DC Comics has lately announced to have cancelled the upcoming comic series Second Coming featuring Jesus Christ who’s sent on “a holy mission by God” to know “what it takes to be the true messiah of mankind”, following a petition that termed it as “outrageous and blasphemous”.
Due on 6 March from DC imprint Vertigo, Second Coming was written by Mark Russell and illustrated by Richard Pace, its story followed Jesus’s return to Earth and is shocked to discover what has become of his gospel. Later, he teams up with a superhero, Sun-Man, who is more widely worshipped than him.
Now DC Comics have told retailers that the series has been cancelled due to 200,000-signature petition from anti-abortion, anti-LGBT conservative campaign site CitizenGo calling on DC to pull the comic. “Would DC Comics publish similar content about other religious leaders, such as Muhammad or Buddha? This content is inappropriate and blasphemous,” read the petition.
As Russell told Syfy Wire that he and Pace had requested that rights for the comic be returned to them after they were warned that requests for more significant changes would probably be on the way.
He said, “So I decided I would rather keep the story intact…We also want a publisher who can get it to fans in the near future, so we hope to be able to announce a new home as soon as possible.”
CitizenGo claimed that Second Coming “portrays a false view” of Jesus, who is “not a failure”. It added: “Most children grow up reading about iconic DC superheroes like Batman, Superman, or Wonder Woman. It would be a shame to market this false view of Jesus as an equal read to these figures.”
Russell further mentioned to Syfy Wire, “I first heard of CitizenGo when they ran this silly campaign to get the buses in Portland to drop ads featuring lesbians. They would be completely ridiculous if not for the fact that social media’s anger-made-easy platforms give them access to cranks from all over the world. But it’s OK. Some enemies are worth having. I think the religious fundamentalists and critics who are trying to stop Second Coming aren’t interested in protecting Christ so much as their ability to control his narrative … They probably (correctly) suspect that it’s not Christ who’s being parodied, but themselves and how they’ve twisted his teachings of mercy for the powerless into a self-serving tool of the powerful.”