July 18, 2018 (LifeSiteNews) – Netflix announced a new slate of projects based on stories by comic book writer Mark Millar on Tuesday, including what may be one of the streaming service’s most controversial yet.
“‘American Jesus’ follows a 12-year-old boy who suddenly discovers he’s returned as Jesus Christ,” the upcoming series’ official synopsis reads, as published by The Wrap. “He can turn water into wine, make the crippled walk, and, perhaps, even raise the dead! How will he deal with the destiny to lead the world in a conflict thousands of years in the making?”
The show and the rest of the planned films and series are the result of Netflix buying Millar’s publishing company Millarworld last year.
“My wife Lucy and I are 11 months into our jobs at Netflix and it’s everything we hoped for to the power of ten,” Millar said. “To see a movie based on your work every couple of years is incredibly exciting, but to see them all happening at once like this and with talent this high-end is just off the scale.”
“American Jesus” is an adaptation of Millar and Peter Gross’ comic miniseries of the same name, which originally debuted in 2004 under the title “Chosen.” A free copy of the series’ first issue available at Newsarama is a straightforward telling of the Netflix summary, though it opens with lead character Jodie Christianson and two other boys hiking to find a pornographic magazine in the woods. It features frequent swearing and includes a scene of the 12-year-old Jesus (prior to discovering his identity) smoking something with another child.
A 2012 review of the series’ first volume published at GraphicNovelReporter notes that the series “gets described as ‘Harry Potter meets the Book of Revelation’” and that “two priests write afterwords in this volume.” That review claims that “Millar has respect for religion and doesn’t treat the subject matter glibly.”
However, in 2008 Millar himself revealed to Comic Book Resources that he was essentially using Christ as a political propaganda device, saying that the “second volume is about the adult Jesus in the modern day walking around in the world of Guantanamo Bay and conservative Republicans running Americans who don’t have that much in common with a 2,000-year old Judean idea of what Christianity is.”
“American Jesus” is just the latest in a string of Netflix programming offensive to religious and pro-family viewers.
Previous controversies have revolved around the cross-dressing superhero cartoon “Super Drags,” the cartoon “Big Mouth” about preadolescent and pubescent children discovering their sexuality through activities like masturbation and porn-viewing, the Argentinian film “Desire” which opens with a scene of one little girl masturbating in front of the other, and most recently “Anne with an E,” a retelling of the literary classic Anne of Green Gables that has been retrofitted with pro-homosexual messaging.