All The Suns Are Daughters

George is still telling his story of creation. Honestly, I don't think he ever stopped talking. Cerebus is standing by, watching the light disappear over the horizon. I'm not sure if the aardvark ever really listened to George, most of the time he seems to watch things and try to make sense out of where he is and what he's seeing. The artwork, panels of Cerebus, intercut with panels of the light disappearing is superb and detailed.

George is now using the meeting of Tarim and Terim as a metaphor for the Big Bang. Tarim was intensely angered that Terim left and could not work out why. He had 2 denial phases, during which he absolved himself of all blame. Then he tried to destroy the light by crushing the stars, but eventually stopped and fell into a depression. He finally accepted that Terim had gone and was not coming back. Only eventually she will, and according to George that time is now, as he says 'she is coming back.'

Part of the void plans their reunion and part of the void plots his revenge. Who is on which side and will either emerge victorious?

A nice chapter, well drawn, great use of light and shade. Not a lot really happened, but it does set things up nicely for the final chapter in Church & State II.

Abhorring Vacuums

Cerebus Adventures on the moon continues.

According to George Tarim is a Void, a dark, cold presence. Terim, the female God that the Cirinists worship, the one that Cerebus doesn't believe in, well it's real, too. It's light. Light and heat and yes it is the female half of Tarim. The two exist side by side, one cannot be without the other.

This is beautifully, if sparely drawn, and marvelously described. It is the miracle of creation. Two separate entities, one male, one female joining together to create something new and exciting.

Dave copped a lot of flak throughout the series for his anti feminist attitude. I don't think any of those critics read Abhorring Vacuums. No one who hates women could write this.

Extrusion Intrusion

This chapter picks up where the last one left off, with George still talking. All those years alone on the moon seem to have made him very fond of the sound of his own voice, because he never stops talking and he doesn't really care if anybody is listening.

He believes that the answer to Cerebus' 4th question concerns the history of Suenteus Po. The one that Cerebus occasionally communicates isn't the first one. The first 2 were father and son and were apparently warlords who created an army of child soldiers that eventually conquered the lands of the Pigts. This will be connected with why they worship an aardvark, but I'm getting ahead of myself there. The curse of the rereader.

While George drones on Cerebus wanders away and the combination of being able to see the world and the fact that the gravity allows him to float impress upon him that this isn't some sort of bizarre dream (well, it could be), and that he REALLY is on the moon!

He rejoins George who has gone on to describe in great detail and length the history of Suenteus Po which seems to end with the entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem riding on a donkey. George eventually gets onto what, in his view, Tarim is. Tarim is what came before something and before something there was nothing. Tarim is the Void and the Void is Tarim.

To tell the truth I always got the impression that these chapters really had nothing to do with the continuing story in Cerebus, but were more about Dave trying to sort out issues with faith in his own head. At times Cerebus was all about Dave Sim's religious journey, which seems to have continued post the book.

The Judge

No, not the demon from Buffy Season 2, but the title of the first chapter of the 7th book of Church & State II. I said I'd try and do one Cerebus chapter a week and I'm going to try and hold to my word.

Cerebus is at long last on the moon. He jumps off the tower and crash lands on the moon. Once there he meets a large black suited balding man with a little moustache. First he tells Cerebus that with the stories about him and the fact that he's been on the moon for hundreds of thousands of years with no contact whatsoever he's rather disappointed by Cerebus' actual physical appearance. He was pulling for Weisshaupt.

He sets a few things straight right off. He's not Tarim. Exactly what he is and who he is remains unclear. He's had many names; the Man in the Moon, The Watcher (and there are some similarities between him and the Marvel comics character of that name), he's also been called George and that's what he became known to the fanbase as.

He rambles on about how he's seen the world for years upon countless years from the dinosaurs to a redwood civilization to Cerebus' here and now. He then answers Cerebus unasked questions.

1) Cerebus does not conquer the known world when he arrives back there. There's a great panel of a stricken looking Cerebus with a thought bubble containing a disintegrating map of the Aardvarkian Empire.

2) Fred, Ethel and the little fellow with the hair eventually enter Earth's gravitational field, but burn into a giant sprinkling of ash.

3) Cerebus is not in Vanaheim. He's on the moon; a nearly airless hunk of rock. George claims that Vanaheim, Heaven and Valhalla do not exist. I think at this point Dave was an atheist, he did later get faith of a sort, but when he wrote this it's pretty clear that he was an atheist.

Next will be Cerebus' 4th question and no doubt some sermonising from George, because that's what he does.