First issues of comics are always interesting to me. They usually need to explain a lot of storyline, you know set things up properly, but they also need to keep the audience interested. They need to strike a delicate balance of narrative and action that keeps things moving. In the case of The Preacher I think this balance has been reached very nicely. The narrative flows from a conversation between Jesse, Tulip, and Cassidy while sitting in a diner after all the action has happened. Although this does lead to a small level of unreliability.I mean, really why would they need to recount things that they were present for? Anyhow, it does let them go over a lot of plot quickly, and explore things on a deeper level. We get to see how these characters are reacting to the fantastic plot. And we also get to jump quickly from action to action. Meaning no need for boring real-time nonsense.

Anyhow, the plot mostly concerns Jesse, a disillusioned Preacher in Texas. After a dangerous and mysterious creature from Heaven (called Genesis) escapes from his keepers he travels to Earth and bonds with Jesse's soul. Endowing him with 'The Word of God'. Basically this means that if Jesse commands people to do something they must obey. Gaining this power leads to the unintended death of everyone in Jesses small town and he finds himself on the run from a bunch of redneck police. Jesse hooks up with an ex-girlfriend who surreptitiously happened to be passing that way after botching an assassination attempt (the reasons for which are unclear). She is on the run with a British Vampire named Cassidy. Together the three start out on a mission with Jesse to find God and get to the bottom of a few things.

You see, God has been absent from our planet for a while now, and apparently he left the Angels in charge. One angel in particular, Seraphi is extremely pissed off that this Genesis creature (who might or might not be some sort of twisted cross-bred offspring of an Angel and a Demon) has escaped. In response to this ire, Deblanc the head Adephi (some sort of Heavenly servant class) sends for the awakening of the Saint of Killers. This demonic gunman travels to Earth and like some phantasmal cowboy starts tracking down this Genesis creature, and piling up the body count.

Whew! How's that for a set-up!? Pretty heavy. But although it may seem like a lot of information to be thrown at you in the first issue, it's very clearly presented and sets the reader up for a what looks to be a very interesting ride. The action scenes were brief, but so fantastically violent and gory I was shocked. I don't think I've ever read a comic as graphic and gory as this one. It's really borderline over the top, but maybe that's just my peaceful sensibilities. A book about Angels and Demons should be violent. It suits it. But if this is what we can expect for the series as a whole, a lot of reader will be very turned off by the gore. The artwork as a whole is very interesting though, I won't say it's pretty, but it sure is striking and in your face. The best words to describe it are dark, and sneering... At the end of the day, I though this was a good read, with an interesting set-up. I was very surprised and intrigued. I definitely want to know more.

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