Joe Earl Archer (Valiant Comics)

Joe Earl Archer is a charismatic religious leader who attracts an avid following and the father of Obadiah Archer, a Harbinger with uncanny powers of perception and the greatest martial artist alive. To the public, Joe Earl seems to be the epitome of a holy man, but, in private, he and his wife, Thelma Archer, are deviant killers who equate faith with financial donations made to their ministry that use their position in the church to murder young parishioners.

History[]

On July 12th, 1982, Joe Earl and his wife Thelma were torturing an innocent young member of their flock in the master bedroom of their two-story house when, suddenly, their son, Obadiah Archer, ran into the house calling out to them. As Obadiah went up the stairs, Joe Earl walked out of the room and sternly reminded him that he knew never to return home before six o’clock and interrupt their prayer sessions. As Joe Earl took Obadiah to the parlor, Thelma made sure that the boy was securely restricted so he did not warn Obadiah of his presence.

That evening, during a meeting of the Archer’s congregation, Joe Earl convinced a timid young girl whose mother caught masturbating to visit him and Thelma at home to pray together in private.

That night, as Thelma put Obadiah to bed, he tried to tell her about having the power of the lord in him that day, but she dismissed him and told him. As Obadiah lamented aloud that his parents listened to every member of their congregation but him, his mother urged him to go to sleep while his father went downstairs to open the door for the young girl from church.

Later that night, while Joe Earl and Thelma mutilated their young victims after they had taken pornographic Polaroids of them, Obadiah excitingly ran into their bedroom calling out to them to tell them how the power of the lord had allowed him to never miss a basket. As he voiced his certainty that it was only a matter of time until Obadiah discovered their wicked deeds, Joe Earl dropped the girl’s corpse on the floor and then knocked Obadiah unconscious with a single blow to the head.

Though Thelma insisted on using a knife to kill Obadiah and on forging a note to make it look like a suicide, Joe Earl set the house on fire to get rid of him. Much to their dismay, Obadiah escaped his bonds, while a firefighter rescued him from the blaze. While at first it seemed as if Joe Earl and Thelma had killed Obadiah, he miraculously returned from the dead, which prevented them from tying up their loose ends.

That night at the hospital, Doctor Fetto informed Joe Earl and Thelma that Obadiah had experienced an extended cardiac arrest. Though Joe Earl asked Fetto to leave him and Thelma alone with Obadiah under the guise of family prayer, Fetto suggested that such things could wait until morning and escorted them outside. As they left, Joe Earl promised Obadiah that they would be back to take good care of him.

A few weeks after Obadiah escaped from the hospital and went on a pilgrimage to Ladakh, one of the most amazing locales in the world and the site of many of the most remarkable events in history, Joe Earl was arrested, and has been in prison ever since.^[1]