Swords of Cerebus Volume 4

Rating:
Summary: Cerebus the Aardvark first encounters...Lord Julius!
Review: Volume 4 of "The Swords of Cerebus" features issues #13-16 of "Cerebus the Aardvark." More importantly, the volume contains "The Palnu Trilogy," which is where Dave Sim finally gives up on trying to draw in the style of Barry Windsor-Smith and turns his independent comic book into more of an imitation "Conan the Barbarian" with a funny animal in the lead role. With "The Palnu Trilogy" he takes the first step in doing a political satire. In retrospect it was the introduction of the character of Lord Julius that made all the difference. Of course, the fact that Lord Julius is clear Groucho Marx (given name Julius) that made the character different in the first place. The advent of the Cockroach meant that Sims could easily do a parody of whatever costumed superhero was the flavor of the day at the drop of the hat (e.g., Moon Roach). But Lord Julius opened the doors to characters based on everybody from Mick Jagger to Oscar Wilde.

Sims only provides two sets of introductions for the stories in this volume. First there is the previously unpublished story "Magiking" which sets up issue #13, "Black Magiking." This is the grimmest "Cerebus" story to date, but also has another wacky character in Necross (remember Exidor from "Mork and Mindy"). Then there is "Silverspoon," reprinted from the "Buyer's Guide for Comic Fandom," an outright parody of Hal Foster's "Prince Valiant" Sunday comic strip. It turns out the Silverspoon is the son of Lord Julius, which leads us to "The Palnu Trilogy": issue #14 "The Walls of Palnu," #15 "A Day in the Pits," and #16 "A Night at the Masque." If those last two titles do not remind you of a pair of Marx Brothers films, then you just do not know your Marxist history and should be ashamed of yourself. But what really matters is that this is the point where Sim transforms "Cerebus" from a somewhat funny pastiche into a brilliant satire, all because of Lord Julius (and a giant snake). You can hardly believe this is the same comic book. "Cerebus" is close to the end of its 300-issue run and when we look back on these adventures "The Palnu Trilogy" is clearly where it hit the big time.