The Shooting Star
Michael Farr said that the scene introducing Calculus was "a comic tour de force" marking the start of the "rich vein of humour" that the character brought to the series. Noting that unlike "The Shooting Star", this two-book story arc contains "scarcely an allusion to occupation and war", he praised the arc's narrative as "perfectly paced, without that feeling of haste" present in some of Hergé's earlier work.