Written by Mark Millar
Drawn by Peter Gross
Published by Image Comics
PREVIOUSLY: American Jesus: The New Messiah #2
Yeah, I just realized that I never finished reviewing this series, which came out in 2020. The 3rd and finale miniseries as already been published by now. Well, I might as well get this written. And because of the time I won’t refrain from some spoilers, so be warned.
This story begins two weeks since Catalina escaped the compound. She’s hooked up with some White dude named Dylan, and gotten a job as a waitress at a diner. We get some more details about her upbringing, as she tells Dylan about her childhood, and now she’s enjoying her secular hedonistic lifestyle, which she sees as catching up on everything she missed out on. Sex, drinking, smoking, partying, going to movies, etc. She even learns to drive.
But then Luciana shows up, saying that the Angel who told her she’d give birth in the first placed reappeared to her and told her where she could find Catalina and also insisted that she go alone to find her. She pulls out a gun, and tries to take Catalina with her by force, and this just confirms Catalina’s thoughts that her parents are crazy. Until Luciana reveals that the organization that’s been hunting her and protecting the anti-Christ have burned down the compound and killed everyone, including Luciana’s father.
Dylan, who immediately believes Luciana’s claim that Catalina is the messiah, gives them his car so they can get to San Diego where Luciana says the global network they belong to has a boat waiting for them to take them away, somewhere. On the drive to San Diego, Catalina still insists her mother is crazy, but then the bad guys catch up to them.
The final confrontation is exciting, if it bit anticlimatic Finally, Catalina’s powers kick in. She realizes that she is in fact the second coming of Jesus Christ, calls down lighting and other means to rather brutally kill the bad guys and promises that she’s going to complete the mission she began 2000 years ago, and heads off on the boat for…wherever it is she’s going in the meantime.
Overall, I enjoyed this series. Yes, I call the ending a bit anticlimactic because it just weird how Catalina’s mind just snaps into place when her life is in danger when God could have revealed her powers and the truth to her long ago. But there’s some religious babble about “faith” be necessary, and therefore all those others had to die before Catalina could accept the truth, blah blah blah. Still, as I mentioned before, this was an interesting twist from the original series. Catalina is the opposite of Jodie, the protagonist of the original series, in every way, which makes their eventual showdown even more anticipated. Peter Gross’ art doesn’t stand out much, but it’s serviceable enough, so I won’t complain.
If the eventual Netflix series is as good as these books, I’ll be happy.
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