Why Christians are outraged over DC Comics’ Jesus series

A new comic book series featuring Jesus Christ as a superhero has been cancelled following outrage from Christians.

DC Comics, the creators of Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman, had announced last month that it would be releasing a series titled Second Coming, written by Mark Russell and drawn by Richard Pace. The illustrated story follows Jesus Christ’s return to Earth after spending 2,000 years “locked up” by God, who was “upset” about his Son’s earlier arrest and crucifixion.

According to Catholic news site Aleteia, the first six installments of the series “featured an immature Jesus Christ” learning to be a “real” superhero from another character, Sun-Man.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

The comic has sparked widespread anger, with more than 233,000 people signing a petition on conservative advocacy group site CitizenGo.org, protesting against the release of the “blasphemous” and “outrageous” series.

“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,” the petition said.

However, not all Christian groups agreed.

Insights, a regional magazine of the Uniting Church in Australia, notes that the authors of the petition had never read the comic.

American Christian magazine Relevant says: “If a satirical comic book series about another religious figure was pre-emptively cancelled over backlash, the likely story would have been one about ‘PC culture’ run amock and how ‘SJWs’ [social justice warriors] these days just don’t understand the First Amendment and the same old hand-wringing about snowflake millennials that has now become a tired cliche.”

The story “looked like a potentially incisive commentary on both the state of the world and the state of Christianity”, adds the magazine, which warns that “if you suddenly start fretting about being offended as soon as the shoe is on the other foot, don’t be surprised if you’re accused of hypocrisy”.

The writer of the series says he was not surprised by the decision. Russell, who is now looking for a new publisher, said: “I was warned that requests for more significant changes would probably be on the way. I decided I would rather keep the story intact and remain true to the original vision.”