Elrod

Elrod of Melvinbone was (or claimed to be) a wanderer, the last ruler of a dying race, a sorcerer and slayer of his kin, but there is no evidence that any of this is more than a figment of his imagination.

History

Elrod was convinced that Cerebus was a small man wearing a "bunny suit". Once he got an idea into his head, it was very difficult to shake loose.

At one point, Elrod was killed, but remained an animate spirit, able to possess living bodies as "Deadalbino". He later returned to his own body, which then returned to life.

Much of the public actually believed his claims about himself even more than he did. Lord Julius Tavers adopted him as his son, which only added to his popularity.

Later, he dressed up in a 6-foot "roach" costume and was called "Bunky Roach" for the Secret Sacred Wars by Secret Sacred Wars Roach.

He briefly served as one of the many Like-a-Looks of Lord Julius.

He reappeared in a smaller version of his earlier "roach" costume, claiming to be a new member of the Legion of Six-Foot-Telepathic-cockroaches.

When the Roach became "Swoon", he made Elrod take on the persona of "Snuff".

After having winked out of existence, Elrod was somehow restored to "reality" and had married Red Sophia and moved next door to where Joanne previously lived.

Quotes

• "Mind your manners, son! I've got a tall pointy hat! Status, boy! You can argue with me, but you can't argue with status!"
• "Ahm a story, son -- y'can't destory me . . .obliterate, that is."

Appearances

• Cerebus No. 4
• Cerebus No. 7
• Cerebus No. 12
• Cerebus No. 21 and Cerebus No. 22
• Cerebus No. 34
• Cerebus No. 38 and Cerebus No. 39
• Cerebus No. 43
• Cerebus No. 51
• Cerebus No. 86 through Cerebus No. 88
• Cerebus No. 93
• Cerebus No. 155
• Cerebus No. 159 through Cerebus No. 165
• Cerebus No. 167 through Cerebus No. 169
• Cerebus No. 179 and Cerebus No. 180
• Cerebus No. 183

Cameos & Mentions

• Cerebus No. 8
• Cerebus No. 24
• Cerebus No. 33
• Cerebus No. 35
• Cerebus No. 37
• Cerebus No. 78
• Cerebus No. 85
• Cerebus No. 138
• Cerebus No. 157
• Cerebus No. 196
• Cerebus No. 203
• Cerebus No. 217
• Cerebus No. 300

Basis

Elrod is a parody of Michael Moorcock's Elric of Melniboné. His country's name, Melvinbone, is a take-off on Elric's and Elrod's rusted black sword is based on Elric's cursed blade, Stormbringer.

His speech patterns are based on those of the Warner Brothers cartoon character Foghorn Leghorn, which were in turn based on a character named Senator Claghorn as played by Kenny Delmar on the radio show The Fred Allen Show.

His manifestation as "Deadalbino" is a parody of the DC comic book character Deadman, who is similarly able to possess living people.

In Other Media

• Necross appears in Cerebus the Radio Show.
• Necross is voiced by Michael Petranech in The Absurd, Surreal, Metaphysical and Fractured Destiny of Cerebus the Aardvark (2021).

Dave Sim on Elrod

• "To be honest, I don't even know where the connection came from. Wendy Pini's jaw hit the floor when I told her that I had never read an Elric story. "But it's perfect," she managed to insist, "the way he's always talking non-stop. It's just like Elric. You've got to read one of the stories so you know how good the parody is." That was last summer and I still haven't read an Elric story - except of course for the Roy Thomas/Barry Smith Conan issues he appeared in.

He always pops up, seemingly from nowhere, with no explanation of how he got out of the fix we left him in (Aha! You hadn't noticed had you) and an entirely new vision of the best direction for his life to take.

Characters who are based on other characters in Cerebus tend to be easiest to write. Once you catch the rhythm of their speech, you're halfway home to the kind of interaction the sells comic books."

• "You might be wondering *why* this would happen to Elrod when he got killed, but that goes back to why everyone is watching Cerebus all the time and wondering what he's up to. So that's for me to know and for you to read about. I should be getting to it around issue 175."

• "Q2: In either an early letter column or a "Swords" intro you brought up the fact that Elrod always shows up again with no explanation how he extricated himself from the impossible predicament we last saw him in was a "hint" about something important about his nature. Did you know back then they he was a manifestation of the chaos gem or were you referring to something else? (And if so, what?)

DAVE: Yes, definitely. That was what I was referring to and that was what I was trying to prepare everyone for. By i4 I was beginning to understand that if I didn't get a firm grip on all of the continuity at the beginning it was going to cause a lot of problems later on (however "later on" later on would prove to be). It was when I had Elrod give the name of his blade as a "Seersucker! That's a joke, son,but no one's going to get it for at least five thousand years!" That was just too big a break from the internal reality that I was building so I decided then and there that he had to be a rather-more-than-usually-substantial illusion."

• "...how Elrod was "poit"ed out of existence during "Reads", but showed up in the afterlife, and how that involved Joanne talking about him as her neighbor during "Guys". It goes like this: To make the "married to Jaka, living next door to Joanne" thing happen during "Minds", even to just Cerebus, "Dave" had to actually make it happen. He couldn't exactly un-make it. As such, Joanne became real, where she lived became real, and her neighbors had to be filled in to make up the fact Cerebus and Jaka didn't live there. Elrod was basically pulled back into existence to fill the gap, and as a result, he ended up married to Red Sophia (interesting observation, if only to me: Dave pronounces her name as "Sof-fi-ah" instead of "So-fee-uh"). And because of that, he was able to eventually end up in the "light". The "filling in" bit relates to how he figures God probably would have to do it, and why God doesn't do it, which relates to his view that there are no parallel realities (which he discussed during the start of "The Last Day")."