Published: 1996-1998
Written by: Garth Ennis
Art by: Steve Dillon, Glenn Fabry (covers)
Vertigo Comics, 349 Pages
Review:
The Preacher series reaches its halfway point with this volume and what’s great about it is that it is still rolling strong. This collection is a bit different than the first two, however, as it doesn’t just collect issues of the regular Preacher series but it also includes the Saint of Killers miniseries and the Cassidy starring one-shot. Both of these side stories add more context and some extra backstory to these characters.
Overall, this is still a fantastic chapter in Garth Ennis’ epic tale. It doesn’t flow as nicely as the first two volumes, as the inclusion of the other two stories gives it a somewhat disjointed feel but these stories felt necessary to the larger tale and I can’t really think of a better way to include them.
Once the main story gets going again, it picks up right where it left off. Some things come back into play that needed to be followed up on earlier in the series. For instance, Arseface returns for revenge but his story takes a pretty interesting turn.
While I love the version of Arseface that we’ve gotten with the television show, I like how the source material is so different and even if he’s not a main character, his material here is fun to read, I can see why they changed him for the show and gave him a bigger role in the scheme of things but I probably prefer this version of the character, as his arc works better and he seems more fleshed out, even though the comic used him less.
This is the first half of the middle act. So nothing huge happens but it moves forward at a good pace and drops some new things into the narrative to help build and enrich the plot.
In the end, this is the weakest of the first three collections but it’s still stellar and it just makes me want to keep on reading.
Rating: 9/10
Pairs well with: the other Preacher stuff, as well as ’90s Spawn and Garth Ennis’ run on Shadowman.
Talking Pulp 