PREACHER
Writer: Garth Ennis
Artist: Steve Dillon
Covers: Glenn Fabry
Colors: Matt Hollingsworth/Pam Rambo
Letter: Clem Robins

Book Two: UNTIL THE END OF THE WORLD
(includes issues #8-16, 1995-96)

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We pick up the storyline by going back to the past - how did Jesse ever get to be preaching in Annville, when just a few years ago, he was with Tulip but suddenly disappeared? The answers will be a bit of a shock - not just for the creepy reasons behind them.

"All in The Family" opens with Jesse and Tulip going back to Dallas to square her debts with the man who put her up as a hit-woman in his payroll. Jesse was confident enough that his Word would be enough to take care of a two-bit gangster. But he never counted on the appearance of old enemies ...


Jody and TC - the Righteous Bastards

Enter Jody and TC - breaking up the meeting and shooting everyone in the room, except Jesse and Tulip. Jesse is shocked to see the two and is even more aghast to find that the Word doesn't work on them. Ngyak. Now, they're taken hostage, and Tulip's questions start piling up, and Jesse is disheartened to find his past catching up to him. They are taken to Angelville, Louisiana. Where the story really began.

The bulk of the story is now told in flashbacks: Jesse's dad, John Custer, was a Vietnam GI, and coming home to the United States was more or less a crappy proposition. Case in point, a woman spits on him as soon as he steps off the bus. Antiwar activists scream and yell at him as he walks away. The woman who spat at him, guiltily follows him to a bar, and in tears, turns away to run. John stops her, and they become friends. And very quickly, lived as man and wife. A year later, Jesse is born to John Custer and Christina L'Angelle.


When Jesse was 3, Christina's past also catches up with her. Jody and TC find the family living and Laredo and haul them at gunpoint to Angelville. It turns out that Christina had escaped her family, in particular her evil mother, Marie L'Angelle - decribed by Jesse as "an old bitch who had my mom when she was sixty" and she "couldn't find anyone to marry her till she was fifty ... because she was born with a face like dried up shit." The L'Angelle line were French puritans, and all the men were preachers. Jesse suspects that the blood running through their veins were the "devil's own piss."


You'd be raving and ranting too ...


... if yer Granny looked like this.

John and Christina were married properly and were made to live in Angelville. John couldn't take being held against his own will - which was why Christina made a break for it years ago, and Jesse would do the same in the future - and patiently waited for the day to escape. Before that, he gave his son three rules to abide by: Don't take no shit off fools, judge a person by what's in them and not how they look, and always do the right thing: always be one of the good guys, cause there's way too many of the bad.

2 miles later, Jody and TC catch up with them, and they shoot John Custer in the head.

And that was the last time Jesse ever cried.

Christina and Jesse were kept captives again, and Grandma Marie starts his education about God and being a preacher. A big part of Christina died with John, and seemed to be slowly dying inside as days went by. Jesse meanwhile, tried to have a normal childhood and had a one-eyed friend named Billy Bob (umm, ok, he was one-eyed because procreation in his family was kept within the family, got it? this is soon to be a recurring theme in this series). An incident where Jesse's dog is nailed by Jody to the fence gets Jesse all riled up and cursing, and is then banished by his grandma to the coffin - being sealed shut in a coffin with just an air tube and dropped in the river for a week. As you can see, Jesse's childhood was really starting to suck. To top it off, Jody hauls Christina away when she protests, and is presumably murdered at this point.

Jesse's resistance wears down, but still couldn't understand why his Grandma teaches him "about God and love" when all her actions to that point were contrary. years passed, and Jesse, now a strapping young man, is about to make a decision similar to what his parents made before. His childhood friend Billy Bob inadvertently spies on TC fucking a chicken (yep, you read right), and is killed for that. Jesse kicks the shit out of TC, gets the shit kicked out of him by Jody, endures two weeks in the coffin, and endures the disgust of Billy Bob's parents, after which he decides to just get the hell out of Angelville.

Enter: Tulip.


First love, first love, never dies ... remember ...

