American Jesus: Book One: Chosen

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Apr 25, 2009 Web Exclusive By Kyle Lemmon

Mark Millar is quickly becoming a pop culture institution (if he wasn’t already there). The creator behind such controversial projects as Kick-Ass, Wanted, War Heroes, Marvel’s Civil War, Ultimates, and Superman: Red Son raises some more eyebrows with American Jesus. Chosen was originally published in 2004 by Dark Horse, but this is a new trade paperback collection from Image Comics. Compared to something like Preacher, it’s a fairly tame pre-apocalyptic tale, seen through the eyes of the pubescent Jodie Christianson (the initials are a dead giveaway).

It’s basically Millar's tweaking of the Bible’s Book of Revelation, set in a postmodern environment. Both the returned Jesus and the Anti-Christ grow up in a world of hormones, nagging parents, bullies, and girls next door. What sets this story apart is how Millar and artist Peter Cross present a very lived-in world. Jeanne McGee’s watercolor style lulls you into an inverted suburbia as sinister things begin to happen. Like Millar’s previous projects, American Jesus has naturally been rattling around studios for about as long as it's taken him to release the first installment of his planned Star Wars-like trilogy. The fall sequel will reportedly find an adult Jesus walking in the world of Guantánamo Bay and traditional Republicans who have strayed from the 2000-year-old Judean idea of Christianity.

One would think from his prior work that Millar is a card-carrying atheist or agnostic but in actuality, he’s a practicing Catholic. Despite Chosen’s surface vulgarity to conservatives, it actually contains a fairly Biblical message: faith is rewarded even when it is nearly lost, and many are easily deceived by false prophets. Apocryphal items like “The Gospel According to Millar and Gross: Occult Symbols and Hidden Meanings” also reveal clever artistic elements readers may miss at first blush: telephone poles resemble the crucifixes of Golgotha and the creators left clues that foreshadow the ending’s capsized expectations. It’s very Paradise Lost for a comic book, or a movie. (www.millarworld.tv)

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