It's been a joy looking at the 'Asterix' series from a nostalgic standpoint, reacquainting myself with old favourites I haven't read in far too long. This one, however, I don't remember reading at all. I believe it's new to me and I've been seriously missing out because it's up there with the very best of the series. That's all down to the Roman agent of the title, Tortuous Convolvulus, who's sent by Julius Caesar to sow division in that famous village of indomitable Gauls who fear only the sky falling on their heads.

We know that it's famous not just because this is the fifteenth adventure that René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo have set there, but because Senator Stradivarius brings it up in the Senate in Rome as an example of how Caesar fails to even keep the Pax Romana in countries that he's already conquered. Yet here he is again asking for more money for new campaigns. "There's a little village up there in Gaul. It defies our occupying forces and refuses to obey our laws!" It's all a clever attempt at revenge after Caesar cut the Senate's power. Suddenly this is topical.

So Caesar asks his colleagues for ideas. He knows brute force won't work and he can't buy them off with a bribe. However, stirring up discord in that pesky little village might work and there's a perfect candidate. Dissent follows Convolvulus everywhere he goes and it's almost instant. In fact, when the tenants in an insula, or block of flats, got him thrown into prison to be eaten by a pride of hungry lions, he managed to spread dissent to them and they ate each other. So Caesar brings him in and his guards start to bicker at each other. And his colleagues. When he realises that he's joining in, he knows he has the right man for the job.

So off he goes with freedom and fortune awaiting him. Of course, he causes arguments on the boat west within the crew, then the galley slaves. By the time the pirates inevitably show up to raid them, they find themselves too busy chopping down their own mast to get at the lookout to do anything about them. So Convolvulus starts on them too and they sink themselves. He's an utter professional. You can imagine what he'll do to our favourite Gauls, who are peaceful as we start out. Even Cacofonix has lost his voice and that makes everyone happy!

Well, you won't have to imagine for long, because he gets right to it. He introduces himself to Felix Platypus, in command of the Roman camp at Aquarium, then takes a large vase that the centurion obtained on one of his campaigns to give to "the most important man in the village". Everyone there believes that to be the chief, Vitalstatistix, who's even about to celebrate his birthday, but he gives it to Asterix instead and leaves. So the bickering begins, starting in the chief's hut, where his wife Impedimenta gets a neat meta moment. "Well, let me tell you that if anyone should ever be fool enough to write the story of our village, they won't be calling it 'The Adventures of Vitalstatistix the Gaul!!!"

It might be a little sexist but the women spread the discord first, through Impedimenta's wish to jump the line at Unhygienix's fish shop on account of being the wife of the chief, which turns quickly into a catfight with plenty of fish used as weapons. However the men get into it quickly enough too, especially once the ridiculous suggestion that Asterix has sold their magic potion to the Romans takes hold. So there are brawls everywhere and Convolvulus is totally in charge, both in Aquarium and in the little Gaulish village.

I won't delve any further into the plot, because you deserve to experience that for yourself, but I will say that it isn't only the Gauls who start to believe that treachery is afoot. It's the Romans too, who overhear Geriatrix and Fulliautomatix talking about it and suddenly believe that they have the magic potion too, even though they've never actually been given any, which, naturally, spurs even more discord. They're all Imperial Stormtrooper level of stupid too, of course, which means that they can't keep up with Convolvulus's manipulations, even when Homunculus fake punches out Magnumopus.

It's all a demonstration of how masterful Convolvulus is. Of course, he's the bad guy here, so we have no sympathy for him whatsoever, whatever his comeuppance ends up being and how it hits him, but he's a damn good bad guy. That thought brought me to the realisation that there are precious few real bad guys anywhere in this series. Of course, the heroes are the Gauls and, by extrapolation, that makes the bad guys the Romans, but they're token bad guys. They're never in any position to win and that Imperial Stormtrooper comparison is fair on a number of fronts.

The thing is that, however many 'Star Wars' movies we see, we never hate any of the Imperial Stormtroopers. They're just grunts following orders incredibly poorly. They're cartoon stooges. We're supposed to reserve our hate for Darth Vader, because he's the face of evil, behind that mask, at least. Maybe we save some for his boss, the Emperor. These are real bad guys, people who need to be specifically taken out for peace to return to the galaxy. Here, their equivalent is Julius Caesar and we never see him as a real bad guy. He's kind of a good guy too, just on the other side. See the "What have the Romans ever done for us?" scene from 'Life of Brian'.

This book reminds us that real bad guys can be a heck of a lot of fun and Convolvulus has to be the best in the series thus far. He doesn't just stir up the village and the camp and everywhere else he ends up, he stirs up the series and it's better for his presence. Now, he's also a one trick pony, so it wouldn't do to keep bringing him back over and over, but he works that one trick on everybody in this book and it's glorious. Even the punny names take a back seat, which reminds me that I haven't called out Aberdeenangus and Giantortus, members of the crew of the ship that brought Convolvulus to Gaul.

The only other note I should mention is that Convolvulus's shenanigans lead to the Battle of the Village, with everybody getting involved—the Gauls, of course, but also all four Roman camps in the area and even the pirates, just for good measure. And, to mark how important this is, it warrants Albert Uderzo drawing it on a double page spread to map out the action. Of course, it doesn't hurt that René Goscinny gets in on the act, too, with a hilarious legend to explain what's going on. It's not hard to imagine this as ten minutes of action in a movie distilled down into an oversize map.

And so this is one of the best books in the series thus far, all the way to the end. And maybe we shouldn't be too hard on everyone for falling for Convolvulus's intrigue. "They're only human," says Getafix. "These humans are crazy!" replies Obelix. ~~ Hal C F Astell

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