Friday, October 6, 2017

THE JOHN BRUNI MUSEUM OF MEDIOCRE (AT BEST) SHIT #6: PREACHER #49 REVIEW






[My third comic book review for the Leader, this one is from March 23, 1999. I’m about to discover something horrible about my reviews, which I will tell you about when we get there. In fact, I might not need to explain. It’s pretty obvious what my problem was.]


It has taken 49 issues, but Jesse Custer, the main character of Preacher, has finally found God. Writer Garth Ennis and artist Steve Dillon pull no punches in the latest issue, entitled “First Contact.”


About a year ago, Jesse set out to chew peyote in Monument Valley to see if he could track down God (which has been his goal since issue four). Now, after a series of battles including tanks, the Saint of Killers, a nuke, a little guy who looks like Ross Perot and enjoys having sex with meat statues, and a stint as a small town sheriff facing off against the evils of Big Business, he finally takes the drugs and leads us through a series of hallucinations that proves just how imaginative a writer Ennis is. Only one other hallucination sequence has outdone this, and that was the issue-long Arseface delusion (#40), which was extremely imaginative.


Not only this, but Dillon’s artwork is surreal. TC looks as twisted and demented as ever, and Gran’ma looks utterly revolting (even before she turns into a snake). It was extremely funny to see the leech with Irish vampire Cassidy’s head, and Tulip looks so much like a hooker it’s disturbing.


The undercurrent to the content, though, is rich with character. Jesse constantly denies that he sees Cass as a leech and Tulip as a slut, but it is oh so obvious that he is lying through his teeth. For all of his John Wayne attitude, he certainly seems not to be “shootin’ straight.”


The story and the art compliment each other nicely. In this one scene, Ennis portrays the God of the Christian Bible as contradictory. One moment, He’s a beautiful male model emanating glorious yellow light, peaceful and forgiving; the next, He’s a power-driven raving lunatic, boiling with red light. He even sucks Jesse’s left eyeball out in a fit of rage! Yes, Ennis is a die-hard atheist—anyone who read “True Faith” will attest to that.


Jesse Custer finally knows what he needs to find God, and he’s got a new inner strength. He’s been doing only what he needs to do and nothing more for a while now, but now he’s got the twinkle back in his eye, and his confident grin is back in place. It’s been a long time since Preacher felt this good.


Not that the last few issues were bad. They had some excellent storytelling in them—storytelling that proves Garth Ennis doesn’t always have to blow stuff up or shoot people down or what not. He captures the quiet moments nicely. Jesse lost himself for a while, and now that he has found himself, he’s raring to rip, and you better pray you don’t get in his way. This is something Preacher fans have been waiting a long time for.


This is the beginning of the end for Preacher, my friends, and it looks like Garth Ennis is going to give us one hell of a ride.

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