Chosen

[cyberghostface]

This was a miniseries that Mark Millar did way back in 2004. It's recently been rereleased as the first volume of Millar's "American Jesus" trilogy.

Obviously this a truncated version of the full story--I've tried to fill in the gaps enough for you to understand, but there's still some subplots and exposition that I'm not going to write about for the sake of brevity if they don't factor into the scans at hand. For example, there's a subplot with Jodie's girlfriend and an extra subplot with the parents.

Disclaimer: This was three issues, so I've posted seven from each, making for a total of 21 pages.

Anyway, the first issue introduces us to Jodie Christianson. He's just a normal kid. One day, however, he gets hit by a truck...




However, Jodie wakes up in the hospital without a scratch on him.




At school, Jodie gets all the answers to his test right to the point that his teacher accuses him of cheating (as before he usually just got Ds). He tries to grill Jodie with further questions but Jodie answers them all. By the time his mother picks him up, Jodie's standing on top of a desk, surrounded by the other teachers who are all amazed at the answers he knows.













In #2, Jodie visits the local priest Father O'Higgins (who has lost his faith) and asks him...






Despite his advice, Jodie begins to perform different types of miracles for his friends--healing a friend with poor eyes, turning water into wine, etc.  None of the adults believe any of it and chalk it up to children telling stories.

The local bully, the son of the man who drove the truck in the beginning, tells Jodie to cure his father who is in a coma from the accident--or else. 











In the final issue, the rest of the town now believes that Jodie is the second coming of Christ, but the priest is still skeptical. He prays to God for a sign. And it does--his dog is hit by a car.

Comments

[jlroberson]

To me it's reminiscent of SAVIOUR--and indeed I think it's a revision of the concept. The best bit of that being the Antichrist--drawn as Jonathan Ross--and his monologue about how sad it is that Satan has to bribe people to be his friends; damn, what a shame that never finished.

I like Millar when he's being like this, as opposed to when he decides "Ah fuck it, let's set this on 'pander.'" Though I'm not as quick to criticize him or Eniis when they get excessive necessarily(it depends always HOW--the later parts of Kick-Ass and the current ULTIMATES being examples of pander-Millar--and with Ennis in particular a high threshold is warranted); just one look at any DREDD either of them did reminds you that "excessive" is relative, as that's the norm in the UK mainstream and has been for a long time. Spewaking of which, I just came across scans of his and Morrison's DREDD story about the judge who breaks out of Titan and assaults Earth; might post it. It's pretty good.