The following is a list of characters from the comic book series Preacher, created by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon.
Jesse Custer is a small-town reverend who becomes fused with a powerful entity named Genesis, gifting him with the ability to cause people to obey whatever he commands. Using this power, he begins a journey of discovery and revenge across America, with the aim of forcing God to answer to His creation for His sins. Standing in Custer's way is a secret religious military organization mysteriously known as The Grail, as well as Custer's own twisted family.
When his soul becomes merged with the angel-demon entity Genesis, its powers, the sum of which are greater than God's, are focused into what Jesse Custer refers to as "The Word of God." When he uses The Word, his eyes turn red and his voice sounds like "nails scraping against [your] soul." Although, very few can resist his commands, his victims must be able to understand them, meaning that those who do not speak English cannot be commanded by him. The Word is also initially ineffective against Jody and TC, as God has allied himself with the L'Angelle clan. Partway through the story arc, in an attempt to appease Jesse, God removes his blessing from the clan, making The Word once more effective. Custer prefers to keep his Word in reserve, using it only when necessary. He is an incredibly able hand-to-hand combatant thanks to years of brutal training forced upon him by Jody, the same man who murdered Custer's father in front of him when he was only 6 years old (as he mentions in The Alamo: "Being taught how to fight by the man who killed your daddy in front of you sure does tend to focus your concentration"). As a result, Custer is able to defend himself against multiple attackers at once and even against the superhuman strength of the Vampire Cassidy. He uses the Word for all sorts of situations, from ordering a Ku Klux Klan member to 'shit himself' to calling in on a radio phone-in show and ordering the guests to tell America what is it they really want. One of his most impressive displays was at the home of his grandmother when he caused her enforcers to spontaneously combust simply by telling them to "Burn!" Despite his abusive upbringing, Custer firmly believes in concepts like justice and chivalry and does not hesitate to physically punish those who unfairly victimize innocent people.
Tulip O'Hare is Jesse Custer's romantic interest, and a trained marksman of exceptional skill. Her mother dies during childbirth, and she is raised by her father, Jake O'Hare, who raises her much like a son by introducing her to firearms, hunting, fishing, and war stories. Jake dies during a hunting accident, and she is sent off to boarding school. She is befriended by the wealthiest girl at the school, Amy Grinderbinder, who remains her friend throughout college. The two drop out after Amy gains a large inheritance, and Tulip meets Jesse while waiting for Amy at a bar. The two fall in love very quickly. Jesse is eventually forced to abandon her without a word when he is tracked down by Jody and T.C. and brought back to his grandmother. After his disappearance, she falls into depression and other troubles, and, after a brief and disastrous career as a hit-woman, she eventually meets Cassidy, and the two eventually find Jesse.
They are later captured by Jesse's grandmother, Marie, and Jesse reveals his past to Tulip, which causes her to fully forgive Jesse. Seconds after, she is killed under Marie's orders. God soon revives her to warn Jesse that more misfortune awaits him if he continues with his quest. After killing a wounded T.C. and leaving Marie to die, Tulip and Jesse are reunited. After becoming involved with the Grail, she believes Jesse to be dead, falls into a serious depression, and becomes involved with Cassidy while under the constant influence of drugs and alcohol. She asks Cassidy if Jesse said anything before he fell out of the plane to which Cassidy lies and says no. After months of the drug induced hell Cassidy puts her through, she eventually leaves him after a moment of clarity by shooting him through the chest out into the sun. She then heads to New York with her closest friend Amy. There she learns that Jesse is alive and is headed right where she is. Once they find each other and reconcile, they begin to travel together again. Jesse makes his final plan to rid himself of Genesis. Before doing so he drugs Tulip so she sleeps through the whole ordeal and leaves her a note explaining his actions and a key to a locker with a small fortune in it. Skeeter wakes her up and she reads the note, becoming so enraged she follows Jesse to the Alamo, where she kills Starr during a gun battle. She goes to pick up the money from the locker where the revived Jesse finds her. Still very angry she explains that she cannot be with Jesse after the Alamo because it shows that Jesse doesn't trust her and that he would never change. Stuck in traffic she finds a note that Cassidy left her explaining that he lied to her when she asked if Jesse said anything when he fell out of the plane. Jesse then steals a horse from a cop and rides after her. He wins her back when he shows emotion by crying for her proving that he is changing. They both ride into the sunset together with Skeeter.
