The Origin of the Wolveroach

Cerebus and the Countess drag the unconscious Wolveroach upstairs and Cerebus deduces that he isn't really the Countesses uncle. One puzzling thing was the Roach's incredible weight. He had been bulky ever since his Captain Cockroach days, but that was all muscle. This time he collapses the bed when they get him onto it.

Aside from Weisshaupt and Cerebus the Countess appears to have the longest association with the Roach. Weisshaupt brought him to her after spiriting him out of Beduin as a wanted felon. The Countess became quite fond of him, which is probably when she adopted him as her 'uncle'.

It was the Countess that Weisshaupt took the Roach from and moulded him into his 'hero of the realm' Captain Cockroach. When Weisshaupt got himself into trouble and went missing the Roach lost all focus and had no idea what to do with himself.

Astoria came to the Countess and said she needed somewhere to stay. She very quickly latched onto Uncle Artemis and seemed to befriend him, what she was doing was giving him someone else to follow, another cause to use his unique abilities to further.

In his Moon Roach guise he would occasionally visit the Countess and stand outside, on the second floor window ledges. The Countess was also aware of his regular personality changes and of Astoria's relationship with Cerebus.

Somehow he managed to escape the clutches of the church when Cerebus' government fell and let the Countess know that had survived by writing to her as Father Artemis Roach. He returned to his original protectoress not long after that. I found it interesting that she referred to him as Artemis all the time. I wonder where the name came from. I don't think it's his actual name and the readers had not been made aware of the businessman's name, the one that Cerebus had first met. Possibly it was a name the Countess made up for him. In any case the Countess' story about the Roach completely invalidates Astoria's Moon Roach origin story.

At this point Cerebus and the Countess are interrupted by the arrival of Weisshaupt. He claims to have entered through the door they left open when Artemis came in. I don't know if the Countess has any retainers, but she should sack them, because they appear to just let anyone wander into the place.

Weisshaupt is his usual supercilious, scheming self. There's a mention of a Sir Gerrik, which is not expanded upon, but promises an interesting story in the future with more than a whiff of scandal about it.

Weisshaupt is at it again, trying to put together his United Feldwar States concept, he offers Cerebus the Prime Ministership of Iest again, which Cerebus refuses, even though Weisshaupt has signed agreements with Lower Felda, New Sepra, Togith, Iest and Palnu. With Lord Julius on side Weisshaupt thinks he can't possibly lose. He doesn't seem to know the wily Palnan bureaucrat very well, even when Julius says he's on your side he probably really isn't.

Weisshaupt believes that the new incarnation he's given the Bug makes him the perfect tool. The Wolveroach combines the best elements of the previous versions. He has the crazed lone wolf aspect of the original Cockroach, he's the product of a scientific breakthrough like Captain Cockroach, although like Captain Cockroach, it's a bogus breakthrough. The character that the Wolveroach was based on; X-Men's Wolverine had an unbreakable adamantium skeleton that combined with his mutant healing factor made him near unkillable. I was wondering how they'd do that in Cerebus' world and the explanation also accounted for his increased weight. Weisshaupt had given him a costume with 200 pounds of moulded lead stitched into it. He also has the deadly assassin part of the Moon Roach in him as well. Weisshaupt has informants in the government who tell the Roach who to kill, they're known as X-Persons. Initially they were to be called the X-Men, but one of them pointed out that no Cirinist would ever work for an organisation that had the word 'men' in it. The fact that if Dave had done this he would have had to contend a massive lawsuit with Marvel is not mentioned. On that point Dave was forced to pull the Wolveroach because Marvel threatened legal action on the grounds that it was too close to their character of Wolverine. They never complained about Captain Cockroach (Captain America) or the Moon Roach (Moon Knight). Dave did eventually make his peace with Marvel, but he was sure ticked off at the time. I can't say I blame him. Captain America was virtually public domain and the Moon Knight was never more than a B list hero, but parody one of their A listers and watch the legal threats fly.

Weisshaupt is ordered out of the house by Cerebus and takes his leave. It isn't mentioned and maybe it was coincidental, but there was a definite resemblance between the Countess and Weisshaupt. It then dawns on the Countess that she accidentally left 'Uncle' Artemis in the same room as her 'fiance' and that can't be a good thing. I was still struck by the speech patterns on her fiance and how he sounded so much like the McGrews. Maybe he's Onlian.

Swords of Cerebus #6: Captain Cockroach! The Death of Elrod, The Beguiling, Swamp Sounds, This Woman, This Thing

I've always thought this Swords was the best of the 6. It had more stories for a start, and there's not a dud amongst them, this is when the book really started to take shape, and pave the way for High Society.

Cerebus wakes from his drugged state, and realises that he's in Beduin. He has no idea how he got there from Togith, or how long he's been out. Two other clues tell him that he's in Beduin. The Cootie and Elrod are there! Okay, the Cootie is about a foot taller than he was before and he's got muscles on his eyebrows, plus he's wearing some outlandish costume, but it's definitely the Cootie, for some reason people are now referring to him as Captain Cockroach, and lining up to give him money for war bonds, apparently they seem to think they're at war with the Hsifans, who they disparagingly refer to as the Hsiffies. Elrod is the Roach's assistant, he's wearing a mask and he calls himself Bunky, but he's Elrod all right. Curious about what is going on, Cerebus makes his presence known to the two, and demands to be told what's happening. Captain Cockroach, an obvious parody of the WW II version of Captain America and Elrod/Bunky, so named because it sounds so much like Cap's teenage sidekick Bucky Barnes, take Cerebus to their boss; the President of Lower Felda, Weisshaupt. This is news to Cerebus, because he had been under the impression that Lower Felda was ruled by a council, not the one official. Using the Cockroach and the threat of a non existent attack by the Hsifans, Weisshaupt; a political wheeler dealer who resembles George Washington (maybe it's the wig) first built his personal fortune, and then got Lower Felda's economy back on track and made himself the President. Realising that Cerebus could be a hindrance or a help, depending on how he was treated, Weisshaupt drugged the aardvark, and sent him out on patrol with the Roach and Elrod/Bunky. They were attacked by a Hisfan assassin, because of the drug Cerebus had been given by Weisshaupt, he kept slipping in and out of a drugged state, and was unable to adequately protect the Cootie or the albino, and Elrod/Bunky was killed.

