Citizenship : Roman
French name : Lupus
German name : Lupus
Dutch name : Lupus
Spanish name : Lupus
Italian name : Lupus
Portugese name : Lupus
Young lion from the gladiator school turned gentle as a lamb
When Porpus («Lupus» in the original French album, which is the Latin for «wolf») is first mentioned, it's unclear which is this gladiator with an unflattering reputation (he's «a beast», laugh his comrades). But knowing the strokes of inspiration of Asterix's masters, it's easy to see that our very «beast» Porpus is no other than the Roman we see playing leapfrog with another gladiator! (In French, playing leapfrog is «jouer à saute-mouton», which literally means «jumping over sheeps game». So the wolf has turned into a lamb!)
A real lesson in the art of comic books (a media today recognised as an art in and of itself, know to aficionados the «9th art»), where the relation between text and image (so particular to this media) is skilfully used to make it understood that thanks to Asterix and Obelix, terrible gladiators, once as frightening as bloodthirsty wolves, are now as inoffensive as children at play!