combat_rock's Full Review: Garth Ennis, John McCrea, Steve Dillon, Matt Holli...
WARNING: THIS REVIEW WILL CONTAIN ADULT THEMES AND CONTENT, JUST LIKE THE PRODUCT BEING REVIEWED.
When I was graciously asked to participate in this "manly man" write-off, I became much more responsive than the first, and last, Epinions write-off I was asked to participate in. It was an "I can't believe I bought this crap" write-off, and to be perfectly honest I couldn't decide what I wanted to write about. See, thanks to Epinions and various other sources, I rarely purchase crap. As you can see if you take a look, most of my reviews are very positive, and I simply blew off the review. Seeing as how I rarely write anyway, I figured I'd be blacklisted from these things forever. Foolish me. For simply adding HawgWyld to my trust list (hey, he's from Arkansas and he loves the Clash, how could I not?) I automatically got an invite for this one. Since I haven't wrote anything for a long time, I may as well make good use of the opportunity. Anyway, on to the review.
"Preacher" is a comic book series created by Garth Ennis (writer) and Steve Dillion (artist) staring perhaps the most manly hero ever to grace a comic, and that's saying a lot in a world populated by people who put their lives on the line every month fighting for what's right. But unlike those tights-wearing sissy boys, Jesse Custer drinks hard, carries a lighter emblazoned with the phrase "F*ck Communism", and thinks that psychiatrists are for assholes. Which is probably why he's constantly visited by the spirit of John Wayne. Hey, the only way having an imaginary friend can come off as manly is if it happens to be the Duke, right? And while Jesse displays all these characteristics in every "Preacher" novel, I chose to review the seventh one, "Salvation" because it reads very much like a modern interpretation of any good western, but more on that latter.
The basic concept of "Preacher" is that Jesse Custer, minister of a small church in Texas, is suddenly possessed by an entity known as Genisis, the bastard offspring of a demon and an angel. This entity gives him a special power known as "the word of God". In other words, if he uses it to tell someone to do something, they will. So when Jesse embarks on a journey to understand what's happened to him with his girlfriend Tulip and best buddy Cassidy (a hard drinking Irish vampire), he's shocked to discover that God has abandoned his throne in Heaven and his people, so Jesse seeks to confront him about it. Unfortunately, members of the Grail, a secret organization dedicated to bringing about the apocalypse also has it's sights on Jesse. In a confrontation in the American Southwest dessert with Starr, the newly appointed all father of the Grail and the Saint of Killers, an indestructible-well, saint of killers, Jesse falls out of a helicopter to his supposed demise. He is found however, minus one eye, by an eccentric would be astronaut named Johnny Lee Wombat, and on he goes looking for his friends. However, he finds that a mere month after the accident, Tulip and Cassidy have become and item, and leaves them without saying a word.
During his travels, he stops off in Salvation, Texas, a small, backwards town. He ends up saving a woman named Lorena from a gang of bullies, and finds that she is the sister of one of his childhood friends. Oh, and she only has one eye due to inbreeding. Really, you should read the other volumes before reading this one. My one paragraph summary is hardly enough. Anyway, Lorena takes Jesse home, where he meets her roommate Jodie, who is much more than she seems. Jodie runs the local bar, a place where a young Hispanic man earns his right to hang out with his "friends" by putting up with they're habit of insulting his people. That's just the kind of town Salvation is. It's also a town where the residents are regularly terrorized by the employees of a certain meat packing plant owned by a man named Quincannon, a stumpy little man who insists on referring to himself in the third person. Let's just say that Quincannon really loves his work. He's aided by his Nazi lawyer, and together they've pretty much bought the government and law enforcement. Well, after the local sheriff resigns and give his badge to Jesse, the adventure begins. Aided by his deputy, Cindy Dagget, a young Black woman who's had to put up with basically being a secretary and not much more so the local African American community won't raise a fuss about not having a voice in law enforcement, Jesse sets out to clean the town up in more ways than one. So just like so many westerns before, a mysterious stranger rolls into town, becomes the sheriff, cleans up the streets, and charms the girl only to ride off into the sunset. Only this time the story contains that special "Preacher" touch, Nazis and the KKK, profanity and surreal amounts of violence, sexual depravity and a super powered former priest.
Now, this may sound like a somewhat simplistic story line with a few flashy touches, but as always, "Preacher" proves that not only is it a "mature" comic, but one for truly mature readers. Garth Ennis is a master of making something that seems like b-movie horror schlock high art, because his characters are quite compelling. And while the usual supporting cast of Tulip and Cassidy are only seen in brief dream sequences, the citizens of Salvation more than make up for the loss. Much like the very first stories in this series, the characters prove to be much more than the cardboard cut out stereotypes you'd be led to believe they were. Like I've made pretty obvious earlier, this town has a huge problem with prejudice. However, they rally behind Jesse, and not just in his evil meat packer butt kicking ways. In one particularly moving scene, Jesse holds a town meeting to get backing for his war against Quincannon, and gets help explaining that as this is the whole town's problem, the whole town must band together. Then there's the case of Jodie and her potential love interest Hahn, who are both much different than what they seem. There are quite a few twists and turns in this story. Also included are two issues outside of this story arc, one where Jesse takes some drugs to try and find what it is he's supposed to do next (hey, an angel advised this in a roundabout way earlier). This basically serves to get the series back to the whole "Jesse is searching for God" story. A much more interesting story follows, when Jesse visits the Vietnam war memorial with an old war buddy of his dad's called Spaceman, to find out about a medal of honor he recently discovered his dad had won. Ennis' series has always been able to find the right mix of sickening brutality and cheer aloud moments of good guys kicking butt, and "Salvation" is no exception. A brief word on Steve Dillion's art, and this review will be complete. At first glance, it seems rather simplistic, but like the story, it reveals itself to be much more. Steve has a great sense of story telling, and even the most complex and bizarre things he and Garth can imagine are not out of the question. His minimalist approach to his human figures allows a great amount of emotion to come through, and overall, Steve Dillion is the perfect artist for this and all "Preacher" stories. Go out and buy the first six books first, but for god's sake, don't skip the seventh, or you'll really be missing out!
Manly Man W/O
http://www.angelfire.com/mb2/mypageontheweb/page9.html
/Garth Ennis /Steve Dillon and Glenn Fabry, illustrators The Reverend Jesse Custer continues on his outrageous mission in the second PREACHER collecti...More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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