The Death of Elrod had echoes of Captain America's teenaged sidekick Bucky being killed in that title many many years ago. Dave wasn't about to get rid of one of his most popular recurring characters this early in what he had decided was going to be a 300 issue run. He used the death of Elrod to lampoon a comic book called Deadman by Neal Adams. The spirit of Elrod left the albino's bodym and took over other peoples bodies, in this case he initially moved into the body of the Hsifan assassin, and took to calling himself Deadalbino (get it!). I didn't know until I read the intro exactly what Dave was making fun of. Although he says he wasn't really a student of comics, someone who can pull something that obscure out to do a parody of couldn't be anything but a student. Once Weisshaupt found out that Elrod could move into any body he wanted at will, he saw a use for that talent. Using Elrod's somewhat unique talent, Weisshaupt could remove any opposition, and make his own political position near impregnable. Where Elrod is concerned, though, things are never that simple. For ease of transport they ordered Elrod back into his own dead body, he got stuck there and brought himself back to life, but it unravelled all of Weisshaupt's grand plans, and left both the President and Cerebus quite literally trying to outrun the authorities. Weisshaupt slipped on the snowy street, and Cerebus left him there. By this time Cerebus had learned that he had been out of it for some time, and in that period his army of T'Gitan mercenaries had attacked Palnu, been routed and destroyed by a combination of the Palnan army and hired mercenaries. So he squeezed out of the bars in a gate into Beduin, and headed off into the snow.

As the title might suggest The Beguiling is Dave's version of the Clint Eastwood film of the same name, starring Cerebus, instead of the gravelly voiced actor. In his flight from Beduin Cerebus had ripped his leg open on a jutting nail, and was dying from the wound. He was slogging through the snow, and fighting to stay conscious, he passed out in sight of a large farm house. The house was actually a private girl's school, with only 3 students, 3 very attractive girls in their late teens. They took Cerebus to their headmistress. She sees that Cerebus is completely helpless and puts him to bed, intending to nurse him back to health. Strangely enough Cerebus becomes quite protective of the girls and their headmistress, and when a mercenary scout forces his way into the house, the aardvark drags himself out of his bed to protect the girls, only to find that one of these sweet innocent young ladies had quite cold bloodedly put a crossbow bolt through the intruder. As the headmistress tends to him, Cerebus apprises her of the political and military situation in the country. The soldier will not be the last one and they will have to take steps to protect themselves if they wish to remain unmolested. Two more soldiers arrive, one who has a long standing grudge against Cerebus, as they are using Cerebus as part of their plan to kill the men and ensure that no more come their way, this is rather inconvenient. The aardvark is incredibly lucky, and the girls and their surprising old headmistress are not without resources. The soldiers end up dead, and Cerebus is allowed to continue his convalescence.

I really enjoyed the early part of Swamp Sounds. It was an amusing scene with Cerebus and the girls conversing. Dave did this sort of thing best, and Cerebus could be remarkably funny and sensitive all at the same time when he was in the mood. He managed to prevent one of the girls from making a mistake, break a crush on him and protect the dreams of one of the others, all at the same time in this touching scene. There's also an amusing take from the girls on how they see others that Cerebus has had dealings with such as Lord Julius and Elrod. Night after night Cerebus hears strange noises coming from the houses basement. Eventually he creeps from his bed to investigate the sounds, and finds that the headmistress is not actually a woman, but an old bald man, the wizard Professor Charles X Claremont. To get the joke behind the name you needed a working knowledge of early 80's comics. The Professor Charles X was obviously the leader and founder of the X-Men, Professor Charles Xavier, or as he was more commonly known, Professor X. The Claremont was the surname of the X-Men's most popular and famous author, British wonder kid Chris Claremont. Claremont and Dave were mutual admirers of each other, and that's where Professor Charles X Claremont came from. Claremont would return the favour by having the X-Men feature a large purple demon who resembled an aardvark and spoke in the 3rd person, he went by the name of S'ym. It wasn't until I started to read Cerebus that I realised where S'ym came from. Professor Claremont perfected a sorcery that can bind people together. What he does is to meld his 3 pupils together, and gets a huge shambling semblance of a female that he calls Woman Thing.

This Woman, This Thing was a parody of Marvel's Man-Thing and DC's Swamp Thing. The reason Dave made the Man-Thing a Woman-Thing was at the time Marvel was on a kick of doing female versions of their most popular male heroes, eg: Spiderwoman, She-Hulk. Besides he couldn't very well call it Man-Thing, could he? Cerebus, the Professor and his creation make their way to a nearby castle, intending to free the local villagers of the terror that inhabits the castle. This 'terror' is a crazy, trendy, incredibly wealthy artist who uses creatures such as the Professor's, as art. He has his own version, he calls it Sump Thing. The Woman-Thing and Sump Thing fight, the Professor gets involved and all 3 tumble into a bottomless pit. The artist finds it inspiring, but then realises that Cerebus' companion has been killed. Cerebus, once he sees the opportunity for some guilt money, plays it for all it's worth, and the artist loads him down with valuables to assuage his own guilty conscience. Maybe things are looking up for the aardvark.