3 out of 5

What an odd book.  Just a Pilgrim straddles a weird line between over comical Garth Ennis and a True Faith style plumbing of concepts… it would actually be less tolerable if it slipped moreso into either one of these modes, as the story of a wandering and brutal warrior in a post apocalyptic land lacks something that carries almost every Ennis book – a strong and interesting lead character – and thus would get boring quickly if not for that mysterious tone.  The Boys, Goddess – Garth has written a couple series where we’re just not really given a main character we can fully side with, and I tend to not latch on to these stories.  I get the vibe after a couple issues, and then I’m not sure why I’m returning.  Our ‘Pilgrim’ is almost comically black and white in terms of doling out justice, except that there’s some depth written into him that doesn’t seem to be intended as tongue in cheek…  The two series which ended up as part of the Pilgrim world, Just a Pilgrim and Just a Pilgrim: Garden of Eden, both feature templates of regular Ennis characters – the strong woman, the blind followers, the pig-headed alpha males – but even these stock tropes diverge from Garth’s habits, given a dash more humanity than usual.

Do we at least delve into some Demon-style ridiculousness via the zombiesque plague that ravages the land?  Sort of.  The hints are there.  But it also sticks to a sense of logic, never quite going off the rails.

It doesn’t seem like Garth just let loose and had fun with the character, nor is it filled with rants on any particular topic.  It’s like… it’s like he actually sat down and scripted out a story without any overt Ennis flourishes.  He can’t avoid his interest in Westerns, and war, and perversity in general, but besides the comfortable blending of his pacing his Carlos Ezquerra’s beautifully consistent drawing style, you wouldn’t point to this and know it’s an Ennis book.  Rather, it’s Ennis-esque.  Garth was sick that week, so we had his brother write it.

Not bad, not good, not, actually, particularly gripping because a pilgrim is a pilgrim, wandering at the start and wandering at the finish (sort of), but it’ll hold your attention issue to issue, wondering what it’s building toward.  Which, lo, is a conclusion – not a surprising one, not a disappointing one.  Which is what it is, so shrugs the reader, so on walks the pilgrim.