Cassidy, whose full name is Proinsias Cassidy, is an Irish vampire. Cassidy joins the Irish Volunteers and takes part in the Easter Rising in 1916, though his brother William (Billy) also joins to keep watch over him. Billy eventually forces Cassidy to desert the army because of its impending failure, and Cassidy is soon bitten by a "hag", who seemingly leaves fatal injuries. His body falls into the water, and he soon learns that he is not succumbing to the injuries and that the sun burns his skin. He decides to travel to America, so his family and other soldiers will believe that he is dead. He lives in America, picks up alcohol and drug problems, going as far as prostituting himself for drugs, and begins to wear sunglasses to hide his natural identity. This eventually escalates into the need to hide his eyes, which betray 70 years of substance abuse.
All of the preceding is revealed to Jesse atop the Empire State Building in New York. What he leaves out is that his addictions make him parasitical and irresponsible (In a way, making him a figurative vampire as well as a literal one), causing harm and death to those around him when he abandons them to circumstances he set in motion. Repeatedly showing a remarkable lack of forethought, many women he hooks up with and lives off of over the years end up critically injured, hopelessly addicted to drugs, or dead. After he gets the girlfriend of a friend of his killed during the "Dixie Fried" story arc, Xavier, who is a Voodoo priest says "I honestly don't believe he's an evil man. Just careless. And thoughtless. And terribly, terribly weak."
He eventually meets Tulip O'Hare and Jesse Custer. Cassidy forms a strong friendship with Jesse, and eventually falls in love with Tulip, though she does not reciprocate the feelings. He constantly struggles with his addictions and his feelings for Tulip, though after believing Jesse to be dead, both he and Tulip take up heavy drugs and alcohol, and start a sexual relationship. After reuniting with Jesse, he is told that Jesse no longer wants anything to do with him after finding about his history, though the two agree to meet one more time. They engage in a fist fight that Jesse's skill easily allows him to dominate, while constantly berating Cassidy. When Cassidy finally accepts his failures and begins, as Jesse puts it, "acting like a man," Jesse takes Cassidy's hand in forgiveness. Cassidy proves he's worth the gesture by walking into the sunrise to atone for all he has done, burning up in the process.
Once Jesse is gunned down by the Grail, it is revealed that Cassidy has made a deal with God hours before his confrontation with Jesse; he would beat Jesse to the point of surrender and allow Genesis to be destroyed. In return, God must allow both Jesse and Cassidy to live. Despite events not quite going to plan, God keeps His word. Jesse is revived and goes looking for Tulip, while Cassidy watches his first sunset in years as a human being, then drives off with a pledge to act like a man.
Cassidy has superhuman strength and speed that can easily rip regular humans apart, though he has no formal training, allowing Jesse to easily beat him without taking any injuries (except for a broken breast-plate which occurred when Cassidy offered his hand in friendship and then sucker punched Jesse). Cassidy can survive any physical wound although he feels the full pain associated with the injury. He can heal superhumanly fast, and drinking blood allows him to accelerate the process. The only thing that can kill him is being directly in sunlight for a period of time, though he can stand indirect exposure with discomfort. Although Cassidy needs blood to sustain himself, he does not need human or even fresh blood, preferring instead the taste of beer or whiskey. He generally drinks blood from live humans only if they threaten him.
A Cassidy reference appears in issue #27 of The Boys, another Ennis creation; in Part 2 of Preacher, Jesse tells Tulip that Cassidy originally came down to Dallas to open a bar called 'The Grassy Knoll'. In Issue #27 of The Boys, Billy Butcher is shown in a bar of that name, talking to an Irishman called Proinsias, who runs the bar.
The Saint of Killers is the Patron Saint of Murderers and Assassination. He was originally a soldier serving in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War; both respected and feared for being absolutely merciless on the battlefield, his bloodlust verging on that of a berserker frenzy. After the war, he makes his living in the American West by collecting Native scalps and bounty hunting, until rescuing a young woman. She manages to break through to his gentler side, and the two fall in love and have a daughter. When his wife and child fall ill, he attempts to fetch medicine for them, but is delayed by a gang of outlaws, which results in his family's death. He subsequently slaughters much of the gang, kills an innocent hostage, but runs out of bullets before killing the leader, which leads to his death after being impaled in the chest with a shovel.
