Preacher (Comic Book): Difference between revisions

* [[Beauty Is Never Tarnished]]: And how. If the heroes get shot non-lethally, there's a splash of blood rather than the gaping exit wounds suffered by everyone else.

** Dunno about that, heroic characters lose arms and eyes in the course of the story too...

* [[Big Screwed-Up Family]]: The L'Angelles. Jesse remarks that the L'Angelles must have the "Devil's own piss" running in their veins instead of blood. It was something of a miracle that Jesse's own mother turned out as well as she did -- which is probably why she fled in the first place.

* [[Black and Gray Morality]]: Even God's a prick.

* [[Black Best Friend]]: "Space" to John Custer, and arguably Cindy to Jesse in ''Salvation''.

* [[Bondage Is Bad]]: Ambiguous, with [[Depraved Bisexual|Jesus De Sade]] and [[The Baroness|Miss Oatlash]] clearly on the bad side, Herr Starr arguably ambiguous, and on the other hand, the fairly sympathetic treatment of [[Transparent Closet]] case [[Cowboy Cop]] Paulie, and some of Jesse and Tulip's playing around. [[Brains and Bondage]] generally applies, good or bad.

** Interestingly, though the Saint of Killers originally lived in the Civil War era and slept for a century before waking up for the events of the series, he has no problem dealing with such technology as cars, radios, helicopters, and tanks. Of course, he tends to deal with such things [[Instant Death Bullet|the way he deals with everything.]]

* [[Bottomless Magazines]]: The Saint of Killers' revolvers. They were forged by [[Satan]] to have their hammers never fall on empty chambers. To be precise, when the [[Grim Reaper|Angel of Death]] gave up his position [[Start of Darkness|to the Saint]], he also gave up his sword. Satan melted it down and reforged it into two Walker Colt revolvers which [[Shur Fine Guns|never misfire]], [[Improbable Aiming Skills|never miss]], [[Instant Death Bullet|always inflict a deadly wound]], and never need reloading.

** Jesse becomes this in Salvation. Awesomeness ensues. No doubt inspired by:

*** Tom Pickett, the Texas Ranger Jesse and Tulip met when they were younger.

* [[Cuteness Proximity]]: The Saint gets a couple of moments of this {{spoiler|with the girl he later marries, and then with their child}}, though of course it's largely played for contrast. Also, to his surprise, Tulip's [[Rated "M" for Manly]] dad (though it helps that she just burped).

{{quote| ''Aw, so you're a girl. That needn't be so bad.''}}

* [[Eagle Land]]: Somehow subverted. Warts and all - and they are very big warts - this series reads like [[Garth Ennis]]' love letter to America.

{{quote| '''Gunther Hahn''': ''The Myth of America: that simple, honest men, born of her great plains and woods and skies have made a nation of her, and will prove worthy of her when the time is right. Under harsh light, it is false. But a good myth to live up to, all the same.''}}

* [[Eldritch Abomination]]: Genesis is described as such by the angels, including its own father.

* [[Et Tu, Brute?]]: As cited on the trope page:

* [[Good Scars, Evil Scars]]: Herr Starr's scar is ''evil'', especially since it makes him into a walking [[Gag Penis]].

** Plus his "star for Starr" scar is what turned him into a bald, gruff voiced calculating killer in the first place.

* [[Gory Discretion Shot]]: Highly averted, with one particularly strong subversion - Billy-Bob's fatal wounding in "How I learned to love the Lord" in 2nd volume.

** Played straight with the very last death of the comic. Even in this series, Garth Ennis may have thought it [[Crosses the Line Twice|a bit much]] to show the disfigured corpse of '' {{spoiler|God}}''.

* [[Groin Attack]]: Oh so very many. Male genitalia is destroyed in pretty much every possible fashion.

* [[The Grotesque]]: Arseface.

* [[Guns Akimbo]]: It's not enough that the Saint's gun could [[Instant Death Bullet|kill in one perfectly accurate shot]]; he just ''has'' to have a pair of them too.

* [[The Gunslinger]]: Tulip

** The Saint of Killers, too, gets off more or less scot-free despite murdering, what, ''thousands'' of people? Granted, lots of those people had it coming, but many were just unlucky bastards in the wrong place at the wrong time.

*** {{spoiler|Considering that the Saint goes back to sleep at the end, presumably forever since there's nobody left to wake him up, this could be seen as [[Redemption Equals Death]].}}

** The [[Depraved Homosexual|Sexual Investigators]], Bob Glover and Freddy Allen, border on [[Karma Houdini]] status. When we're first introduced to them in the Hunters story arc early in the comic, they're presented as two drug peddling rapists who track down and beat people up for loansharks, caused one of Cassidy's friends to die of an overdose and supply [[Depraved Bisexual|Jesus DeSade]] with heroin, even though they can hardly be ignorant of his many depraved crimes. Now, they do get beat up by Cassidy shortly afterwards, but much later in the comic Jesse picks them up as hitchhikers on his way back from Salvation. Even though there's no hint that they have repented their former crimes (they still work as bounty hunters for extremely dubious employers, for instance), they are now supposed be likeable and sympathetic, with Bob Glover, the worst of them, talking about his difficult childhood and how coming to America gave him a new start in life, with Jesse unironically calling him one "hell of an American" as he drives off.

* [[Kick the Dog]]: A literal example of this leads to Jesse throwing a [[Jerkass]] cop through his cruiser windshield.

