Cerebus #9: Don’t drink the water

I’m really not sure how I feel about the ending to this one. The ending is either terribly ironic or just plain terrible. What bothered me most about it was that it was just too deus-ex-machina for my tastes. If the main character has to suffer an awful loss, I prefer it come about as a result of the character’s actions rather than apparent authorial fiat.

This issue opens with Cerebus leading his Conniptin troops toward the city of Imesh, where Cerebus had spent much of his youth. Finding the entrance sealed and growing sick of the Conniptins’ unbridled, and unwarranted, enthusiasm, Cerebus scales the city walls by himself. The Conniptins, meanwhile, wander off in search of food and water. This will be important later and part of my displeasure at the ending. Cerebus tops the wall to find a much-changed city. The central area has been cleared of buildings and a massive stone altar is being built in their place.

The city has been taken over by K’Cor, a madman who drugged and enslaved the populace and ordered the building of the altar to defend the “Earth against the secret invasion of the Venusians.” This is, I believe, the first true indication that Cerebus’ world is our world. There will be more evidence of this in future issues, including one of my favorite sequences in all of Cerebus. The more I read and think about Cerebus the more I remember and the more “favorite” moments I think of.

K’Cor challenges Cerebus, promising him that if he meets all challenges and defeats his champion, Cerebus can have K’Cor’s slaves. If Cerebus is defeated, his Conniptin warriors will become slaves of K’Cor. Cerebus is eventually able to overcome these challenges and just as he thinks he’s defeated the champion, he finds that he has to battle K’Cor as well.

Though Cerebus is exhausted — and still suffering from the wound he received in issue #7 — he begins to fight the king. As his strength wanes and defeat seems imminent, “an immense rage boils up inside of Cerebus.” As Cerebus gains the upper hand, he begins to dream of leading his army of Conniptin “cheerleaders” and Imeshian slaves to victory and of a new “golden age of warriors” with Cerebus as their leader. He envisions a new world with “endless pillaging, drinking, and fighting in the name of Cerebus the King.” But just as his victory is at hand, K’Cor suddenly drops his sword and starts to walk off. He simply announces, almost as an aside, that he’d poisoned the wells in the area and that Cerebus’ men are all dead.

And that’s what bugs me most about the ending. Cerebus is defeated even though he did nothing to lead to his defeat. His army is gone through no fault of his own, not even facing defeat at the hands of the enemy. Just by an “oh, by the way” comment from a lunatic that comes out of nowhere — no foreshadowing, no preparation anywhere in the story. Cerebus’ actions don’t even qualify as “negligent homicide,” as they say on Law & Order. All of sudden K’Cor says something and the Conniptins are simply gone. While I appreciate the irony of Cerebus losing the army after coming to desire them, I just wish he had lost them through some action of his own.

As ambivalent as I am about the ending, I do appreciate the forlorn dejection of the last panel. Cerebus’ “rage and frustration erupts in a protracted, piercing cry...echoing and re-echoing in upon itself...stabbing out into the city where powdery snow swirls between the buildings...but the Imeshites, engrossed in their daily chores, hear nothing.” That’s just good writing. A wonderfully melancholic ending.