Death takes him, and, because of the innocent life he took, he is consigned to perdition. His own hatred causes Hell to literally freeze over (much to the Devil's wrath), which causes the Angel of Death to offer him to return to Earth under the condition that he takes up his role of collecting the souls of those who die by violence. Melting the Angel of Death's sword in Hell's last burning fire, the Devil forges two Walker Colt revolvers that will kill anything, never miss their target, never leave his possession, and never run out of bullets. The now resigned Angel of Death dubs the man "The Saint of Killers". The Saint returns to Earth after killing the Devil for insulting him, leaving the fate of Hell unknown. He kills the rest of the bandits and purges the town of Ratwater simply because of his nature, and rests at a tomb on Boot Hill while his spirit gathers souls that die by violence. He is awakened once Genesis merges with Custer, and begins to pursue him. He eventually learns that he has no one commanding him, God having left Heaven, though he continues to hunt Custer because he was scorned. He spares Custer after he learns that God arranged for his family to die in order to set him on the path towards becoming the Saint, and now seeks to kill God. The two finally join forces, and after Custer lets himself be killed to release Genesis, God returns to Heaven, where the Saint has slaughtered all of the angels. Despite God's attempts to intimidate the Saint with His wrath and then offering to restore his family to life, the Saint guns Him down, ending His tyranny. With no one left to kill anymore, the Saint sits upon God's Throne and returns to sleep as the world is bathed in peace.
The Saint of Killers is impervious to harm - being hit with a nuclear missile caused no damage to him or his clothes, apart from the comment "Not enough gun". He can easily knock away tanks with a simple kick and he can be hit by a speeding truck without flinching. His can draw his guns supernaturally quickly, and always hits his mark, even piercing tank armor to reach the intended target. The weapons always inflict fatal injuries regardless of the circumstance or nature of the victim (including angels and demons) - even God and the Devil are not immune to the bullets, as the Saint has killed them both (the only being ever to have survived being shot by the Saint was Cassidy, but Garth Ennis later admitted that he was still working out the character of the Saint at that point and was a technical mistake). Anyone holding one of the guns can see the spirits of the many people that the Saint has personally killed.
In 2009, the Saint of Killers was ranked as IGN's 74th Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time.[1]
Herr Starr (his first name is never revealed) was a former German anti-terror operative and member of The Grail. During his school years, a group of five bullies targeted him because he was the son of a British serviceman. This eventually led to an attack in which the boys gave a "a star for Starr" by using a broken bottle to carve five jagged lines around his right eye, which was then blinded. The stress of the event caused his hair to fall out and his voice to become harsh and grating, due to his screaming during the incident. He eventually became dedicated to creating order in the world, and started by killing his attackers - all died before Starr turned ten. He later joined the German anti-terrorism unit GSG 9, and excelled in all training areas. He showed initiative crucial to his future employment when he defeated his close-combat tutor (a sadist who enjoyed beating up new recruits) by shooting him in the legs at the start of a training session. As a result, he was not as skilled in unarmed combat as other Grail operatives, although his explanation for this was that he had "no intention of ever being unarmed".
Starr was recruited by the Grail and quickly rose in the ranks, eventually becoming Sacred Executioner, second only to the Grail's leader, known as "Allfather". He eventually decided that the Grail's motives were flawed as they planned everything around the deformed and inbred Messiah. When he heard of Jesse Custer and his power of "the Word", Starr concluded that he was the perfect candidate for an alternative Messiah and planned to use Custer in his scheme to overthrow the Grail's leadership. He eventually murdered his way to the position of Allfather. To consolidate his position he called a meeting of The Grail Council, and used the opportunity to kill them all at once using Chlorine gas.
As the story progresses he slowly descends deeper into both rage and insanity (even shooting a report by agent Hoover due to the incorrect use of grammar and quotation marks) and he perverts the Grails private army into a personal task force charged with killing Custer, who he sees as the cause of all his ills.
Throughout the course of the series, Starr obtains various humiliating injuries showing the extent of his determination towards his goal of global domination. He is raped by a large male prostitute, has his left ear shot off by Tulip, and Jesse cuts a gash across his head, making it resemble a penis (he spends the rest of the series hiding the scar with a Panama hat). He is captured by three inbred hillbillies who eat his right leg before he kills them and escapes. He fears he has met his match in the Grail agent Eisenstein, but successfully kills him, his cannibal bodyguard, and the bodyguards dog, although not before it chews off his genitalia. Throughout all these injuries, his only comment after they have occurred is always "Ah... Shit.", including his last words after being shot by Tulip during the Custer/Cassidy fight.
