This is an incredibly interesting set of Art Tarots.  There are only the 22 cards in the Major Arcana presented here.  The title literally refers to Martin Mystère, a comic strip character about whom I know little since it's a European series.  What the title seems to indicate is a reference to Atlantis but the theme of the deck, and the comic strip, seems to be Crop Circles as well as Atlantean concepts.  The imagery appears to be a confusing blend of modern society and people/things from Atlantis.  One who was familiar with the comic strip would be much more comfortable with this deck for obvious reasons.  A card which comes with the deck identifies the names of the comic strip characters that appear in each card, as well as the number of the series in which they appeared, giving a total cross reference for fans/collectors of the series.  It puts me in mind of the Marvel Tarot for this reason.
 
The characters on the cards are as follows:
 
0 - Il Matto (Fool) - Java
1 - Il Bagatto (Magician) -  Doctor Spektor
2 - La Papessa (Priestess) - Sara Tane
3 - L'Imperatrice (Empress) - Diana Lombard
4 - L'Imperatore (Emperor) - Martin Mystère
5 - Il Papa (Pope or Hierophant) - Kut Humi
6 - Gli Amanti (Lovers) - Angie, Dee, Kelly
7 - Il Carro (Chariot) - Mystère's World Ferrari
8 - La Giustizia (Justice) - Inspector Travis
9 - L'Eremita (Hermit) - Von Hansen
10 - Atlantide (Atlantis) - Map of Atlantis
11 - La Forza (Strength or Force) - Chris Tower
12 - L'Appeso (Hanged Man) - Mister Mind
13 - La Morte (Death) - Sergej Orloff
14 - La Temperanza (Temperance) - Mystère's Computer
15 - Il Diavolo (Devil) - Mr. Jinx
16 - La Torre (Tower) - The Destruction of Atlantis
17 - La Stella (Star) - Queen of the Gnomes
18 - La Luna (Moon) - Villainous Wolf Men
19 - Il Sole (Sun) - Merlino and Morgana
20 - Il Giudizio (Judgment) - Men in Black
21 - Il Mondo (World) - The Man-child Returns
 
On each card, the image area takes up most of the card, but at the top of the card the title appears in Italian, along with the Arabic numeral for the card itself.  Titles do appear to be traditional and have not been changed a lot to fit the theme of the comic strip; with the substitution of Atlantide for the Wheel of Fortune, they are completely unaltered.  Justice is 8 and Strength 11 according to the Marseille style.
 
Underneath each card's image is a series of black lines which at first look like a sideways I Ching hexagram; until I looked closely I assumed that's what they were.  However, upon closer examination I found that they occur in sequences of *five* lines not six as the I Ching would have.  Each sequence is made up of solid and broken lines, like one would use in writing morse code.  Only the lines appear vertically instead of horizontally, and they are stacked across to form individual characters.  I would conclude that perhaps this is supposed to represent an Atlantean system of writing.  These characters appear on all cards (differently on each one) and also in the back design.  Actually, I think they are supposed to be Atlantean numbers.  I'm looking at them in sequence and they change logically according to the number on the top of the card.  I'm no morse code expert but I'd say that they work similarly.  A person who likes breaking codes might like the challenge of puzzling this out.
 
Because this is a Majors-only Art Deck, there are no Minor Arcana, no suits, court cards or pips.  The cards themselves are slightly smaller than standard size and come in a wonderful little black plastic slide-out tray inside a fairly sturdy box made of textured cardstock.  The cards are done on a nice heavy card stock and have rounded and smoothed edges and corners.  They shuffle and handle nicely.  The back design is cool but is not reversible; it features a green abstract series of markings like crop circles and i ching lines against a pale green speckled background.  There is no little white booklet, only the card identifying the characters on the card.

I recommend this deck for anyone who collects tarots, especially if you are interested in comic book and comic strip art.  Anyone who actually knows and follows this comic strip will want this deck.  Those who like mysteries will probably love chasing down the information to figure this one out.  It's not a deck one would use for divination, and so not for a tarot beginner.  This deck is not easy to find anymore since it was basically released in Europe and so if you like it I would try a place like Alida or Il Trigono.
 
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Review Copyright 2000 by Gina M. Pace

Martin Mystère Games/Tarocchi di Atlantide by Alfredo Castelli, Giancarlo Alessandrini and Luca Poli, 1991
published by LoScarabeo, Torino, Italy