Preacher: Salvation
(Review uploaded 12/30/99)
Trade paperback
Writer: Garth Ennis
Artist: Steve Dillon
DC Comics/Vertigo
This volume reprints issues 41-50 of the series, covering a roughly six month period in Jesse's life when he took a respite from his literal, vengeful, quest for God.
For those not familiar with the series, the barest thumbnail sketch would tell you: The title character is Jesse Custer, who was raised by brutal, sadistically-obsessed relatives who killed his parents and forced him into the mold of a preacher - something the cadaverous, wheelchair-bound matriarch of the family believed was her divine mission. Jesse's first flock was in a tiny Texas town, where he did the job and drank much of the rest of the time... until the day came when a being known as Genesis escaped from Heaven, and merged with Jesse in a dramatic explosion that killed all his parishioners. This left Jesse with a power called The Word, as in The Word of God. When he uses it, he can tell essentially anyone to do anything, and they will do it or die in the attempt. In time, as he came to understand something of what's happened to him and the nature of Genesis, he goes on a quest to find God, specifically to take him to task for starting All This and then walking away from his responsibilities.
There's so much more than this - the nature of Genesis, the forces allied against Jesse, and the allies he's found, but you either know these already or should really start with the first volume and catch up on that yourself.
As mentioned above, this arc is a hiatus from his main quest, as Jesse takes a break from and slowly comes to grip with the people in his life, his mission, and the forces that drive him toward each.
As with all of Ennis' work, the meat of the series is in the characterization. Throughout Ennis' career he has shown that he can't really deliver Big Things, despite how much some of the fans like to pretend he can. In this particular arc of the series the closest we have to a Big Thing is the terrible secret Odin, the meatman, keeps in a locked cold storage area of his slaughterhouse/meat packing plant. Disgusting and deviant? Certainly. As bad as most readers imagined? Not by some distance.
That said, I don't want this review to be taken as a pan of his work. What has kept me coming back are the characters and their interplay, and it honestly is enough. Given the metaphysical nature of the series it's easy to overlook or simply accept as examples of unseen forces some of the occurrences in these stories, most specifically Jesse turning up in a backwater that just happens to be the refuge of one thought long dead and lost to him, and a fortuitous strike of lightning. These things are fine with me. In fact, the deficiencies in this series can largely be explained if we just presume that Jesse's not quite as sharp as he should be - which, I'm afraid, is much less a consequence of a plan on Ennis' part than it is a sign that Ennis himself reaches points where he simply stops thinking. In this arc, though, we do see some signs that Jesse is sharpening up a little, he still seems to be overlooking at least one clue concerning the scope of the power he has. Time will tell if Jesse's just overlooked it, or if Ennis himself has just goofed. Either way, we'll learn by the roughly-planned conclusion of the series around issue #75. I expect to be there for the finish.
As entertaining as this collected arc is, it doesn't include (aside from flashbacks) supporting characters such as the hard-bitten Tulip, the vampiric, drunkard Irishman, Cassidy, the so far indestructible, grim gunfighter The Saint of Killers, or the slowly-wittling-away, sadistic Herr Starr, all of whom deserve the readers' attentions.
As an aside, I want to commend DC/Warner for putting quality items such as this into trade editions, so that they can find a broader audience via book stores and generally remain in print rather than disappear one month at a time into the back issue boxes of comics shops.
===MJN