In 2009, Herr Starr was ranked as IGN's 66th Greatest Comic Book Villain of All Time.[2]
God was the ancient creator of The Universe and King of Heaven. Contrary to Mortal belief, He was not as all-loving as he claimed or even believed Himself to be, He was self-righteous, tyrannic, egocentric, selfish, and believed that His nature and ways should not have been known by Man. He was narcissistic and viewed himself as perfection itself, expecting to be obeyed and worshiped without question, and damning those who defied His will. He left Heaven after Genesis fused with Jesse, for fear of her power. After Jesse (and Genesis) were slain, He returned to Heaven only to find that The Saint of Killers had slain the entire Heavenly Host. God tried to intimidate The Saint with His wrath, however was stopped when the Saint held Him at gunpoint. He attempted to bargain with the Saint by telling him that He would restore his family if he let Him sit upon His throne once again, but was gunned down, ending His tyranny forever. With His death, the world is bathed in peace and prosperity as the Sun rested below the hills, now free of God's corruption.
Arseface is a boy who, having grown up in an abusive household, attempts to kill himself after trying to emulate his hero, Kurt Cobain. He received his own single-issue comic book, Preacher: The Story of You-Know-Who. His father is a severe redneck racist who often beats him for trivial reasons. Arseface and his friend "Pube" are regarded as outcasts because of their idol worship of Kurt Cobain, and because Arseface is a sheriff’s son. Thus the two become the target of bullying tactics. After a severe beating by his father, and learning of Cobain's suicide, Areseface makes a suicide pact with Pube. Pube puts a shotgun in his mouth and successfully kills himself, while Arseface places the shotgun under his chin, which severely deforms his face instead of killing him.
During his father’s investigation in the Jesse Custer case, the boy stows away in his father's car. During a confrontation with Jesse and the Saint of Killers, the boy pleads for the Saint to let his father live. Cassidy remarks that the boy’s face looked like an “arse.” After Jesse forces him to maim himself, the boy's father commits suicide, which leads the boy to name himself Arseface and begin a manhunt for Jesse. Arseface eventually tracks down Jesse outside of a diner, where Jesse reminds Arseface about his father's true nature. He travels with Jesse until he is called on stage during Mardi Gras because of his looks, and ends up becoming a singing hit (despite being unintelligible). Under the guidance of his manager, Gene Sergeant, Arseface becomes a national singing superstar, and Sergent uses various controversies, such as forced suicides and insulting the Pope to keep him popular. At the height of the controversies, Sergeant takes all of his money and leaves.
Arseface, now broke, travels the country once again. His travels eventually lead him to the town of Salvation, Texas, where he encounters people bullying Lorrie Bobbs. He drives off her tormentors. The two fall in love because Lorrie's visual disorder causes her to see Arseface as handsome. The two stay in Salvation, and Arseface lands a job shoveling manure. He also befriends Custer's one-armed mother, who takes a maternal interest in Lorrie.
Billy Bob Bobbs is Jesse Custer's childhood friend during his time spent on the L'Angelle estate. Billy Bob comes from a poor, severely inbred family living in the swamp, and expects to follow the family tradition of marrying his sister. Both Billy Bob and Lorie share a deformity, a bare patch of skin where the left eye should be located. When Billy Bob happens upon T.C. raping a chicken in the barn, T.C. murders him by slitting his throat. Jesse attacks T.C. and calls him a cocksucker, which results in his grandmother sentencing him to be trapped in the box under the lake. When Jesse is released and goes to the Bobbs home to tell them about Billy Bob's death and apologize, they angrily reject him.
Lorie Bobbs, Billy Bob's sister, finds her way to the town of Salvation, where she works in the town bar. Her inbreeding also results in a visual condition where she sometimes sees one object as something else, although this doesn't seem to affect her life negatively. When Arseface arrives in the town, he protects her from an attack by visiting drunken rednecks. She eventually falls in love with Arseface, who appears to be very attractive because of her visual delusions coupled with the fact that he saved her from a pack of thugs.
