Audacious Tenacity Tenacious Audacity

Once Powers has told Cerebus exactly what the assassination of the Lion of Serrea means for him personally, the aardvark's megalomania immediately kicks in, and he starts planning conquest. I particularly liked his idea of implementing a draft for all able bodied men over the age of 8, the only exemption being death, and even that would have to be proven.

What snaps Cerebus out of this is the realisation that he's still holding the golden ball in his hands and he has to get that to the top of the tower, he's running out the room when there's a knock on the door.

The bulk of this chapter was Dave parodying Andy Warhol, I felt it was a wasted chapter. It's one of those occasions where Dave dropped the ball, the story made way for one of his self indulgences. I'm sure the Warhol parody seemed like a good idea at the time, but when it didn't turn out to have any legs it was too late to change it and who cared anyway? It would have made someone laugh.

Dave's Warhol is a tall, thin cadaverous, chain smoking artist with a shock of white hair, by the name of Set. He's managed by a foul mouthed, brainless thug who calls himself Bill Mox. He plans to have Set immortalise Cerebus in art. Cerebus paid neither of them any attention until they used the word 'immortalise'. In no particular order Cerebus' interests are: alcohol, sex, money, power and immortality.

Set's quirkiness, and way of working ensure that the painting will never happen, and he and Mox leave hurriedly. The slamming of the door behind them manages to dissolve the gold ball back into a pile of coins, which enrages Cerebus. At this point a furiously perspiring Powers speaks up, saying that Cerebus as the Pope has to pass judgement on the Lion of Serrea's assassin. I don't think he'd mentioned that they caught the assassin before. Julius remarks that it sounds just like his ex-wife, to which Powers whispers: "It is."

Five

Yes, that was it, five. No idea why other than it was the opening chapter of Book 5: Astoria, or Dave was just feeling a bit lazy that day.

Boobah features in the opening. He's looking for a midnight snack. His thoughts alternate between food and images of an angry Cerebus. He encounters the latter, only where his head used to be Cerebus now has a glowing ball.

While Boobah is pondering this Lord Julius enters through one of the hotel's many secret doorways, and sets up a curtain and gives Boobah a sandwich board. He intends to market Cerebus, or as Julius is now calling him: The Living Tarim, as a sideshow attraction.

Julius' idiotic, accented cousin, or was it brother? enters. He's based on Chico Marx, so he could very well be Julius' brother, but because of his imbecility Julius prefers people to think it's his cousin. The two of them discuss the finer points of using Cerebus, sorry The Living Tarim, as a moneymaking scheme, and as intended it looks like it was lifted directly from a Marx Bros movie, which it probably was.

While they're talking about this Sophia, in her all chainmail bikinied glory strides in, demanding to see Cerebus. The brothers or cousins want to charge her, but she pays them no notice and opens the curtain. She then closes it and the readers are treated to a one sided conversation with Sophia telling Cerebus off and slapping him repeatedly. The Living Tarim does not reply, probably because his head has been replaced by a glowing ball and he no longer has a mouth. A bawling Sophia leaves believing that Cerebus doesn't even care enough about her to argue with her.

Once again Julius and his brother/cousin (in that family anything is possible) are arguing about their marketing strategy, and this time are interrupted by Powers (he survived the destruction of his cathedral). The Bishop is huffing and puffing, the reason being that he's carried the albatross with him. We get our first really good look at this icon and yes it does look like a duck. I doubt the artist had ever seen an albatross. It's a well made duck and studded with expensive looking gem stones, but it is not an albatross.

Why would Powers carry it all that way? The Lion of Serrea, the head of the other church has been assassinated. The churches are reunited and Cerebus is now the one and only Pope. He was bad enough when he only had half the power, what will he be like now he has absolute power? No Weisshaupt or Thrunk in his way now. Somehow I doubt Lord Julius' bizarre method of bureaucracy can control the power hungry aardvark.

Hovering Below The Fray

Cerebus returns to his hotel to find Bran waiting for him and he was very aware that it was a fake Elf, in fact you could almost see the wires. As always Bran tells Cerebus that he is a God.

