The Falling Sky (
Le Ciel lui tombe sur la tête) is the 33rd
Asterix adventure, where Disney cartoon and American comic book-inspired aliens and their yellow beetle-like nemesis race start showing up around the village.
Tropes:
- Aliens Are Bastards: The Nagma are evil aliens who put people in a rigid stasis and abduct Getafix.
- Alien Invasion: Yes, you read it right. One race is made of Mocky Mouses and superheroes, the other is a race of beetle-like Yellow Peril aliens.
- All Anime Is Naughty Tentacles: Uderzo evidently believed this, hence why he made the evil Nagma animesque Yellow Peril creatures.
- Book Ends: The album's cover is a mirror image of that of Asterix the Gaul. Uderzo claimed this was unintentional, and it was never his intention that it would be the last album, although in the event it was the last one he would fully write and illustrate.
- Comic-Book Fantasy Casting: The Superman expy's face is modelled after Arnold Schwarzenegger.
- Covers Always Lie: The cover shows Asterix punching a lightning bolt for some reason. This does not happen at any point in the story.
- Every Episode Ending: Subverted; this time Cacofonix gets to sit at the banquet table while Fulliautomatix and Unhygenix are tied up, due to the villagers mistakenly believing that the latter two burned down Cacofonix’s hut (which was actually incinerated by the Nagma ship when it landed, though nobody remembers thanks to Toon using an amnesia ray on the village).
- Mocky Mouse: Tadsilweny's Inkblot Cartoon Style design, large eyes, gloved hands, and (smaller) ears are all shared by Mickey, not to mention his name being an anagram of creator Walt Disney. He even briefly turns a Mickey-style black near the end, with Asterix noting that the new colour suits him.
- No-Sell: The magic potion makes those who are under its influence immune to the alien weapons; when the Tadsilweny's ship freezes everyone around the village only Asterix, Obelix, Getafix and Dogmatix are still mobile as Obelix is permanently affected by the potion and the others had recently drunk some, and later Obelix is immune to a Nagma's invisibility ray when it affected Dogmatix after the potion had worn off.
- Out-of-Character Moment: The Nagma constantly speaks in broken French, but randomly speaks correctly at one point just to make a pop culture reference.
- Shout-Out: Multiple instances as the album is a sort of love letter to Disney and American comics. Most prominently, Mickey Mouse and Superman.
- Significant Anagram:
- Tadsilweny is an anagram of Walt Disney, which the book is partially dedicated to.
- Hubs is an anagram of Bush (confirmed by Uderzo).
- The Nagma sage's name Akoaotaki is the anagram of Takao Aoki, the writer and illustrator of Bakuten Shoot Beyblade. And of course "Nagma" is an anagram of "Manga," which Uderzo was not a fan of.
- Take That!:
- Uderzo unsubtly expressed his dislike of both Manga and their growing success in France through the villainous Nagma.
- America doesn't come off particularly well in the comic either, though; the story can easily be interpreted as a satire of the contemporary Iraq War, with the Tadsilweny's obsession with the magic potion representing America's justification for invading Iraq. The Tadsilweny leader's name is even an anagram for "Bush".
- Wingdinglish: The inhabitants of Tadsilweny use symbols with some triangles when speaking before their dialogue is translated.
- Yellow Peril: How the Nagma are portrayed; their yellow skin, slanted eyes, and broken speech are straight out of a Fu Manchu story.
"These whatever-they-are are crazy!"
