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Topic: OT: Jesus Christ: Super-Hero? (Topic Closed Topic Closed) Post ReplyPost New Topic
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Tony Midyett
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Posted: 30 January 2011 at 11:01pm | IP Logged | 1  

Remember that controversy back in the '80's, when a writer wanted to do a story in which a time-traveling Swamp-Thing was to become the cross on which Jesus was crucified?  Jesus was to have been portrayed as a "White Magician", a sorcerer who practices "good magic".  DC refused to publish the story, and a big stink was raised over the whole thing.  My question is, would DC or Marvel hesitate to publish such a story today, what with Luke Cage having anal sex, and Ultimate Blob eating Ultimate Wasp, and Arion having orgies with women wearing dog collars, and everyone cursing like sailors all the time, etc.?  The Big Two allow sexual innuendo, graphic violence, and profanity---would they draw the line at "Jesus Christ, Super-Hero Team-Up fodder"?
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Flavio Sapha
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Posted: 30 January 2011 at 11:19pm | IP Logged | 2  

I think stuff like PREACHER went far beyond the proposed Swamp Thing #88,
in terms of "blasphemy".

Edited by Flavio Sapha on 30 January 2011 at 11:20pm
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Flavio Sapha
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Posted: 30 January 2011 at 11:21pm | IP Logged | 3  

Tony, look up SON-OF-GOD, by Neal Adams, for THE NATIONAL LAMPOON.
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Brad Krawchuk
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Posted: 30 January 2011 at 11:47pm | IP Logged | 4  

The Big Two publish all the crap they do because no one knows about it; even top sellers like Spider-Man and Green Lantern are far outside the purview of 99% of the population. People don't protest or care about things that don't concern them. You'd be better off making the argument after Wasp gets eaten on screen complete with gore in an Avengers movie, or when the next Superman movie has groups of naked women (with nipples and crotches cleverly hidden) cooing over the villain of the piece. Until then, a medium most people don't care about can do whatever it wants.

Were DC or Marvel to produce a Jesus-as-Super-Hero book, though, the tiny little bit of publicity it would garner would be enough to get a HUGE number of Christians up in arms. One site - Newsarama, CBR, Bleeding Cool, hell, a mention of it on HERE - would leak it, and suddenly ET or EW or Time or someone would pick it up, and then it would be EVERYWHERE because a huge number of people care about Jesus for some reason. 

How many superhero wives Dr. Light rapes? I bet you less than a tenth of a percent of all people in North America even know who Dr. Light is. 
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Rob Ocelot
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Posted: 31 January 2011 at 12:59am | IP Logged | 5  

Brad, your post reminds me of what happened to South Park about 5-6 years ago.  Their ratings dropped quite a bit, almost to the point where practically no one was watching.  Some of the stuff they snuck in there was absolutely jaw dropping.  I'm not sure if this was a conscious "what the hell, let's go to town" decision by Matt and Trey or if it was the natural progression for South Park to up it's own ante...

The same seems to be happening to the shrinking audience for comics -- when hardly anyone is reading the creators will be able to get away with murder (literally and figuratively!).

It's going to be extremely interesting to see what happens when the largest demographic that is buying comics starts getting to retirement age (heh, like print comics will even be around at that point).
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Tony Midyett
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Posted: 31 January 2011 at 1:54am | IP Logged | 6  

In the Marvel Universe, Merlin, Santa Claus, and the lost continent of Atlantis are real, and Jack Kirby is Yaweh, sitting at his drawing board, drawing the unfolding events of the universe.  Satan has been introduced, yetis are real......why not have Jesus show up and battle the bad guys?  Personally, I'd like to see him meet Howard the Duck and fight Dr. Bong.
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Brian Hague
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Posted: 01 February 2011 at 12:44am | IP Logged | 7  

Jesus (or a painting of Him) was a key element in a Tomb of Dracula story back in the day. The O'Neil/Adams run of GL/GA had a Christ figure crucified on an airplane propellor. Somehow the sun still rose on the industry the next morning.

Since then we've had Jesus Hates Zombies, Loaded Bible, Preacher, Kevin Smith's Dogma, and God as a recurring character in Savage Dragon. The industry would have survived Rick Veitch's White Magician, but DC was within its rights to not want to put up with the headaches.

It is true that no one's really watching the industry anymore. Why not draw on the walls to see if we can get Mom to yell at us? Somehow, though, if Preacher didn't do it, I don't know what would...

 

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Tony Midyett
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Posted: 01 February 2011 at 3:22am | IP Logged | 8  

How about Dr. Strange is a re-incarnation of Jesus?  That would offend people on multiple levels.  
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Brad Krawchuk
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Posted: 01 February 2011 at 6:09am | IP Logged | 9  

Brian - Jesus wasn't a character in a mainstream book though, was he? Unless I missed the Preacher cross-over issue with Superman, or the time Daredevil teamed up with Alanis Morissette to take down Mephisto, I don't think that's what we're discussing here. 

Incidentally, I really like Preacher, and when The DaVinci Code came out amidst all that controversy about Christ having kids, I thought "that's controversial? Preacher did it much better, and funnier, years ago!"
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Joe Hollon
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Posted: 01 February 2011 at 6:19am | IP Logged | 10  

For more offensiveness per page than you'll find anywhere else I recommend Robert Kirkman's BATTLE POPE!

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Paul Simpson Simpson
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Posted: 01 February 2011 at 7:11am | IP Logged | 11  

 
Try doing a comic story with Mohamed as a character. We've all seen what happens then. The artist who did it got death threats.Death threats over a cartoon. That is insane.We can't even judge weather it's offensive or not because the pussy ass media would not even show the fucking picture. It was blurred out like it was a pair of breast or something. I would say the same thing to Christians as I would the Muslims. Grow up and get the fuck over it. Oh yeah, Preacher rocked. It and Sandman were two comics I got my wife to read when we hooked up all those years ago. She loved them.
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Tony Midyett
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Posted: 01 February 2011 at 7:37am | IP Logged | 12  

I keep trying to get my wife to try Sandman, but she won't budge.  She reads Barks' duck comics, Stephen King's comic adaptations/spin-offs, JB's Dark Phoenix....but she hasn't gotten around to Sandman yet.  I bet she gets totally addicted when she does, though.  I "forced" her to watch Lost, kicking and screaming, and she was instantly hooked.
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