Cerebus #56
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeCerebus #56 is the launching pad for one of the early direct-market era's most charming superhero parodies: it marks the first appearance of normalman and Captain Everything in a four-page backup titled 'Something Like an Origin,' written and drawn by Jim Valentino — a story that would spin off into Aardvark-Vanaheim's only full-color ongoing series just two months later. At the same time, the main story advances the Wolveroach sequence within the Church & State arc, with Dave Sim deepening his parody of Marvel's Wolverine mythology and revealing that the telepath Professor Charles X. Claremont (a send-up of X-Men writer Chris Claremont) is puppeting the Roach from inside his body. The issue stands as a vivid snapshot of the early independent-comics ecosystem at its most creative and cross-pollinating, with two creators sharing a single black-and-white pamphlet to launch very different satirical visions simultaneously.
In "Something Like An Origin," Jo finds himself rocketed into space by his father, who’s convinced the world is ending. He crash-lands on a planet where everyone has superpowers—except him.
ComicBooks.com Value
This exact issue on ebay
Raw / ungraded ▾ $10.99–$124 5 listings
More listings for this title
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
By late 1983, Aardvark-Vanaheim publisher Deni Loubert had begun inviting other creators to contribute backup features to Cerebus, using the book's established readership as an incubator for new titles. Jim Valentino recalled in a Diamond Dialogue interview that Loubert asked him to pitch a series after an earlier story of his had caught Dave Sim's interest, with Sim expressing some concern about the salaciousness of Valentino's prior work — so Valentino developed the safer, high-concept parody of normalman instead. The normalman backup in issue #56 was the direct result of that editorial arrangement, functioning as a preview of Aardvark-Vanaheim's forthcoming standalone normalman series, which launched in full color in January 1984. Meanwhile, the Wolveroach storyline in the main feature was already drawing attention from Marvel Comics, which would eventually send Dave Sim a cease-and-desist order over the Wolverine parody during the broader Church & State run.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover date: November 1983; publisher: Aardvark-Vanaheim; black-and-white; part of the Church & State story arc (Cerebus #52–111).
- First appearance of normalman (real name Norm-L) and Captain Everything, in the four-page backup story 'Something Like an Origin,' written and drawn by Jim Valentino — Part 1 of a two-part preview concluded in Cerebus #57.
- The backup introduces the core normalman premise: an ordinary man with no superpowers crash-lands on the planet Levram (Marvel spelled backwards), where every other inhabitant has superhuman abilities.
- Captain Everything — normalman's impossibly powerful but dimwitted ally, a composite parody of Superman and Mighty Mouse — makes his first appearance alongside normalman in this issue.
- The main story, 'The Origin of the Wolveroach Part 3 – The Mystic We,' by Dave Sim, reveals that the telepath Professor Charles X. Claremont (previously believed dead since issue #25) is inhabiting Wolveroach's body and using the Roach to manipulate Cerebus.
- Artemis Strong is the Roach's established civilian identity (created and named by Astoria in earlier issues); he appears here in his Wolveroach persona, a parody of Marvel's Wolverine.
- The normalman backup was part of Aardvark-Vanaheim's editorial strategy of running four-page preview backups in Cerebus to launch new titles; normalman went on to become the publisher's only full-color series, running 12 issues before moving to Renegade Press.
- The material from Cerebus #56–57 was reprinted in the normalman 40th Anniversary Omnibus (Image Comics, 2024), alongside the complete normalman series in full color.
Cast · 5 characters
Full credits
Reprints
Reprinted in Cerebus #57 (1983), Cerebus #3 (1987), The Complete normalman #1 (2007), normalman Fortieth Anniversary Omnibus #[nn] (2024)
Key issues in Cerebus
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.