Goscinny and Uderzo collaborated with the Belgian animation company Dargaud Films to make several Asterix films, beginning with Asterix the Gaul (1967) and the subsequent Asterix Vs Caesar (1985), Asterix in Britain (1986) and Asterix and the Big Fight (1989). These have become much-loved children’s books and are read in multiple languages the world over. who stand up against the Roman occupation with the aid of a magic potion that gives them super-strength. The Asterix comic-books concern a village of characters in Gaul (modern-day France) in the first century A.D. From their first appearance in 1959, the Asterix comic-books run to 38 books, the first 24 from Goscinny and Uderzo, the subsequent ten from Uderzo after Goscinny’s death in 1977 and the rest from other writers after the sale of the copyright. The Twelve Tasks of Asterix was one of a number of films based on France’s popular Asterix comic-books by René Goscinny and Albert Uderzo.

They undertake the twelve tasks, which include such things as outrunning an Olympic runner throwing a javelin further than the world champion beating a judo expert surviving the Island of Pleasure coping with the intense hypnotic stare of an Egyptian finishing one of the gigantic meals prepared by Mannekinpix passing through the cave of The Beast surviving The Place That Sends You Mad crossing a river of crocodiles on an invisible thread climbing a mountain to answer an old man’s riddle spending a night in a haunted battlefield and entering the Circus Maximus in Rome. Asterix and Obelix set out to complete the challenge. This gives Caesar the idea of issuing a challenge to the Gauls – if they can perform twelve tasks like Hercules, then he will admit that the Gauls are superior and surrender Rome to them. His senators make the comment that with the magic potion, the Gauls are like gods.

Caesar is trying to work out what to do about the Gauls who refuse to surrender and come under Roman authority.

Twelve tasks of asterix