Christina Custer is Jesse Custer's mother. She meets John Custer, a Marine recently returned from Vietnam, as an anti-war protester. She spits in his face, but later apologizes, leading to a relationship. They are forced to marry by Christina's mother and told never to leave under the threat of death. During an attempt to escape, John is shot to death by Jody, who works for the L'Angelle family. She later protests the punishment of Jesse, which leads to Marie ordering Jody to shoot her. She manages to escape, though her skull is cracked open by a reflexive shot and she loses her left arm to an alligator. She is rescued by hunters, though she is brain damaged, which leaves her in a persistent vegetative state for many years. She later recovers, though she has amnesia and believes her name is "Jodie". She makes her way back to Salvation, recovers her memories slowly, and eventually remembers everything after Jesse says "Mom".
Allfather D'Aronique is the leader of the Grail organization, being the 112th to hold the title, and Jesse Custer's distant uncle. He is barely mobile because of his extreme weight, which requires to be carried about by retainers. D'Aronique is also bulimic, and uses an ivory stick in the shape of two fingers to induce vomiting. Because his subordinates are all too loyal or afraid of him to question anything he does, he has no compunction about messily gorging himself with food and then vomiting all over himself in front of others. Despite his seemingly hapless appearance, D'Aronique is both highly intelligent and absolutely ruthless, albeit very pious and fully believing in the cause of The Grail and the potential of the messiah. D'Aronique's motivations can be summarised by a two-frame reference between Starr and his subordinate Marseilles:
Marseilles: God, he disgusts me. What do you suppose he's thinking about?
Starr: His favourite subjects — mass murder and big pies.
He requires multiple world leaders to call him daily and thank him for preserving their power. He is killed during a coup d'état of The Grail when he is pushed out his helicopter by Herr Starr.
Jesus DeSade is a millionaire hedonist who believes in pursuing every sexual fantasy, no matter how perverted. He engages in activities such as drug dealing, zoophilia, and child pornography. DeSade is also known for throwing wildly hedonistic parties for Hollywood's elite, where literally no fetish or sexual perversion is left unpursued. Jesse and his friends crash one of the parties. After rescuing a child from a pornographic film, Jesse beats DeSade savagely, telling him that he will be waiting when DeSade gets out of jail.
"The Duke" is Jesse Custer's imaginary friend, appearing to him shortly after the death of his parents. Although he has the mannerisms and speech pattern of John Wayne, it was stated in the comic that the real John Wayne was still alive when the Duke first appeared to Custer. He stays with him off and on throughout his life. He offers companionship when Jesse is being punished in the coffin. He abandons Jesse when he falls in lockstep to his evil grandmother's wishes. He provides encouragement at other times. At times, the Duke provides information that Jesse could not have known himself and acts as a deus ex machina of sorts in order to advance the plot line. When Jesse goes to confront Cassidy at the Alamo during the last book of the series, the Duke tells Jesse that he's proud of him and disappears. Jesse's father John was an avid John Wayne fan and let him watch Wayne movies much to the displeasure of Christina. John Custer, while serving in Vietnam, was personally given a Zippo lighter by the real John Wayne. This lighter was stolen by Jody after killing John Custer, and Jesse retrieved it some time later when he killed Jody. Jesse also encounters a man with an identical lighter, who served with John and who tells Jesse stories from the war. It reappears throughout the series and bears the words "Fuck Communism" engraved on the front.
The Genesis entity is the result of the mating of an angel and a demon. She has the appearance of a comet with the face of a crying infant and she possesses all of the memories and powers of heaven and hell. Immediately after Genesis' birth, God leaves heaven, leaving the Seraphi angels in command. Soon after, Genesis escapes and bonds herself to Custer, leading the Adephi angels to appoint the Saint of Killers to retrieve her and her vessel.
