Preacher

"Um... something about God."

An invisible force descends from space and begins inhabiting the bodies of religious leaders - an African priest, a Russian-Orthodox minister, and Tom Cruise - granting them momentary rapture and then making them explode.

As two mysterious men track the force across the globe, Texas preacher Jesse Custer is rethinking his calling in the face of his appalling sermonising skills, his complete lack of faith and the dilemmas of life as a preacher with a history of violence. Things are complicated when an old friend drops in - figuratively speaking - and an Irish vampire drops in literally, leaping out of a plane to land nearby. Just as he is thinking of quitting, the force enters him, but he does not explode. Unless, he finds a new sense of mission, and gains the ability to compel people to follow - very literally - his every word.

Preacher, based on the cult comic by Garth Ennis, is the pilot episode for a series now picked up for a 10 episode season beginning in June. It rather incongruously stars Dominic Cooper (English) as the Texan preacher Custer, Lucy Griffiths (English) as his right-hand woman at the church, Ruth Negga (Ethiopian-Irish) as Custer's erstwhile colleague Tulip, and Joseph Gilgun (English) as Cassidy. There may be the odd Texan in the supporting cast, but I guess we can chalk that up to human error.

The world of Preacher is one that would gel neatly with that of Constantine, although I doubt we'll see him show up in Arrow any time soon. With his shady past, full and manly beard and smoking habit, Custer is superficially a lot like Constantine himself, but he lacks the swaggering arrogance and the details of his story are clearly quite different, even if those details are yet to be made clear.

While I can't speak for the adaptation, the pilot at least blends humour and violence well, with just a hint of future theological subtext. And it's definitely a hell of a lot better than Lucifer.