And Preacher continues, although the fourth volume of the collected stories doesn’t really move forward. Ancient History is just that — backstory on some of the secondary characters.
“Saint of Killers” gives us the origins of that archetypal character — the one who walks around in a cowboy duster shooting people. His name is irrelevant, although he once had one. Let is suffice to say that he wasn’t all that nice a guy to start with, but he finally seemed to have found some happiness in life when, as is all too often the case, it was taken from him — not by design, not by deliberate malice, but just by people being the worst that they can be. That sort of finished off what little he had left of human feeling — I mean, you know your heart is cold when you can freeze Hell.
“The Story of You-Know-Who” revisits Sherrif Hugo Root, whose last mistake was investigating the circumstances of Jesse Custer’s church exploding and taking the congregation with it. This story really centers around his son, who one assumes has a name, but it’s not one we’ll ever learn from this story. That’s of a piece with his life in general: he’s a flop from the get-go. Even when he tries to blow his brains out, he screws it up.
“The Good Old Boys” takes us back to Custer’s family home and the two pieces of human detritus who killed his father and made his own life as miserable as they could get away with, and otherwise did what Gran’ma told them to do. It turns out they’re just as disgusting as we thought they were.
Frankly, if you’re working your way through the series, as I am (after waiting far too long to start), you might want to skip this one, unless you’re a die-hard completist. “The Saint of Killers” is worth reading, adding a mythic dimension to the ongoing story and to the character himself. The others — well, there’s a reason these are minor characters, and to be rather blunt about it, I don’t see the point of expanding on them. Barring some plot twist farther along, the narrative is finished with them — I mean, two of them are dead already — and I think Ennis would have been well-advised to leave it at that. They don’t add anything, they’re unpleasant, even for a series that dwells on the evils of the world and the people in it, and worst of all, they’re thoroughly predictable. The main excuse for these stories seems to have been more gore, not something I have any enthusiasm about for its own sake.
To get back to the action, click to get to the next review, Preacher: Dixie Fried and War in the Sun.
(Vertigo/DC Comics, 1998) Includes Preacher Special: Saint of Killers 1-4, Preacher Special: The Story of You-Know-Who and Preacher Special: The Good Old Boys.