Stealing Jesse from his current galpal in a Texas bar, Tulip and Jesse fall in love. That, and getting into a long road trip of sex, drinking and grand theft auto through the desert. And just before hitting California, Tulip leaves Jesse momentarily to buy some beer, Jesse gets flanked by - yep, who else - his Grandma's murderous thugs, Jody and TC. And gets hauled back to Angelville. Which explains why he just disappeared and never heard from him again till now. Which leads us to this brilliant exchange:

"Jesse, I've been hating you for 5 years for no reason at all! Why didn't you tell me??"
"'Cause I'm a fuckin idiot."

Jesse finally became a preacher as his Grandma had intended. Two years later, he's an alcoholic. And thus the events in Annville, which is where I started blogging this stuff.

Cut to the present: morning comes, and in true comic fashion, Tulip is shot in the head. That has to be one of most enduring and stark images in the history of comicbooks.


She's dead!!!

Until of course, Tulip is resurrected by God himself, the next issue. But only as to warn Jesse to lay off Him (because Jesse did promise to hunt the Lord down and make Him answer for abandoning Heaven when Genesis came into the picture). You'd admit though, that that was a very convenient and neat reason for ignoring the "dead-is-dead" policy for comic characters (always ignored really).


She's alive!!!

God explains to Tulip that He temporarily took away the power of the Word from Jesse, just to teach him a lesson. He did acknowledge that Jesse's Grandma is evil (huh? and He allowed her to perpetrate all this crap in His name??), and thus Jesse is the only solution for this problem. He wants them both to understand that He is a loving God, and for them to trust Him. She asks questions, but He evades the cross-examination and dagnabbit, tells her to just do what He says.

His spirit crushed by Tulip's death, and seemingly without the Word, Jesse starts talking to himself. But he's actually talking to his own guardian angel, the Duke. And finally gets an earful. (cue in signal to start asskicking)


Never piss off the Duke. Ever. Or at least not to make him spit.

Discovering that he regains the power of The Word, Jesse starts by bashing TC's head to the floor. He then proceeds to burn everyone in sight, setting the final showdown with Jody. Tulip meanwhile, personally dispatches a bloodied TC to hell with a 12 gauge, and also manages to kick Grandma out of her wheelchair. By this time, the Angelville mansion is in flames. Down in the courtyard, Jesse avenges his parents' deaths by killing Jody. Mansion explodes. Grandma's body flies out in a burning arc.


Final round: Jesse vs Jody

And when Jesse turns around to find Tulip alive, he's only shocked momentarily - he grabs her in his arms and kisses her passionately amidst the burning wreck that was Angelville.


Gratuitous sex? What gratuitous sex?

The second half of the collection introduces the next major player in the series - The Grail - and its foremost agent, Herr Starr (Ennis was writing this during/after the Clinton-Lewinski scandal. Coincidence? nyhahaha).

The couple head west to San Francisco to look up Cassidy, who as Jesse snidely remarks "has more than likely forgotten that he was in San Francisco." True to form, they find him partying in a bar called the Fisted Sister (swear to God). Speaking of that scene, the Irish punk band playing onstage provides the following gem:

Do ye come from Glasgae?
Do ye come from Perth?
Do ye come from Dunfermlin?
Cause ye dinnae come from Earth!

All Scottish people are bastards
All Scottish people are bastards

Googling on whether this was an authentic song, a legendary Irish ditty, or just one of the brilliant farts of Ennis' demented mind, proves fruitless.


Bring him back!

Cass and Jesse reconnect by starting a bar fight (because the chopperheads didn't want to watch Laurel and Hardy), skewering pop-psychology ("won't talk about your feelings: Insecure!"), finding drugs that belonged to Cassidy's recently-deceased girlfriend - which actually wasn't hers, and trying to trace where that came from (she OD'ed so Cassidy goes on the warpath).


Armadillo, anyone?

Along the way, we have several threads running in the background. The drugs were supposed to be delivered to a sex deviant named Jesus De Sade (swear to God), a insanely rich fop who throws the most decadent parties along the West Coast. The delivery was arranged by two wannabesomebodies, Bob Glover and Freddy Allen, who thinks by partnering up with influential sickos would allow them to afford opening the first-ever sex detective agency (i swear to God). But in the meantime, Cass' girlfriend died so the drugs weren't delivered. Which then propels Bob and Freddy to hunt for the courier. In the meantime, Bob and Freddy's calling card were on the drugs so Cass has names to look for.


