Beginning with the "War in the Sun" story, Texan preacher Jesse Custer goes to Monument Valley, where he plans his showdown with God. But Starr and the Saint of Killers have other plans for Jesse's future.
Merging with a bizarre spiritual force called Genesis, he becomes completely disillusioned with the beliefs that he had dedicated his entire life to. Now possessing the power of "The Word," an ability to make people do whatever he utters, Custer sets off on a dark journey. He loses faith in both man and God as he witnesses atrocities and improbable calamities during his travels. Joined by his gun-toting girlfriend, Tulip, and the hard-drinking Irish vampire Cassidy, follow the rowdy adventures that culminate on the High Noon to end all High Noons.
Included in this omnibus are specials featuring the origins of Arseface, the dastardly adventures of Jody and T.C.--the animal-loving henchmen employed by Jesse Custer's grandma, Jesse and Tulip's early days of love and much, much more.
The powerhouse creative team of Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon does not disappoint as they take readers on a violent and riotous journey in this award-winning series!
Collects Preacher #34-66, Preacher Special: The Story of You-Know-Who, Preacher Special: The Good Old Boys, Preacher Special: One Man's War, Preacher: Tall in the Saddle, Absolute Preacher Vol. 2, and Absolute Preacher Vol. 3.
Ennis began his comic-writing career in 1989 with the series Troubled Souls. Appearing in the short-lived but critically-acclaimed British anthology Crisis and illustrated by McCrea, it told the story of a young, apolitical Protestant man caught up by fate in the violence of the Irish 'Troubles'. It spawned a sequel, For a Few Troubles More, a broad Belfast-based comedy featuring two supporting characters from Troubled Souls, Dougie and Ivor, who would later get their own American comics series, Dicks, from Caliber in 1997, and several follow-ups from Avatar.
Another series for Crisis was True Faith, a religious satire inspired by his schooldays, this time drawn by Warren Pleece. Ennis shortly after began to write for Crisis' parent publication, 2000 AD. He quickly graduated on to the title's flagship character, Judge Dredd, taking over from original creator John Wagner for a period of several years.
Ennis' first work on an American comic came in 1991 when he took over DC Comics's horror title Hellblazer, which he wrote until 1994, and for which he currently holds the title for most issues written. Steve Dillon became the regular artist during the second half of Ennis's run.
Ennis' landmark work to date is the 66-issue epic Preacher, which he co-created with artist Steve Dillon. Running from 1995 to 2000, it was a tale of a preacher with supernatural powers, searching (literally) for God who has abandoned his creation.
While Preacher was running, Ennis began a series set in the DC universe called Hitman. Despite being lower profile than Preacher, Hitman ran for 60 issues (plus specials) from 1996 to 2001, veering wildly from violent action to humour to an examination of male friendship under fire.
Other comic projects Ennis wrote during this time period include Goddess, Bloody Mary, Unknown Soldier, and Pride & Joy, all for DC/Vertigo, as well as origin stories for The Darkness for Image Comics and Shadowman for Valiant Comics.
After the end of Hitman, Ennis was lured to Marvel Comics with the promise from Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada that he could write The Punisher as long as he cared to. Instead of largely comical tone of these issues, he decided to make a much more serious series, re-launched under Marvel's MAX imprint.
In 2001 he briefly returned to UK comics to write the epic Helter Skelter for Judge Dredd.
Other comics Ennis has written include War Story (with various artists) for DC; The Pro for Image Comics; The Authority for Wildstorm; Just a Pilgrim for Black Bull Press, and 303, Chronicles of Wormwood (a six issue mini-series about the Antichrist), and a western comic book, Streets of Glory for Avatar Press.
In 2008 Ennis ended his five-year run on Punisher MAX to debut a new Marvel title, War Is Hell: The First Flight of the Phantom Eagle.
In June 2008, at Wizard World, Philadelphia, Ennis announced several new projects, including a metaseries of war comics called Battlefields from Dynamite made up of mini-series including Night Witches, Dear Billy and Tankies, another Chronicles of Wormwood mini-series and Crossed both at Avatar, a six-issue miniseries about Butcher (from The Boys) and a Punisher project reuniting him with artist Steve Dillon (subsequently specified to be a weekly mini-series entitled Punisher: War Zone, to be released concurrently with the film of the same name).
Totul se îmbunătățește față de prima jumătate. Povestea devine mai dementă, personajele mai sărite din țâțâni, concluzia mai grandioasă și mai sucită. Și da, și grafica e mai faină.
