Cerebus #3: A thought occurs

A thought occurred to me while reading #3. In my reviews of the first two issues I mentioned that while Cerebus was originally supposed to be a parody of sword & sorcery comics, I didn’t see many parodic elements in them. What occurred to me while reading #3 — obviously a parody of Red Sonja — was that there may have been parts of the first two that I simply didn’t “get”. I am not as familiar with the s&s genre as I am with other aspects of SF/Fantasy. So maybe some things simply went over my head. It wouldn’t be the first time. Perhaps it was in the artwork or maybe in the way Dave Sim expressed things. Or perhaps not.

On the other hand, I’m not trying to review Cerebus as a scholar or an expert on a certain genre. I’m simply a reader who enjoyed the series. And I came into the series after it had mostly moved past this phase of its run. Though, of course, there will be certain elements of parody through the series, at least as far as I read. Who knows, maybe I wasn’t the intended audience when it first started. Anyhoo, on to #3.

Aside from its parody of Red Sonja, “Song of Red Sophia” is much more comic in tone that the first two. What plot there is resolves around the wizard Henrot hiring Cerebus to torture and murder the man who “besmirched” his daughter’s honor. He demands that Cerebus take Red Sophia with him to witness the man’s torture. Much of the humor in the issue revolves around Sophia’s inane prattle and impetuousness and Cerebus’ reactions to her.

Of course, she quickly irritates Cerebus enough that he insults her and she attempts to defend her honor against him. Though she is somewhat capable with the sword, Cerebus is easily able to defeat her. This defeat causes her to declare her love and devotion to Cerebus, the one who defeated her in battle — an element from the original story, I believe. This will be important later on.

They eventually find the intended victim, Feras, who is enraptured with Sophia, and while preparing to torture him by traditional methods, Cerebus comes up with an even worse punishment — telling Sophia that it would make him very happy if she married Feras. As Cerebus tells the wizard, “if you can think of greater suffering than that, you are welcome to try them on your new son-in-law, Henrot.”

Whether or not there are things that I missed — and there may well be with Sophia’s character — I enjoyed this one a good bit. If nothing else, I could appreciate the send up of the conventions of the genre, even if I missed some of the specifics. One thing I appreciate about Cerebus is that he doesn't suffer fools gladly and he's not shy about showing his irritation. At all.

Even though it’s only the third issue, the look of Cerebus the Aardvark (as opposed to the overall look of the comic) is already evolving toward the “classic” look of the character. Which I much prefer.

Next issue: the albino that sounds like a chicken…