True Faith

True Faith

True Faith is a religious satire written by Garth Ennis and illustrated by Warren Pleece. It was Ennis's second published work after Troubled Souls. It was originally serialised in Fleetway's political/mature readers' anthology, Crisis, starting in October 1989, and was soon collected as a graphic novel. However, it was withdrawn from sale after only two months following complaints by religious groups. It was later republished by DC Comics' mature imprint, Vertigo.

The story's main character is Nigel Gibson, an unremarkable teenager growing up in Thatcher's Britain, tomented at school by bullying teachers and members of the school's Christian student group, who are variously deluded or hypocritical. After a Christian girl mistakes his romantic interest in her for a spiritual one and turns a date at a pub into a religious discussion group, Nigel meets Terry Adair, a recently widowed man whose bereavement has driven him insane. Nigel follows Terry home, intrigued by his intention to kill God, and discovers that Terry has planned a one-man terrorist campaign against churches, hoping to draw God out into the open so he can finish Him off. Terry discovers Nigel and forces him to join his campaign, and as the violence escalatates other anti-God forces make themselves known, building up to a climactic confrontation with the SAS, and a final dénouement where Nigel confronts his chief tormentor.

Thematically, True Faith is the first comic in which Ennis explored the subjects which he has become associated with: disdain for organised religion and its attendant hypocrisy, the desire to hold God to account, the armed forces, crude political satire, gruesome violence and allusions to popular action movies are all present in True Faith.