If there's something kinky in the neighborhood, who you gonna call?

And we haven't gotten to The Grail yet. The first members we see are Ms. Featherstone and Mr. Hoover, lounging in a SanFran hotel room waiting for a meeting with Thierry Pouissin, #2 man in the organization. A fourth man joins them - a German named Starr - and 30 seconds into introductions, blows Pouissin's head off. It turns out that Starr had secretly recruited Featherstone and Hoover, and plans to subvert The Grail from within - from its current leader known only at this time as All-Father D'Aronique.


Gratuitous violence? What gratuitous violence?

The Grail, as we learn, is a group tasked to defend the Blood of the Lamb. In layman's terms, they have been protecting the bloodline of Christ for 2,000 years (hence, the name, duh.). We will be learning more about them later. In the meantime, apparently a flag on Jesse Custer was raised in Grail computers and D'Aronique seemed to have more of a personal interest in the events at Annvile. With the Grail ready to usher in Armageddon as stated in the Bible, Starr has taken a more pragmatic view of the situation and wants a new world order predicated on using Jesse Custer as the Savior for the new millenium.


The face of the future. I mean, suture.

That, and Starr also wants a very experienced whore.

The conservative Hoover bumbles the assignment of finding a suitable chick, and is redirected by a couple of hookers to call (drumroll please), the Sex Detectives - and arranges for a meeting with Starr. And when that rendezvous takes place - someone gets it up the arse!

Tracking down Cassidy's apartment by beating up a thug named Gallico, Bob and Freddy retrieve the drugs and drop Jesus De Sade's name, which a hidden Cass overhears (Why is he hidden and why didn't he just beat up on these two fools, you ask. Long story - the key to box with the drugs was in a locket on the pet cat, and chasing after it resulted in Cass getting thrown out the window in broad daylight. So he was still recovering from that when Bob and Freddy walked in). Jesse and Cass then set out the next day to Bo and Freddy's office, which was in the process of being trashed by Gallico, in retaliation for his own beating. Unlucky day for him - Cass administers a second beating. In between, they learn that the drugs were for De Sade, and they got his address. Cass then tosses Gallico through a wall.

Meanwhile, Hoover is saved from being ass-kicked by a furious (and cornholioed) Starr, with Featherstone yelling out that Jesse is in San Francisco (courtesy of the bar fight the night before). Starr brings Hoover down to Bob and Freddy's office to work out his frustrations, and they find Gallico's legs protruding from the wall. They "interview" him and find out that Jesse and Cass were just there (that white collar is just too conspicuous), and the party at De Sade where Bob and Freddy might be found. Gallico makes a play for it, and the timid Hoover (Hoover!) shoots him first. Of course, he pukes right after.

So you can all see that is all going down at Jesus De Sade's orgy.


There IS something better than TV!!!

And mythic it is. All of the sick fruitcakes and sexual degenerates (read: rich and famous. nyhahaha) show up at the De Sade mansion ("Let's fist again, like we did last summer. Let's fist again, like we did last year."), and Bob and Freddy save the party by bringing the heroin in time. Tulip meanwhile has an excuse to dress up (va-va-voom!), but still packing a gun. They all split up to look for those sex detective losers. Jesse manages to run into De Sade, and have a philosophical discussion before he tells him to stay put (hyeah right) while he goes to find Cass. Outside, Starr, Hoover and a bunch of mercs are getting ready to crash the party.


Everyone's a comedian. Even a dedicated soldier.

And they're all stunned to find all the debauchery going on inside. Actually, it was just Hoover that was stunned. Even Starr manages to do a stand-up routine. Tulip is serendipitously in the vicinity as the Grail operatives come in, and she pulls a gun on Hoover before Starr walks in on them, and an all-out gunbattle starts.


How to deal with wankers, Step 1.