Cu excepția câtorva numele care mi s-au părut de umplutură (mă rog, nu chiar de umplutură, că se întâmplă chestii importante și acolo, dar dacă le-ai scoate nu s-ar schimba prea mult imaginea de ansamblu) a doua jumătate a sagăi predicatorului Jesse Custer dovedește cu vârf și îndesat că Garth Ennis e un povestitor de prima mână. Aici îți dai seama că absolut toate deciziile luate de-a lungul poveștii (de la replici aparent fără miză și până la personaje cărora nu le-ai înțeles prea bine sensul) au fost luate cu un scop precis. Toate firele se leagă, toate cercurile se închid, toate set-up-urile își dezvăluie adevărata valoare și cu excepția prea multor scrisori schimbate între cele trei personaje principale, sfârșitul e perfect.
This book deserves all the high praise it gets. It is an incredible story and I was drawn into this volume and devoured it. More than 1000 pages flew by in an instant as I wanted to know what happened next and how this story would conclude.
The artwork even improved over Volume 1 and it's quite amazing. The writing is clever and almost always interesting and super smooth. There's basically no new major characters introduced in this volume, as everything was setup in volume 1. Instead, each of the characters and arcs flow naturally, at times separated and every plot line is interesting.
The book sticks the landing. The ending is perfect and the last issue made me laugh out loud a couple of times. The last few panels are beautiful and fully capture the essence of the entire story.
And yet, I can't give it 5 stars, even though it's one of the best comics out there. My problem with this book is that everyone is mean and cruel. There are quite offensive and problematic jokes and themes in here, first and foremost the entire Arseface chapter. The story is missing a touch of hope, love (although it does have some) and positivity. Instead, the characters are almost always unlikable jerks.
What I'm saying is that this comic is brilliant and everyone should read it, but it doesn't quite suits my tastes.
I wanted to not like this. I really went into this with the attitude of, “I’m going to read this only because it’s considered to be one of the best comics ever written but, I’m not going to like it.” You see, I’m a man of God. I believe in God but I’m sure God won’t hold it against me that I read this, and I genuinely liked it.
This was a very emotional read. Especially the love between Tulip and Jesse. I’d love to find a Tulip one day.
Garth Ennis is a brilliant writer, love all of his work, may even read his version of “Hellblazer” after this.
Volume 1 is great and so is volume 2 of this omnibus set.
Just awesome, a great series all in all. The only real drawback is I wish there were more. I think out of the two I preferred ‘the boys’. But this is still a great series, can see why it has such a high place in a lot of people’s minds.
(Zero spoiler review) 4.5/5 I'm not all choked up, you are. Well, if that wasn't one of the great endings, period (not just for a comic), then I don't know what is. I certainly had my criticisms for the first omnibus, with Ennis' all too frequent habit of undercutting almost everything with something absurd or outright ridiculous being prime among them. Omnibus one had some stellar moments, but there was just a bit too much stupid weighing it down to be anything more than pretty dang good. Not that pretty dang good is anything to sniff at. It's just that I wanted this to be amazing. This was one of the first omnibus' I bought all those years ago when I first started collecting. I wanted it to be great. And now, thanks to omnibus volume two, and that wonderful finale, I can say that it was. It may just be the whimsy and the misty eyes, but hot damn if that didn't make up for so much of the silliness (that in fairness volume two suffered from occasionally as well), though certainly less than volume one. I was kind of fearing the ending, to be honest. It dipped a bit somewhere around the middle, with it feeling like Ennis had kind of lost the point of his story. Even if that aspect of the story was by far the least interesting. Like I said, I was worried for how Ennis was going to bring it all together in the end. I needn't have been. The man knew exactly how to do it and knocked it out of the park. Maybe I do need to buy the absolutes now, after all. Steve Dillon's art continued to grow on me throughout. Whilst never being the most technical of artists, I was surprised at just how much I came to care for having his art line almost every page of this series. One or two more talented artists may have handled to spin offs, but it always was, and always was meant to be a Steve Dillon story, and I'm really glad it was. Hats off as well to the colourist, who did a bang-up job throughout, to boot. So yeah, I didn't quite see myself enjoying this one quite so much, especially after the slightly underwhelming feeling having finished omnibus one. There will no doubt be a few issues here and there I'll skip on a re-read, but I'm glad and grateful to have read this one, and that it ended up living up to the hype. 4.5/5
Na začátku série jsem se bavil hlavně brutalitou a drsnými hláškami. To poměrně brzy ustoupilo do pozadí a já si nyní užívám ty úžasně napsané postavy. A nejenom hlavní hrdiny, ale i ty úžasné záporáky a jejich přisluhovače. Užívám si postavy, jejich vztahy a dialogy. Je to vážně pecka. Jsem rád, že se Crew do těchto omnibusů pustila, protože jinak bych se k této sérii asi nedostal.