Powers is still trying to find a way around the Cerebus question, with Weisshaupt indisposed and near death Cerebus is the most powerful person in Iest and they need to find another President. Powers is the only person in Iest who can appoint a successor to Weisshaupt, but who exactly should he choose?

As Bran and Cerebus discuss the culmination of his plan to gain all the gold in Iest and Powers and his flunkey talk about the new President and how to bring Cerebus to heel Gerhard's marvelously drawn gargoyles appear at the bottom of many of the pages as a sort of harbinger of doom.

Bran takes Cerebus to the room where he has all the gold he's collected stored. Bran seems to be able to divine the history of every coin by simply looking at it. All is well until Bran tells Cerebus that one coin was struck by Tarim himself. Cerebus flings it down like it was on fire and tells Bran to leave it alone immediately.

Back in Powers quarters the first applicant for President walks in. It's Julius. Powers doesn't like him anymore than anyone else does and has no intention of giving him the job. Lord Julius probably wants the job, but acts like he doesn't and takes the opportunity to insult Powers roundly. There's a particular line where Julius credits all the insults to Powers' superior; the Lion of Serrea and finishes it off with: "You should have heard what he said about your dog." Powers' reaction is priceless. This big seemingly emotionless hard man of the church suddenly gets a stricken expression on his face and says in a small voice "Spike? Spike's a good dog." It was such a funny scene and so well done that for years a friend of mine and I only had to mention it to provoke fits of laughter.

Back in the hotel Cerebus is seriously spooked by the coin that was struck by Tarim and cannot even bring himself to pick it up.

All Lined Up

Cerebus is once again the Prime Minister of Iest, only this time he is not his own man...errr...aardvark. He's Weisshaupt's puppet, I guess you could argue he was Astoria's puppet the first time, but he had far more control of his own destiny then.

Relations between Cerebus and his mother in law have deteriorated to the point where they cannot even get through a meal without a shouting match and a food fight. This is much to Sophia's distress. The warrior woman worried about her mother dying alone and unloved (a common theme in the book) and wants to set her up with Blakely. Cerebus loathes Henrot and wouldn't even wish her on someone he dislikes as much as Blakely. Cerebus undisguised view of his mother in law as a vicious, old, fat, ugly woman upsets Sophia to the extent that she refuses to talk or have anything much to do with him, even in bed.

Cerebus is rescued from having to try and mend bridges with Sophia by being summoned to attend the pope. Pope Harmony IV to be exact. Harmony's II & III having been killed off by their successors. Once again the mysterious Lion of Serrea is mentioned, because apparently one of his representatives has to be present.

The Pope himself does not seem to be in his right mind for most of his meeting with Cerebus. Babbling incoherently about Weisshaupt and Cerebus' destiny as a priest. He also has knowledge of Lord Julius, Cirin, The Abbess, Astoria, Wenda and even Perce. Everything that is being said is dutifully written down by the Lion of Serrea's representative and the key moment is when Harmony IV says it is Cirin not Weisshaupt who will prevail. A bearded man carrying a crossbow appears and is informed by the scribe that Harmony is a Cirinist. As such he must die. The crossbowman takes aim and fires, Harmony dies with Cerebus standing beside his throne.

The large picture of Cerebus wide eyes with the sound THUNK and blood splattered across the HU & N is brilliant work and tells the reader the story without having to show what really happened.

The second last page sees, for me, the welcome return of the Elf. She greets Cerebus when he returns and breathlessly asks incessant questions about what the Pope is right. An angry and stunned Cerebus walks past her without answering and enters his bedroom. Sophia inquires as to whether Cerebus wants to make up and he angrily replies No.

To welcome readers back to Iest and The Regency Dave decorated the border of every page with a regency style wallpaper design. You don't pick up on this until a second read, but it puts the reader back in the setting immediately and is a very effective technique. This was yet another reason why Cerebus had to be an independent publication, back in the 80's it simply wouldn't have survived as a mass market publication.