Jesse manages to corrall De Sade again, and is shocked to find him about to make a kiddie porn movie. Enraged, he makes his butler dwarf eat a gun, while he bitch-slaps the fop. Cassidy, meanwhile runs into Bob and Freddy, and gets into a hysterical fight with them ala-Three Stooges. Bob tries to bugger Cass but gets tossed out of the window (with his pants down) and lands on a car roof.

How to deal with wankers, Step 2.

From there it all goes downhill. Tulip manages to gun down a lot of the Grail mercs (as to how she manages to become Dirty Harriette is a story for another day), before she runs out of ammo and Starr gets the drop on her. Cassidy saves her by proclaiming that he is Jesse Custer.

Jesse luckily sees the mercs escaping and sees Tulip taken captive in one of the vans. He takes the car (yeah the one with a half-naked Bob on the roof) in pursuit. He manages to catch up with the van with Tulip inside and rescues her. Now they have Featherstone and Hoover hostage, and Jesse tells them he is the real deal. He wants to rescue Cassidy. They defiantly tell him he's no match against the Grail, which she describes as "... the most powerful organization ever to exist. We own presidents. We run countries. We walk between raindrops ... you couldn't choose a more lethal opponent without taking on the God Almighty." To which Jesse replies it suits him just fine. What cojones this guy has.


The sister is doing it for herself.

Cassidy meanwhile has been airlifted out of the country to southern France, in a secret hideout of the Grail called Masada. Cassidy still pretends he's Custer, faking a Texan accent, but you know his Irish brogue will slip out sooner or later. He wants to know why he's here and as it goes, let's have the freely-talking Starr tell the story:

"Almost two thousand years ago, three men were crucified on a hill above Jerusalem. Two were thieves, and died as such. The third was not, and did not die.

He did not even die in a physical sense. Having paid off local authorities, his followers drugged him into a coma with a soporific while he was still on the cross. Three days later - when the drug wore off - he 'rose from the dead.' He took a wife called Mary, had several children, and was run over and killed by an offal cart at the age of 48.

That is the legend of the Grail.

Those children he had were born of the most sacred, most blessed lineage this world has ever seen.

The founders of the Grail took them to a secret place in the desert, where they were only allowed to breed only with each other. When the Grail moved to Europe in the Sixth century, they brought the children's descendants with them. And to this day, we keep the bloodline safe and pure.

We guard the blood of the Lamb.

The point is that when civilization falls apart - and it will - the Grail can produce a mortal man whose ancestor was born of heaven. A religious alternative to politicians. A God-King.

It doesn't matter who we put forward. We've got so many old scrolls and bullshit documentation lying around. we could prove conclusively that Newt fucking Gingrich is the son of God.

The latest product of the bloodline has turned out less than perfectly. If we are to hold sway after the coming armageddon, we must give the masses a savior they can believe in. A savior who speaks with a voice that must be obeyed would be ideal. Its you, Reverend Custer.

I want you to be the new Messiah."

Cassidy: Aw, fuckin' great! .... I mean, blessed are the meek.

The same story is told to Jesse and Tulip, and Jesse wants to go to France and go rescue Cassidy. On the way, Featherstone jumps out of the car and makes a break for it. Hidden in the bushes, she covers her ears and manages not to get swayed by the Word. Frustrated, Jesse makes Hoover count the sands on the beach, then books a flight for Paris (but not before getting into a dramatic fight with Tulip spanning three pages, with his macho sense of wanting to rescue Cass by himself and keep her safe behind) They do realize that Featherstone may have alerted Starr even before they get there.



Cass may be powerful, but not that powerful.

Which is correct, as Starr begins to have his doubts after "Custer" fails to pass muster by curing a lame gardener. He summons Cassidy to a prison block, and a mysterious figure divines Cassidy's real name. All hell breaks loose thereafter.


Ouch. That hurts.

And what about Hoover? Well, the wind was a bit of a problem ...

Wages of sin. Poor bastard.

And you know the Saint of Killers is not too far behind ...

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Next: More Flashbacks! More religious controversy! Life and times of a vampire! And the fall of Masada (again)! Wait, let me catch my breath first ...