Vše podstatné k Bohu, Genesis a andělům už bylo řečeno v první knize. Tato kniha sice posouvá děj trošku kupředu, ale to hlavní je zde vývoj vztahů mezi postavami. Dostáváme zde také nějaké speciály, a to konkrétně o Svatém zabijákovi, Cassidym, Herr Starrovi, Prdelmanovi a o těch dvou parchantech z jihu, kteří makali pro Jesseho babičku. Všechny speciály jsou povedené, ale u prvních dvou, o zabijákovi a Cassidym, které otevírají knihu, mě trošku mrzelo, že přerušili atmosféru souvislého hlavního příběhu. Ale chápu, proč to tam je. Hlavní příběh se na to později totiž odkazuje. Navíc, když se konečně zase rozjede hlavní příběh, tak vás sám nakopne zpátky do sedla. Většina zmíněných speciálů je kreslená jiným výtvarníkem, než Dillonem, ale vůbec mi to nevadilo. Výtvarně je celá kniha povedená.
This review is for both Volume 1 and Volume 2, Preacher Compleat, as is were.
Much as already been said of the series' audacity in events, language, violence, and the like. It's a hard R-rated work or worse. If that's not for you, move on, and quickly. Don't look back.
But the most important part of Preacher is its ambition. It assembles some of the most wild assortment of characters, builds thick backstories both grubby and/or divine, and works to make them gel in a great arching 66-issue series of adventures (75 when you add in the "extras"). Few take on so much or do it with such obvious glee and abandon.
That said, abandon is often also reckless, and there are plenty of moments where the story falls to weaker tropes and turns: super-governmental conspiracies, hyperbolic and offensive characterizations, and too-simply motivated divinities all live here, all too predictable, even lazy in their conception. When combined, the primary storyline strikes us as too basic, without nuance of even much complexity, and a first-year divinity or civics student might imagine something more. By around the 1400th page of reading, I was nodding wearily at yet another round of the Rocky and Bullwinkle show with the Grail, placing bets on which body part Herr Starr would lose this time.
So it doesn't always work as story. What multi-year graphic series does? Where Preacher is at its best is with the troubled collisions between its three protagonists. Each has the spotlight at length and even then we don't know if we've understood them completely (in fact, they realistically surprise themselves even to the end), and I found myself desiring even more of them (despite a possession, a betrayal, a few addictions, or the odd resurrection here and there).
Preacher probably solidified Ennis's career going forward, and with good reason. It's a bit of a niche sell for its controversial art and writing, but it's that same quality that makes it stand apart (only works like Saga might compare IMO). Wisely, too, though, Ennis resolves the lengthy work . I left, unexpectedly, satisfied.
Gostei mas saturou. Tem uma barriga no meio do omnibus que trouxe um certo cansaço na leitura. E o final fechou de forma que achava que seria algo fenomenal principalmente pelos motivos do protagonista. Esperava algo como um confronto não de forma em guerra mas talvez sobre ideais religiosos.... Legal mas não é aquela put4 história.
Daquelas histórias que te marcam para uma vida toda. Foi incrível ter iniciado essa leitura com 16 anos e melhor ainda de ter terminado ela apenas aos 20. Não saberia apreciar mais esse final do que hoje em dia.
What a masterpiece of a serie. The whole serie was a amazing adventure for me that will stick by my for a long long time. Storytelling and character building at his best.
An incredibly rich, complex, and well-made story. Ennis provides one of the best endings to any comic ever – an ending to rival that of Invincible. God is killed, as he deserves, and his angels are snuffed out; the Grail is no more; the Saint gets his long-awaited rest; Cass suffers, but gets the only kind of redemption that might make sense; Arseface finds a humble, happy life and a woman to love him; Tulip is reunited with Jesse; and Jesse loses his powers, but completes his quest and rides off in the sunset with his love, becoming a true cowboy. Profoundly satisfying: every note perfect, and every reward or punishment earned.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
A violent, darkly humorous road story about belief and free will, the series follows Jesse Custer, a small-town preacher suddenly given the power to command others, as he sets out across America alongside his sharpshooter ex-girlfriend and an Irish vampire to find a missing God, facing angels, cults, and the ghosts of his past along the way. The writing balances over-the-top humour and violence with honest, character-driven storytelling, while the clean artwork grounds the absurdity with emotional depth.