The+Preacher

=Preacher=

[[image:http://www.highlightzone.de/comic/comic_bilder/Preacher2.jpg width="242" height="209" align="right"]]Vitals
Author: Steve Dillon & Garth Ennis Years: 1995 - 2000 Issues: 66 issues + 5 specials Genre: Graphic Novel / Action / Romance / Serial / Western (They do a lot with it okay?)

Quick Synopsis
Preacher is a about a man named Jesse who is possessed by a powerful being named Genesis, which has escaped from heaven and is now being pursued by a group of Angels, as well as their hitman, the Saint of Killers. Rather than a cliché 'normal man turned superhero' series, the only powers Jesse seems to get is a usful yet spotty ultimate memory, and the word of god, which makes anyone follow his bidding. Though this might sound like a standard 'superhero' story, the premise is only used as a springboard to launch him, his new friend (and vampire) Cassidy, and his ex girlfriend tulip on a quest to find god and set things right in heaven and on earth; this in turn is used to explore a wide array of themes, including religion, fashion, sex, violence, racism, big business, world politics etc. In fact, Jesse's powers are actually used more in the first issue than in most of the others combined. He was already quite extraordinary before having recieved these powers, and the story of his childhood and why he abandoned Tulip comes up quite prominently later in the book when it comes back to haunt him. Jesse too is no saint: he drinks heavily throughout, gets into barfights, uses his word of god to torture several to death and insanity. An example of the latter occurs earlier in the series, when Jesse tells a racist pig of a cop to 'go fuck yourself'. We learn later in a jaded comment from an ambulance worker that the man physically removed his own penis while following Jesse's intrstructions to the letter; he shoots himself within the ambulance.

Major Themes

 * Religion** plays a major part of Preacher's storyline, but usually in a skeptical way. When we first meet Jesse, he's become so tired with the hypocritical and 'animalistic' way his parishoners act when they're out of church that he arrives at the local watering hole (drunk) to tell them off. We learn that the church has a secret organisation set up to control the world till judgement day (which is supposed to occur in 2000), after which time they plan to install the direct blood descendant of Jesus into power. In an example of another reoccuring theme of this story, the blood descendants of Jesus were not allowed to mate with anyone but each other, and his descendant is mentally retarded. This is used to show the disconnect of religious dedication, where otherwise intelligent people ignore the obvious.


 * Sex**, and especially decadent, meaningless sex comes up in Preacher. At one point the gang crashes a sex party run by a pervert, and exposes its so called lavish practices as disgusting and perverted. This includes a scene where a mother and her lover are involving their young child in a filmed sexual act. Jesse tells the whole group off and makes use of his word of god, but only after he and Cassidy have beat up half of the people in the building. They continue to run in to two homosexual men who call themselves sexual investigators, and who among others are a quality source of comic relief. One of the villains (Herr Starr, a man attempting a take over of the above-mentioned secret christian organisation) is comically raped by one of these two 'investigators', when he mistakenly arrives in an alley thinking he's meeting a female prostitute. Jesse later badly scars his bald head, making him look in his words like "a human penis"; combined with his humiliation at having his package bitten off by a guard dog, he goes mad and sets out to kill Jesse instead of controlling him. The stronger idea of rape comes up in several instances, such as one in which Tulip saves her friend from being drugged and gang-raped by six rich 'connected' teens by driving her car through their wall and threatening them with a shotgun. We later find out sordid details of Cassidy's past that strongly call his morals into question in this area.


 * Inbreeding** comes to us via Jesse's family and backwoods best friend, as well as the bloodline of Jesus, both of which we are told were kept 'pure' by the method. Later in the book Herr Starr meets an inbred family of cannibals who remove and eat his leg before he manages to kill them.


 * War and violence** come around throughout Preacher. Jesse's biological father was an army marine, and Jesse meets up with a man who he saved in 'nam. He fills Jesse in on his murdered dad's heroic past. There is a strong theme of violence begetting violence, of retribution to those who deserve it. In one scene Tulip asks Jesse if he feels it's right that Cassidy suck the blood of the people they beat up. Jesse returns that Cassidy never drank from someone who didn't call the fight in the first place, who wasn't a 'bad guy' already.

Others major issues they come across include: justice, morality, understanding, forgiveness, love, and trust.