DC's Vertigo to release "offensive" comic about Jesus.
This month, DC’s imprint Vertigo announced they will be releasing a comic featuring Jesus called “Second Coming” in March 2019.
I’m not one to rave and be “offended”, but looking deeper at the premise of the comic it is very disappointing that one of the “Big Two” with all its media influence and followers would publish something so anti-Christian, it seems like an intentional statement.
The fact is, it’s not just a character who speaks an anti-theist point of view but the whole story is constructed so that the objective truth within the story world is that Jesus was a failure and Christians are a disgrace.
In an interview with Bleeding Cool, author Mark Russell states “The concept is that God was so upset with Jesus’s performance the first time he came to Earth, since he was arrested so soon and crucified shortly after, that he has kept him locked-up since then.”
And “[Second Coming] is about Jesus coming down and being appalled by what he sees has been done in his name by Christianity in the last 2,000 years."
Unfortunately, we can’t even say this is the first time for DC, as Jesus was drawn into another unbiblical storyline in Azrael comic from 2010. (http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Jesus_of_Nazareth_(New_Earth))
Other comics have included Jesus in a similar way before (after all it’s inevitable), but there are two major differences. Firstly, even in these that were somewhat silly (Jesus Hates Zombies, Jesus Vs. Vampires etc) they do not rewrite the Bible and make “the lead character” a failure. Secondly, they are small scale things not backed and promoted by one of the biggest comics producers in the world.
Many Christian news sites and a petition rightly ask "Can you imagine the media and political uproar if DC Comics was altering and poking fun at the story of Muhammad... or Buddha?
"This blasphemous content should not be tolerated. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. His story should not be ridiculed for the sake of selling comic books."
And while I agree with this, we should not be surprised, as Jesus told us in John 15:18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.”
I think many non-Christians may not understand why Christians would be frustrated by this comic and perhaps suggest they just ignore it. However, one does not even need to use Muhammad as an example, even a comic about someone’s family that misrepresents the people, their relationships and their past would be slanderous and libellous. The family would not be happy with people believing false stories about them.
Therefore, for me what is sad about the situation is that there will be readers of their comic who have no significant knowledge of the real Jesus and may be negatively influenced by this story, a story promoted by one of the top company in the industry.
It is my hope that through our own work on the Gospel of Mark: Word for Word Bible Comic we can give this same audience an option to read the unedited source text within the Bible in a format they will enjoy.
Let’s pray for DC and anyone who hears that story to come to a knowledge of the truth. If you feel you’d like to petition against “Second Coming” you can do so here, (it’s nearly at 100,000 signatures already!
https://www.citizengo.org/en/md/167848-dc-comics-slated-release-blasphemous-series-about-jesus
EDIT:
An update to this is that the petition had around a quarter of a million signitures and as a result DC did decide to cancel their involvement in the project. The author will likely take the comic to another publisher but at least it will not be backed by one of The Big Two.
