist with connections to alien life. Although Mr. Carriedas, Tintin's allies and Doctor Krollspell (a former associate of Rastapopoulos), were salvaged off and remained on Earth, it is unknown what became of the whereabouts for Spalding and the others whom were captured alongside him.

Trivia[]

  • In 1968, the year of Flight 714's release, Hergé stated in an interview with The Sunday Times that when asked about Spalding's character, he remarked him off as "An English public school man, obviously the black sheep of his family."
  • Due to his rather formal manner, posh clothing and sophisicated facial features, Captain Haddock initially mistook Spalding for Mr. Carriedas himself.
  • Though Spalding's fate is left unknown in the primary canon of the series, in Yves Rodier's version of Tintin and Alph-Art, Rastapopolous and Allan Thompson, another associate of his who was likewise abducted in Flight 714 are alive, which could likely mean Spalding is too.
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