Horror Book Reviews
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Title: Preacher Vol. 8: All Hell's A-Coming |
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Review of Preacher Vol. 8: All Hell's A-Coming
- It's trite but true: you can't keep a good man down. Holier-than-anyone Jesse Custer comes back from the dead--or wherever--in the eighth collection of Preacher, All Hell's A-Coming. Garth Ennis's knack for developing characters slowly and almost effortlessly pays off more and more with each issue, and by now Custer, his lover Tulip, and his vampire friend Cassidy are as complex as anyone you're likely to meet. The story arc focuses on Tulip's own resurrection from her unlife of booze, drugs, and Cassidy as she reunites with the Preacher, and this powerful tale doesn't require any superheroic conflict to affect the readers. (Fans of the Voice will be disappointed to learn that it's only used once, in an amusing throwaway scene.) As this develops, the nefarious Grail suffers from internal struggle, and poor Arseface finds himself on the backside of fame, setting the stage for plenty of future weirdness. In addition to the regular collected issues, All Hell's A-Coming includes the one-shot "Tall in the Saddle," a fast-moving story from Jesse, Amy, and Tulip's younger days. If you've never met the Preacher, isn't it about time you found the fear of God? --Rob Lightner
Product Description
- It's trite but true: you can't keep a good man down. Holier-than-anyone Jesse Custer comes back from the dead--or wherever--in the eighth collection of Preacher, All Hell's A-Coming. Garth Ennis's knack for developing characters slowly and almost effortlessly pays off more and more with each issue, and by now Custer, his lover Tulip, and his vampire friend Cassidy are as complex as anyone you're likely to meet. The story arc focuses on Tulip's own resurrection from her unlife of booze, drugs, and Cassidy as she reunites with the Preacher, and this powerful tale doesn't require any superheroic conflict to affect the readers. (Fans of the Voice will be disappointed to learn that it's only used once, in an amusing throwaway scene.) As this develops, the nefarious Grail suffers from internal struggle, and poor Arseface finds himself on the backside of fame, setting the stage for plenty of future weirdness. In addition to the regular collected issues, All Hell's A-Coming includes the one-shot "Tall in the Saddle," a fast-moving story from Jesse, Amy, and Tulip's younger days. If you've never met the Preacher, isn't it about time you found the fear of God? --Rob Lightner
Amazon.com Review
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Comments for Preacher Vol. 8: All Hell's A-Coming
- Posted on 2007-12-30
getting back on track
Volume eight is a step back in the right direction, while not quite a great as the first six volumes or the final one, it is a step above volume seven. It's great to see the story, Jesse's quest, back on track.
Score: 4
- Posted on 2007-09-03
Graphic SF Reader
Some history of the hell raising (among other nastiness) of both Jesse and Tulip, plus a confrontation, reconciliation and more of the same at an old friend's. Jesse fancies her friend, her friend fancies Jesse, especially compared to the usual losers she comes across. Neither will do anything, partly because both of them realise that Tulip will blow the hell out of them if they do, for one thing, and that they are more valuable as friends. Jesse does it to Tulip again.
Score: 4 - Posted on 2004-10-16
The Calm Before the Storm
In this, the penultimate instalment to the remarkable Preacher run, Garth Ennis sets the scene before it all comes crashing down in The Alamo. An interweaving of narrative focuses on things that were: the younger lives of Tulip and Cassidy; the last story, `Tall in the Saddle,' looks at a younger Jesse, Tulip, and Amy, and shows the extent of Jesse's moral imperatives. Jesse's Texas-style justice borders on the sadistic in much of these pages. Nothing new there, I suppose, but there's some pretty graphic stuff, which further makes difficult the ability to unequivocally embrace Jesse as 'the hero.'If Preacher can 'mean' anything, surely the interrogation of whether good people can do bad deeds must be one of its hallmarks.
There's an undercurrent of themes here, most notably, the grand vision of America as the home of second chances and fulfilled dreams. That such a naïve suggestion could even be seriously articulated in as cynical and dark a text as Preacher (particularly when it's delivered by an ex-porn actor), shows the broadness of the canvas with which Ennis paints. Although Ennis clearly does believe in the notion of redemption, as witnessed by Jesse's spiritual rebirth in the appropriately-titled `Salvation,' and Tulip's deliverance from her own personal hell in these pages, our good buddy Arseface, though, is a living example of what happens when we too-openly trust and believe in goodness and decency. And people like Cassidy demonstrate the morality of people who manipulate that trust for their own benefit...
All in all, this is a good read. I would have liked more plot and less background (did I really need to know all I did about Tulip? And why is her father's hand inexplicably replaced by a hook?), but I can see Ennis playing the role of maestro here, having things quiet down before the finishing crescendo.
Score: 3
- Posted on 2003-05-12
Leads up to the incredible finale
This collected volume, which leads up to the incredible finale of the Preacher series, finds Tulip leaving her new life of booze, drugs, and Cassidy to try to get her life back together. After that (and a rousing backstory on Tulip's childhood and her meeting with Amy), she and Jesse are re-united proving one of Preacher's many themes: love is stronger than death. The best parts of All Hell's A-Coming is undoubtadly Jesse learning all of Cassidy's dark and dirty past. This part is pivotal for a few reasons: longtime fans of the series have no doubt grown to love Cass, and now their opinions will be surely changed. Also, this is the plot progressing set up the final, pivotal events that come in the next and final collected volume; Alamo. The final story, a backstory on one of Jesse, Tulip, and Amy's criminal misadventures, isn't one of Ennis' better written stories, but think of it as an added bonus.
Score: 5
- Posted on 2002-10-18
Ain't Got That Old Feeling
I had really high expectations for this volume. It didn't quite measure up.
Okay, yeah, the characters are great. Fine. But the Tulip backstory feels obligatory and pointless, and I don't think it develops too much about her. It really didn't require two issues, that's for sure.
The rest of this volume seems kind of useless, repeating all the themes that have gone before. And between this volume and the last one, I'm wondering when Ennis will stop feeling the need to include sexual perversion in every issue. I'm not a prude, I just think it's a little past the point where it enhances the stories. It just feels repetitive now.
There's no real action in this book, and not a lot of solid story.
Finally, the action Jesse takes at the end of this volume, together with his actions towards Gunther at the end of Salvation make me truly question Jesse as a hero. This would bother me less, except that Ennis seems to think these actions are fine and jim dandy.
Score: 4
