Posted on 02/21/2019 10:35:22 PM PST by Simon Green
A second coming of Jesus Christ will have to wait.
DC Comics decided to cancel the release of a comic book titled "Second Coming" that featured Jesus as the sidekick of a superhero named Sun-Man following a wave of backlash from online critics who labeled the book "blasphemous."
The co-creators of the comic, writer Mark Russell and artist Richard Pace, announced the cancellation last week on their Twitter pages. It was scheduled to be released on March 6 under DC Vertigo, a wing of DC which publishes comics with more of a graphic or adult tone.
"My goal is always to write the best books I can about things I have a deep personal attachment to," Russell tweeted. "Publishers have goals of their own. Sometimes our goals complement each other's, sometimes they don't. It's okay to admit it when they don't and go separate ways."
In a separate tweet, Russell said he asked for the rights back to "Second Coming" and DC "gracefully agreed."
"DC did not do anything untoward to me," he wrote. "They've been a pleasure to work with and it will still be released, albeit with a different publisher."
Requests for comment from DC Comics were not immediately returned.
The 32-page comic is centered on Jesus returning to Earth and teaming up with Sun-Man to complete his "most holy mission by God" and "learn what it takes to be the true messiah of mankind," according to DC Comics.
In January, a petition was launched on CitizenGo, an online platform that promotes campaigns geared towards defending religious beliefs, calling on the publisher to cancel the series after Russell said in an interview that Christ was sent back to Earth because "God was so upset with Jesus' performance the first time" that he kept him locked away.
More than 234,000 people had signed the petition, saying the comic book was "inappropriate" and portrayed Jesus as a "clueless superhero sidekick."
"Can you imagine the media and political uproar if DC Comics was altering and poking fun at the story of Muhammad... or Buddha," the petition stated. "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."
Russell told HuffPost that the outrage came before anyone even read the comic. He also said DC had requested changes be made to the series that he and Pace were not comfortable with.
Pace told fans in a tweet they are "looking forward to announcing the new home for Sun-Man, Jesus and their family soon."
You can take your Sun Man to where the Sun don’t shine.
I’m glad people spoke up.
Yes, this will probably be released by some publisher.
It just may not have the widespread distribution that DC Comics are likely to have.
The Comic Book medium is capable of doing Biblical Stories in a more respectful and responsible way. It can be done.
Just not by this sort of storyteller. He has an agenda.
wow. real creative. not.
Sounds like everyone got what they wanted.
L8r
This punk wouldn’t have the gonads to do a comic depicting mad mo. God is going to ring the neck of dopes like this comic scrawler one day. He don’t take too kindly to his son being depicted as a bumbling sidekick.
“”looking forward to announcing the new home for Sun-Man, Jesus and their family soon.””
I hope they stay “homeless”
Learn from who, exactly? Learn from His own Creation? I agree--this is blasphemous.
“And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.”
Matthew 12:32
And here I thought Jack Chick was dead.
Not all Jewish superheroes are God. /sarc
This punk wouldn’t have the gonads to do a comic depicting mad mo.
Same level? You mean like hunt this jerk brained scribbler down and chop his head off. That kind of same level. Before you start placing Christian responses to things we find demeaning to our faith, as comparable to the blood curdling, deranged, demonic reactions of the followers of the paedophile prophet to things they see as offensive, you might consider what ‘orders of magnitude’ means.
It’s just a matter of degree.
Us Christians, unlike the headchoppers, know what restraint is. And a good thing for jerk brained producers of glorified dunny paper that we do. So stop trying the ‘your no better routine’. We are better. We take a non violent stand against this comic garbage that specifically shreds Jesus. We have muscle. And we damn well will use it when appropriate. Just so publishers etc know the score. They wanna make money of this blaspemous crap. Well they can expect a hit on their bottom line.
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