Slashdot Mirror
DC Cancels Comic Where Jesus Learns From Superhero After Outcry (theguardian.com)
AmiMoJo writes: A new comics series in which Jesus Christ is sent on "a most holy mission by God" to learn "what it takes to be the true messiah of mankind" from a superhero called Sun-Man, has been cancelled by DC Comics. The move follows a petition that called it "outrageous and blasphemous". The Second Coming series, from DC imprint Vertigo, was due to launch on 6 March. Written by Mark Russell and illustrated by Richard Pace, its story followed Jesus's return to Earth. "Shocked to discover what has become of his gospel," he teams up with a superhero, Sun-Man, who is more widely worshipped than him.
This sounds like something I would totally read.
Ignore those touchy bigot Christians and just switch the book to use Muhammad and the religion of tolerance and peace. That works...right?
This isn't completely new territory. Miracleman was notable for its release from the 'superhero' concept once the main character realized his life was a simplistic morality play written for children - and then decided to ACTUALLY start making things better for everyone.
There's the usual beating someone with the same powers as them (basically superman), with horrific results, and then ... then they legitimately improve the world. Rebuilding, undoing death, creating a post-scarcity society, becoming part of the larger universe.
And they didn't ignore or shy away from the religious overtones.
Made for a really good exploration of concepts - shame that it was basically tied up in legal ownership muck for many, many years.
Think of it this way - if we got time travel, or the ability to re-create things/people from the past - woudln't one of the absolutely first things folks would do would be to visit/recreate Jesus of Nasareth? Even if just to see what that story really was?
This guy made a fictional story where the Jesus and God are lesser characters in a story. A certain self-proclaimed prophet Mohammad did the same thing, I suppose. There's a lot to learn as long as you don't take it as gospel, so to speak.
It reminds me of when Kevin Smith made Dogma, which received similar backlash from Christian groups. Smith actually went out to one of the protests( which wasn't very large) and joined in with them, which was caught on film by a news crew covering it.
Comic sales are in the tank and I don't think Christians are the main customer base for DC. If anything, the extra attention would just drum up sales for the first issue because people would buy it just to spite the holier than thou religious types.
You will note:
1. There were no riots.
2. No one died
3. It didn't even make the national news until after the fact.
4. There were no death threats
Contrasts that with say, some series that portrays LBQTWERTY in a bad light.
1. There would be protests.
2. There would be boycotts.
3. There would be mass Virtue Signalling on all the social media.
4. There would be talk of how the LBQTWERTY is being attacked and could cost someone their life.
5. There would probably be death threats.
6. Some idiot Congressmaggot would try to hold hearings.
And finally, contrast that with an animated series on Mohammad.
Riots, murders, etc. You know thew drill from past experience.
Let me know when the Christians try to murder everyone involved like Muslims would
They've already done that.
Then there where a couple of wars regarding how strict we would allow Christians to be that makes ISIS looks benign in comparison.
Modern day Christians are mostly nice because they were beaten into submission, but judging from how some of them behave we might need another round of that to prevent them from becoming like ISIS again.
Whatever you do, don't show these petitioners a copy of Preacher. Their heads would explode.
On second thought, do. Do show them copies.
Happy people make bad consumers.
Jesus went against the grain of society, stoop up for the oppressed, advocated equality and social justice for all, disliked the 1%... He even sent himself death threats and his followers have a near-religious fervour. Eventually conservatives got fed up with his BS and constantly claiming to be the victim - "waaah thy nailed me to a cross waaah!" Suck it up, Jesus.
Sounds like an SJW to me.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC