Asterix Marathon #25 - Asterix and the Great Divide

After the death of Rene Goscinny, Albert Uderzo tried to keep Asterix going by doing the stories as well as the illustrations. The first album of the "Solo Period" was Asterix and the Great Divide, a Romeo and Juliet allusion published in 1980.

Another Gaulish village is suffering from a leadership dispute, and a giant ditch has been dug through the centre, a then-contemporary reference to the Berlin Wall. The left side of the village is ruled by the liberal chieftain Cleverdix, while the right is ruled by the more conservative Majestix. Amongst this, there is a star-crossed romance between Cleverdix's son Histrionix and Majestix's daughter Melodrama. However, Majestix's fishy adviser Codfix proposes to form an alliance with the Romans to help Majestix conquer the village in exchange for Melodrama's hand in marriage. Melodrama informs Histrionix, who is sent to The Indomitable Village by his father to seek out Vitalstatistix. Cleverdix's old comrade agrees to send Asterix, Obelix, and Getafix to the village to protect it from the Romans and help to resolve the dispute.

Uderzo later admitted that he wasn't sure about what direction to take the series in, and had borrowed a lot of elements for this one. Histrionix and Melodrama bear an uncanny resemblance to Panacea and Tragicomix from Asterix the Legionary, while Codfix's design makes him as subtle as Grima Wormtongue in The Two Towers.

That said, Codfix's schemes offer some interesting depth to the chieftains. To broker a deal, he takes advantage of labour shortages at the nearby fortified camp by offering Cleverdix's supporters as slaves. But when the Romans arrive at the village, Majestix refuses to let his rivals be enslaved, so he and his warriors are imprisoned. This would give Cleverdix control of the whole village, but he refuses to assert this.

Our heroes go to the camp to rescue the prisoners, offering themselves as slaves. When Obelix knocks out the sentry at the gate for calling him fat, Getafix uses an elixir which heals all wounds and makes the patient forget what happened to them. But he leaves it by the gates, which allows Codfix to make use of it after the prisoners are freed, healing the injured Romans and convincing them that the Gauls made an unprovoked attack. Again, I do give credit to Codfix's scheming, but I just don't see Getafix being that absent-minded.

All in all, I did enjoy this one, but I think it gets bogged down by certain things.