Until the End of the World and Proud Americans are volumes two and three of the collected Preacher, the epic tour of an America that might be by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon. Together they encompass the Grail story line while giving us some welcome backstory on Jesse Custer and his friends.
“All in the Family” takes Jesse back home to the family plantation — nothing near its former glory, and ruled over by his grandmother, a matriarch whose sanity and youth are both long gone. Jesse has some issues to work out with her, which he finally does, although not the way Gran’ma planned.
“Until the End of the World” begins the Grail story arc. Imagine all the stories about the Illuminati, the Knights Templar, any shadowy group you want to imagine that has been running the world for, oh, say, the last two thousand years, are true. That’s what we have here — the organization is known as “the Grail” and it has been tasked with keeping the bloodline of Jesus Christ (who did not die on the Cross) pure and intact, with the aim of producing a savior for the world when things get too awful to continue, which should happen, according to the Grail’s reckoning, in 5 . . . 4 . . . 3 . . . . Unfortunately, what you get after 2,000 years of a “pure” bloodline is an idiot who is having a good day if he can drool without help.
Proud Americans, while continuing the Grail story arc, opens with an enlightening and ultimately affecting story about Jesse’s father in Vietnam, all the more poignant after what we learned in “All in the Family.” It seems that the Allfather, the leader of the Grail, given the unsuitability of the heir to Christ, has plans for Jesse. The Allfather, however, has his own problems, even if he’s not completely aware of who they are. (I will say, however, that his end, along with that of the heir and the major problem, are not only poetically just but blackly funny, even though the scene comes close to slapstick.)
And we finish off with a story about Cassidy’s origins, filled with the rough charm that is so much a part of Cassidy himself.
This series, as it’s panning out so far, deserves every bit of praise it gets. It’s rough, it’s unpleasant, it’s touching, it’s raw, it’s honest, and it works. The saving grace, the thing that saves the story from going completely over the edge, is the strong undercurrent of irony. Dillon’s art is, once again, right on target. Make no mistake — it’s graphically violent, there’s lots of blood, but Dillon manages to portray it without the gore seeming excessive.
And a note: Glenn Fabry’s covers for the collected volumes are beyond perfect. Somehow they manage to reflect the interior art while becoming beautiful pictures in their own right.
And the best part is, there’s more. In fact, just click to go to Preacher: Ancient History.
(Vertigo, 1997) Collecting Preacher #8-17 and #18-26.
