Preacher: Book Review
Dateline: July 22, 1998
Warning: This book review contains quotes from the various Preacher books, and those quotes contain strong and graphic language. If cursing offends you, either stop here to be sure to skip the quotes.
Written by Garth Ennis and drawn by Steve Dillon, Preacher is the story of a Texas preacher named Jesse Custer searching the American countryside for God.
Sounds kinda boring, doesn't? Hardly seems like the sort of material which would appeal to atheists and nonbelievers, huh?
Then why would Entertainment weekly describe it by saying "Preacher features more blood and blasphemy than any mainstream comic in history"? Why would skeptic and humanist Penn Jillette admit in his introduction that this had "..everything I hate - angels, god, miracles, mystic powers, devils, and even a protagonist named 'J.C.' (get it?)," then reveal that he had fallen in love with it after only one issue?
Perhaps it was because:
"Seeing those religious symbols used in this context without the constant, obsessive, anti-science, anti-freedom, anti-sex, woman-bashing, gay-bashing, racist, delusional, politcally manipulative babbling of a bunch of ancient, psycho McVeigh-types was wonderfully refreshing."
Well, let's see if my description can do it as much justice...
To start off with, Jesse Custer isn't alone - he's accompanied by his ex-girlfriend turned mob executioner (Tulip), and an Irish vampire born at the turn of the century (Cassidy). Moreover, he's being pursued by The Grail, an international organization hell-bent on starting Armegeddon on their own terms (forgive the pun); and The Saint of Killers - an apparently immortal gunfighter from the Old American West set free by some angels to get Jesse at all costs.
Sound bizarre enough, yet? Remember that I said Jesse is searching for God? Well, here's the kicker:
God is hiding. Deliberately.
Yes, that's right - God is hiding not only from Jesse Custer, but from his own angels and all of humanity (interestingly, the theme of God's disappearance from the Old Testament plays a major role in more scholarly books like God: A Biography by Jack Miles and The Disappearance of God by Richard Elliot Freedman). This is going to take a little explaining...
Once upon a time - who knows when - one of the angels (a Seraphim warrior-archangel) was patrolling the borders of heaven when he spied a female demon patrolling the borders of hell. Apparently, lust overcame theological rivalry and they...uh....proved that sex isn't an activity limited to lowly humans. Unfortunately, they weren't using birth control and she got pregnant. Once the "baby" (called Genesis) was born, it was imprisoned and the parents, eliminated. Unfortunately, this baby is a combination of heaven and hell - something never seen before in the cosmos. After God ordered it imprisoned, he...vanished. Vamoosed. Disappeared.
Angel: He quit.
Jesse: How the hell can God quit...?
Angel: That's what Ithought. But here we are: he's
gone and nothing's changed. No Apocolypse, no lion lying down with the lamb, Four
Horsemen still in the stable...
[...]
Angel: Okay, look: You've found us out, but who's going to believe you? You've got the same problem we always have: the atheists. Start telling people God's not there, and you'll get the same blank stares you got when you said he was...
So why is Jesse searching for God right now? Turns out that Genesis is as powerful as God (no wonder he turned tail and ran), but it lacks a will - a moral and intellectual center for focus. It broke free from heaven and sped to earth looking for that will. It found it in Jesse Custer and bonded with him; unfortunately, Jesse can barely access Genesis' power and memories. That's why he's looking for God right now. As he tells the angel:
Jesse: I'm gonna go lookin' for Him. I don't care how long it takes or where I have to go. I'm gonna find him. An' I'm gonna make Him tell His people what He's done.
Although I sympathize with Penn Jillette's reluctance to read about angels and devils, this book is different. It has taken the traditional Christian mythologies and turned them completely upside down. God obviously isn't the benevolent goody-two-shoes which Christians often make him out to be. Perhaps it would help to look back to the types of stories told about the ancient Greek and Roman gods. They weren't goody-two-shoes either. They weren't flat, carboard characters ostensibly only interested in the "greater good" of humanity and totally lacking personality. Instead, they were strong characters with depth and personal agendas. That's the sort of God and angels portrayed in this story. It's more like the classic God of the Old Testament, not the new-and-improved, sanitized-for-the-masses God of the New Testament.
This God is obviously worried about something, and he keeps appearing to Jesse's friends asking them to warn him away from his search. At one point he is warning Jesse's girlfriend, who wonders why God is talking to her and not him:
God: It's not for you to understand my ways, Tulip. All you need do is accept. And trust
Tulip: That's funny, that's exactly what I used to hear in Sunday School. I didn't like it then, either. I've never been one for blind faith. I've got my own theory: I don't think you're such hot shit. I reckon you're scared of meeting Jesse face to face - and I notice you've quit the fucking silly special effects, too.
God: THAT IS QUITE ENOUGH! I am leaving. You go to Jesse Custer, and you tell him this has been a warning. You tell him that unless he forgets this ridiculous attempt to hunt me down, things will be much worse the next time. I am a loving God, Tulip - but DON'T PUSH IT.
God isn't much nicer to Jesse's other compatriot, the Irish vampire Cassidy. Cassidy later explains to Jesse that God does't want him hanging out with vampires because it is "against the law of God." Jesse's response is quite poigniant:
Jesse: Well he can shove his law up his ass, if just one word of it says I can't stand by my friend.
A distinctly humanist sentiment if ever I heard one.
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Quote of the week: Those asserting God's existence have therefore often maintained that there are different modes of existence. This is a doubtful doctrine. [...] Even if it were legitimate to speak of different modes of existence, what could be meant by asking whether God "exists"? Saying that God exists in the same sense in which mathematical points exist would be hardly less atheistic than saying that his existence is comparable to that of unicorns. Those asserting the existence of God have sometimes recognized this difficulty and contended that God's mode of existence is unique, that he does not exist in the same sense in which anything else exists but in a sense peculiar to himself. Logically, however, this is no different from saying that God does not exist. Walter Kaufmann, Critique of Religion and Philosophy p. 178. |
But to be perfectly honest, this comic is not for the faint-hearted or the very young (although if your comic shop sells it to you anyway, I won't be responsible). This title is published by DC Comic's Vertigo - a line of comics directed at more mature and sophisticated audiences. There is a great deal of violence and not a little bit of sex appearing regularly in its pages - add that to the rampant iconclasm, and it's guaranteed to offend quite a few people. This is just he sort of story we should expect from Garth Ennis - a writer born in Belfast and raised on John Wayne movies. In fact, the story comes across like a gritty movie in many ways - unsurprising since Ennis credits among his inspirations for "Preacher" the films of Quentin Tarantino, Clint Eastwood, David Lynch and John Woo. Violent and irreverent, no one and nothing is safe from Ennis and Dillon's humor. They dissect American culture and American mythology and lay it bare (along with more than a few bodies).
Now, the book certainly isn't any sort of atheistic manifesto, but the nature of faith is a subject that Ennis has dealt with often after a lifetime in a coutnry known for bloody religious conflicts. "Rather than being annoyed by Christianity and seeing it as my mission in life to attack it, I am fascinated by it," he says. "I like to poke it, to kick the stone over and see what's underneath." Well, he finds a bunch of worms and and quickly exposes them to the rest of us.
If you're interested in reading a really, really good story filled with adrenaline
and mystery, don't let any of the violence or irreverence stop you. Even if you rarely
take a second look at comics, this one is worth your time.
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