* [[Madness Mantra]]: "DOOM cock, DOOM cock"

** "Smear the cheese, smear the cheese... Pluck the hairs, pluck the hairs... Say the name, say the name..."

* [[Mook Lieutenant]]: Marseille.

* [[Moral Dissonance]]: Neither Jesse nor anyone else ever seems to consider that, for example, after his "bank robbery" the teller who gave him the money probably went to prison. For that matter, Jesse's supposedly high moral standards seem to clash with his constant criminality. And at no point does anyone criticize him for his [[Violence Really Is the Answer]] solution to ''everything''.

** He does describe himself as "the V word", though...

*** So he's [[Vagina Dentata|a V-word with teeth]]?

* [[Odd Job Gods|Odd Job Saints]]: The Saint of Killers, the Angel of Death's replacement. Whenever you're about to kill someone, pray to him, he's the one pulling the trigger.

* [[One-Man Army]]: The Saint.

* [[Rage Against the Heavens]]

* [[Rape Discretion Shot]]: Herr Starr's rape by "sexual investigator" happens entirely off-panel.

** In ''Ancient History'', the crooked bayou fight promoter, with a baseball bat.

*** And in the Salvation story arc, when Jesse locks up some of Quincannon's unruly workers.

* [[Start of Darkness]]: For the Saint, though not very straightforwardly.

** Also, "A star for Starr"

* [[Straw Feminist]]: Lampshaded, with Martha Moore. Subverted with Jesse.

* [[Strawman Political]]: Ulysses Gett, a hilariously offensive conservative who wishes people would stop blaming American men for everything (Even when they have every right to!) and is openly critical of the feminists and liberals.

* [[The Svengali]]: Gene Sergeant, Arseface's manager

* [[Hollywood Masochism]]: If the authors know anything about actual BDSM and fetichism, then they chose to hide it really well for the same of [[Rule of Funny]] or whatever. ''Or'' it might just be that every single sadomasochist in the compic also just ''happens'' to be psychotic or similar.

*** That one's a bit ambiguous. While he certainly bears a strong physical resemblance to Gaiman, the poem that he reads has little in common with his writing style. And anyway, Gaiman writes very little poetry, as he has openly said that [[Self-Deprecation|he's terrible at it]].

** There are more than a few shots taken at the music industry, media commentators, media watchdogs, political correctness, psychiatrists and psychology buzzwords, liberal and conservative extremists, Goths, Anne Rice, racists, child molesters, self-loathing homophobes, hypocrites of every variety, in fact, it's hard to think of anyone who wasn't told to stick it where the sun doesn't shine at least once during this series. Except [[John Wayne]].

* [[Tank Goodness]]: Subverted ''epically'' in the War In The Sun arc.

* [[Tell Me About My Father]]

* [[Token Motivational Nemesis]] - Grandma Marie L'Angelle. Also Jody, who claims to have been doing this intentionally ("Try'na toughen you up, boy").

* [[The Dog Bites Back]]: {{spoiler|Featherstone turns on Starr when she realizes how far gone he is. [[Why Don't You Just Shoot Him?|He just shoots her.]] This causes the same reaction from Hoover, with the same result.}}

* [[To Hell and Back]]: The Saint's empowerment.

* [[Trampoline Tummy]]: Disgustingly subverted. The retarded kid who is the last surviving descendant of Jesus apparently amuses himself by taking flying leaps into the copious fat-rolls of the evil Cardinal who rules The Grail. Rather than bouncing hilariously off of it, however, it just makes the cardinal puke by the bucketload, which suits him fine since he's bulimic...

Blond guy's partner: Thuddub!<Shut up!>" }}

* [[Unskilled but Strong]]: Cassidy.

* [[Villainous Breakdown]]: Experienced by Starr near the end.

{{quote| '''Grail Elder''': This is about mankind's salvation.<br />

'''Starr''': This is about {{spoiler|my genitals}}. }}

* [[Volleying Insults]]: Happens whenever Martha Moore and Ulysses Gett appear. Sometimes happens with other people.

* [[War Is Hell]] / [[Armies Are Evil|Hate The War, Love The Soldier]]: Billy Baker, AKA "Space", a [[The Vietnam War|Vietnam Veteran]] who owes Jesse's father his life. He shows up in "Texas and the Spaceman" and "The Land of Bad Things" - both times he waxes poetic on the horrors of war and the humanity of solders. His closing words as he stands before the [[wikipedia:Vietnam Veterans Memorial|Vietnam Veterans Memorial]] simultaneously make you want to donate a million bucks to the [[Band of Brothers|VA]] and spit on every [[We Have Reserves|armchair general]] in existence.

* [[Watering Down]]: Custer starts off his massive [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]] to the whole town by telling the bartender he can almost taste the beer through all the water.

* [[Weak but Skilled]]: Jesse is weak relative to Cassidy, but insanely skilled.

* [["Well Done, Son" Guy]]: Subverted to hell and back with Jody's attempts to cast himself as this to Jesse. Even when he's a [[Vision Quest|hallucination]] he pulls this: "Git on about yore vision, boy"

* [[Wham! Episode]]: ''War In The Sun.''

* [[What Have I Become?]]: Cassidy's reaction to becoming a vampire is actually pretty upbeat.

** It's implied near the end that the Saint of Killers is disgusted, if not outright horrified, at the atrocities he has committed since becoming [[The Grim Reaper|who he is]].