Cerebus #7: The guy in the bunny suit and the albino

This time there really is a guy in a “bunny suit” and Elrod can’t tell the difference between him and Cerebus.

Wait, did I mention why Cerebus was drugged in the last issue? I didn’t? Well, it was because this dying guy told Cerebus where this huge treasure was hidden and E’lass drugged Cerebus to get the info out of him. Yeah, that worked out well....

Cerebus heads off to the Temple of the Black Sun in search of the hidden treasure and runs into Elrod, who thinks the “Festival of the Black Sun” is a giant party. Always on top of things is ol’ Elrod. Cerebus forces Elrod to come with him for fear that if the priest discover the albino it will lead to them discovering Cerebus as well. Naturally, as Cerebus is searching for the hidden treasure, Elrod wanders off to find some treasure of his own — having completely missed the point of what Cerebus is looking for in the first place. Meanwhile a rather short priest named Mit creates a costume that looks a lot like Cerebus. There follows much humor of the mistaken-identity variety. With lots of running and punching and general confusion.

As Cerebus is trying to escape with the treasure he is wounded and knocked unconscious by a “spider-beast”. When the temple is eventually destroyed, Cerebus is thrown clear and, other than Elrod and Mit, is the only survivor. (How Elrod manages to escape from these predicaments is one of the great mysteries of Cerebus.) As Cerebus wanders away from the ruins of the temple bemoaning his fate and lost fortune, he does not realize that the chest of diamonds has landed not far behind him. I really liked the way Dave drew that last panel with the chest in the foreground and the figure of Cerebus growing smaller in the distance. Neat stuff.

This issue gives us two more hints, vague hints, to Cerebus’ nature. Back in issue #2, the succubus inhabiting the supposed Eye of Terim hunts for Cerebus’ soul and is unable to locate it. The spider-beast that captures Cerebus in this issue also hunts for his soul and is unable to locate it. Neither is able to find Cerebus’ soul, leading to their doom. Does Cerebus not have a soul? Even at this point in the story I’d have to say that we have enough evidence that the answer is no. He might be greedy, amoral, violent, self-centered, and any number of qualities that are generally frowned upon in polite society, but I see nothing to indicate that he doesn’t actually have a soul. So then is Cerebus’ soul so deeply hidden that these creatures simply couldn’t find it? Or is his soul just so different from those of men? I don’t really have a guess at this point.

We also get a little more evidence that in the dim past of this world there was some sort of aardvark or aardvark-like deity — or at least something that acted enough like a deity to convince people that it was one. There was the 15-foot-tall aardvark idol that the Pigts worshipped in issue #5. And in this issue, the diminutive priest Mit searches the Tomes of the Black Sun and finds an “obscure deity” to impersonate in his quest for more power. Hey, I never said it was a good plan.... The costume he creates looks, of course, like Cerebus. So much so that it fools Elrod. Though I don’t think it takes much to fool the ol’ albino. Mit creates the costume to match “all known descriptions of the deity” and believes that it looks enough like an aardvark to fool his fellow priests.

While I doubt that Dave Sim has everything already planned out by issue #7 — and certainly not 25 years’ worth of storytelling — I do think he’s already laying out clues for what’s to come. As Elrod might put it: foretellin’, I say, fortellin’.