Jody is Ms. L'Angelle's most trusted enforcer, often paired with T.C. for missions. Jesse calls him "the leading expert on fucking people over before they can fuck him". He has a gift for machines, and having spent his teen years on the Llano, he has a deep knowledge of cattle. Massively muscled, he can send a man flying with one punch, and he has an incredible tolerance for pain and injury, being able to take a nailed plank of wood to the face without wincing, and able to remain foul-mouthed, and direct whilst on fire. Jody believes that he does Jesse the favor of toughening Jesse up with his pattern of abuse, calling him a crybaby directly after shooting Jesse's father, nailing Jesse's beloved dog to the farmyard fence, and weighting down Jesse's "coffin" with his best friend. Jesse finally kills Jody during a fistfight on the L'Angelle ranch, in which it appears that Jesse breaks his spine. Jody does appear to care for Jesse, as he fixes the bones which he breaks while toughening Jesse up, although he does seem to resent the fact that Marie cares more for Jesse than she does for him. It is implied that Jody had always trained Jesse to be stronger than he was, able to beat him in hand-to-hand combat. When Jesse attacks T.C. for murdering Billy-Bob, Jody tests Jesse for the first time. Jody's last words are "Prouda you, boy," before Jesse strangles him, having finally beaten him in a fair fight. Though Jody is one of the main antagonists of the series, it was his training alone that allowed Jesse to become as tough and adept as he is. Though Jesse hated Jody, he does hold him in high respect, acknowledging Jody as one of the most important people that shaped his life.
Marie L'Angelle was the wheelchair-bound grandmother of Jesse Custer. She was a cold-blooded and wretched woman, a Christian fanatic who took any counter-measures for her designs to work, such as threatening the death of John Custer should he ever try to leave Angelville. She punishes family members by sealing them in a sealed, weighted down coffin with an air tube put in the bottom of the swamp, without food or water, to stir and crawl within their own urine and feces for up to a month. She wanted Jesse to become a minister, and punished him with the coffin often. She later sends Jody and T.C. to find Jesse after he escapes, and later makes a pact with God to kill Tulip to assert control over Jesse, though God brings her back, which leads to her killing T.C. and setting the house on fire. Marie is finally killed when the flames hit her oxygen tank and her corpse is blown out of the house, sending her to Hell for her sins against Jesse.
The Messiah is the last descendant of Jesus Christ, under the control and protection of the Grail. According to the history of the Grail, the death of Jesus Christ by crucifixion was a ruse — he was drugged by a soporific by his followers to fake the appearance of death. After his revival he married (presumably to Mary Magdalene), had a family, and reached middle age before being killed by a runaway cart. The organization that eventually becomes the Grail takes his children and keeps them in seclusion, where they are allowed to mate only with one another, in order to preserve their holy bloodline. By the time of Allfather D'Aronique's reign, the last two descendants, a mated brother and sister, are severely inbred, ugly and mentally handicapped; only the mystic power of their bloodline makes its continuation possible at all.
When the Messiah is born, his mother is killed during the birth, and his father kills himself afterward. The Messiah is a gawky-looking, mentally handicapped, unstoppably cheerful young teenage boy who is generally allowed to run wild under D'Aronique's watch. He often uses the nonsense word "Humperdidoo" as a cheerful punctuation to his statements. Starr eventually decides that Allfather D'Aronique's plan to set up a one world government with the Messiah as its puppet ruler is madness, which leads to the Messiah being killed during the coup after D'Aronique lands on him.
Miss Oatlash is Odin Quincannon's lawyer, who mainly uses her talents to protect his illegal operations and keep his minions out of jail. She is also a Nazi apologist who idolizes Adolf Hitler and maintains that he was a peaceful man who had nothing to do with the Holocaust. She is also an amateur sado-masochistic dominatrix who craves sex with a man who meets her standards for an Aryan Übermensch. Without Quincannon's knowledge she becomes obsessed with Jesse Custer, leading to his capture, whereupon she binds and dresses him as a Nazi SS staff officer, with the intent of raping him. However with Skeeter's help he escapes and leaves her tied to the bed instead - her parting words to Custer being "I like it like this!"
Odin Quincannon is a wealthy businessman who makes his fortune from a meat-processing plant and who also bears a striking similarity to 1992 independent party presidential candidate Ross Perot. He has near-total control over the town of Salvation. He is also an ardent member of the local branch of the Ku Klux Klan, and uses his fellow Klansmen as his hired muscle. Odin clashes with Jesse Custer many times during Jesse's tenure as sheriff of Salvation, using varied illegal activities, including murder, to attack Jesse and his allies. At one point, he threatens to destroy the entire town using carefully planted explosives. A lightning blast injures Odin, but he escapes anyway.
Jesse follows him back to his plant and tracks him down by following a trail of blood. In his private shed, Jesse sees Odin having sex with a giant, woman-shaped mannequin made out of various meat products. Jesse crushes his neck under his boot in what he describes as a "mercy killing". After his death, his brother Conan replaced the meat plant with a waste management plant.
Conan Quincannon is Odin Quincannon's brother. He is a kind-hearted environmentalist, which is the polar opposite of everything that makes up Odin. He moves to Salvation, Texas after the destruction of his brother's meat processing plant and converts the plant to produce fertilizer from manure, describing his trade by saying "I'm in shit". He offers Arseface a job shoveling manure at the request of a smitten Lorrie Bobbs.
The official deputy of the town of Salvation, an African-American woman who becomes Jesse's aide-de-camp as well as retaining her Deputy role when he becomes sheriff. Initially dubious of his abilities and intentions she starts to like him when shows absolute fearlessness against the evil Odin Quincannon, especially when he uses a check by Quincannon to hire a secretary and buy her a powerful rifle. During his stay, she begins to fall in love with him, but realizes that he's in love with someone else. She becomes the new sheriff when he leaves.
Hugo Root is the mean-hearted father of Arseface and a local sheriff. Root is an alcoholic and racist who believes "Martian niggers" are the source of America's ills. The turning point in Root's life comes after his first encounter with Jesse Custer and the Saint of Killers, which leaves his deputies dead and a helicopter downed. He is ridiculed for his story and eventually seeks out Custer. He kidnaps Tulip, which eventually leads Custer to misuse his power after telling Root to "go fuck himself". Against his will, Root maims himself, inserting his genitals into his anus. While being treated in an ambulance, he asks his son to retrieve his gunbelt. In front of paramedics and his son, Root commits suicide, which then leads his son to hunt down Custer.
T.C. is one of Ms. L'Angelle's "law" enforcers. His primary interest is having sex with practically any creature or inanimate object (including, memorably, the cake presented to Jesse for his tenth birthday) he can find. T.C. is very violent, willing to kill anyone he is ordered to or anyone who gets in his way or annoys him. Though he is nowhere near as skilled as Jody in combat, he is still extremely dangerous, especially when paired with Jody. In a synchronized attack, the two of them were able to kill a large troop of soldiers. T.C.'s level of perversion bewilders even Jody, without whom he is seldom seen. When Jesse exacts his revenge at Angelville on all of its inhabitants, T.C., much to his horror, is killed by a newly resurrected Tulip.
First introduced in the issue entitled "Comes A Pale Rider," Bob, an extremely aggressive homosexual, is a buzz-cutted, heavyset man with a thick Yorkshire accent, while Freddy is shorter, has a slighter build, glasses, and an unshaven countenance. He extremely dislikes giving fellatio, but seems to be put in situations where it is forced on him (he even has trophy for it). Due to their sexual preoccupation, they tend to work for disreputable clients.
Their first case involves retrieving a supply of heroin for a party hosted by Jesus DeSade. The heroin is hidden in the apartment of Cassidy's deceased addict girlfriend, thus compelling Cassidy to pursue them in order to learn the identity of her supplier. Meanwhile, Hoover of the Grail inadvertently hires Bob to sexually service Herr Starr, traumatizing Starr for much of the remainder of the series. Bob and Freddy retrieve the heroin and deliver it to DeSade, where Cassidy catches up to them, punches out all Freddy's teeth, and throws Bob from a window onto the roof of Jesse's car.
Much later in the series, the sexual investigators appear in pursuit of a fleeing porn actor named Tom Cooze. The two hitch a ride with Jesse, but as their paths never directly crossed on the night of the disastrous party, none of them recognize each other, although Jesse realises who they are some time after they have left his car.
Hoover was originally a lifeguard at a swimming pool before he joined the Grail, but someone had drowned on his watch. Sarah Featherstone was a teacher of Sunday school and joined the Grail after her sister was raped and butchered by a criminal who was never caught.
These subordinates of Herr Starr first appear during the series' introduction of the Grail. Hoover is a soft-spoken, naive African-American who is squeamish around violence and objects to the word "Motherfucker" (He only says it willing once, when Starr kills Featherstone), while Featherstone is a white, blond-haired, bespectacled young woman. They both are recruited by Starr to take part in a coup that he sets in motion. Their first encounter with Jesse, Tulip, and Cassidy at the Jesus DeSade party results in Tulip being kidnapped and Hoover being compelled by Jesse using the Voice of God to order him to collect three million grains of beach sand.
Over the course of the series, Featherstone begins to fall in love with Starr, seeing his darker side as merely quirks. However, as his vendetta against Custer gets more out of control and Starr starts slowly destroying the Grail, she starts to become disillusioned with him. When Hoover FINALLY gets three million grains of sand, he is shockingly thin, missing teeth due to malnutrition, and has massively overgrown hair. Once free of the mental compulsion placed on him by Jesse, he rejoins the Grail and retakes his place working alongside Featherstone. He meets up with Jesse and Tulip, wanting vengeance for his disproportionate punishment, but is unable to kill either of them. When Jesse admits that he was vindictive and apologizes, Hoover breaks down. Jesse uses The Voice to make Hoover forget his ordeal, almost instantly changing his outlook on life. He becomes happier, reigniting his crush on Featherstone, and undermining Starr's authority with minor practical jokes.
They are both shot dead by Starr in the series' final arc.
Eccarius is introduced in the one-shot "Blood and Whiskey", and he is a native of New Orleans and the only other vampire in the series. He meets Cassidy at some undisclosed time in the past. He styles himself after the more romantic gothic image of vampires, wearing frilly clothes and speaking in an erudite manner. He was drunk when he was bitten by the vampire who turned him, so he has no idea who it was. He has only been a vampire for ten years at the point of the story, and he shows a massive lack of genuine knowledge about vampires and their weaknesses (He doesn't realize that he can consume things other than blood, nor that sunlight is the only real weakness they have). He portrays himself as a vampire cliche, putting on all the affectations of fictionalized vampires, but not being terribly intelligent (When Cassidy calls him a wanker, he initially thinks it's a corruption of 'wampire'). The fact that Cassidy jokes about what Eccarius takes seriously is a constant source of tension.
In the basement of his mansion reside a group of "followers" revealed to be rich kids that are interested in vampires who treat Eccarius as something of a lord. Calling themselves Les Enfants du Sang, they drink the blood of willing members as a pastime and take an intense interest in Cassidy when it is revealed he is a vampire. Cassidy is disgusted, calling Eccarius a self-obsessed egotist and breaking the jaw of one follower. There appears to be an informal "inner circle", composed of members who want to be turned by Eccarius into vampires: Mako, Lili, and later Jonathan. Then there is a loose grouping of members just in it for the dressing up and drinking blood part. These are not terrifically intelligent, and are used as cannon fodder by higher echelon members. All the members show varying degrees of being disconnected with reality (When some of them try to kidnap Tulip years later, they act the part of vampires fully. They bring knives, she packs a gun. It doesn't end well for them).
Eccarius is killed by Cassidy during their first meeting after Eccarius has drained a follower of all her blood. Eccarius, truly, was aware of the naivete of Les Enfants du Sang. He reveals that he kills them under the pretense of turning them into vampires, but drains them completely of their blood instead. He brags that he had killed "hundreds". Cassidy knocks him out and stakes him to the roof, exposing him to full sunlight and killing him. This causes the cult to take up a vendetta years later when Cassidy, Tulip, and Jesse come to New Orleans to request the aid of a Voodoo priest to find out more about Genesis. The cult is killed by Jesse and Tulip (Cassidy is beheaded early in the fight, but survives); Jonathan is mortally wounded when Jesse shoves his katana sword into his anus. The fight results in the death of the priest's girlfriend and sets up a vendetta against him by the grief-stricken priest.
Angels have limited amount of interaction with humans in the series, but their universal trait seems to be a remarkable ineffectiveness.
In 1994, the Seraphi angel that fathered Genesis falls to Earth for the sin of having sex with a demon and is captured by the Grail. It is later revealed that God controlled them both in order to create Genesis. Used by Starr and the Allfather, he provides them with intelligence about Heaven and God. He reveals the true origin of Genesis to Jesse, and is killed by God shortly thereafter.
Two Adephi angels are Fiore and deBlanc, who are sent to Earth to retrieve Genesis. They first meet Jesse during his confrontation with Hugo Root and the Saint of Killers and are forced by him to reveal that God has abdicated His throne, beginning Jesse's quest to find the Almighty. They show up in the final arc, having fallen so far that Fiore is snorting cocaine and deBlanc is having sex with a woman. Jesse storms into their casino and asks for information regarding Genesis and the fall, which they provide.
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