Written by Mark Millar
Drawn by Peter Gross
Published by Image Comics
Tomorrow, The Chosen One debuts on Netflix, it’s a series adapted from this Mark Millar comics, which was originally just named Chosen when it was first published by Dark Horse Comics in 2004, but was re-released under the American Jesus name by Image Comics in 2009, and now set as the first in a trilogy of miniseries. The Netflix series is an adaption of this first volume, although they’ve relocated the action from America to Mexico, hence the name change again.
I’ve previously reviewed the sequel THE NEW MESSIAH, but now I’ll figure I’ll go ahead and write a little review of the first series. I should probably warn you not to read this if you haven’t read the comics yet and are intending to watch the Netflix series. Because although they’ve changed the location of the story, and probably some other details as well, I’m positive that they’re keeping the major plot twist that is revealed at the end, which I will be spoiling here. So maybe stop reading now and come back to this post after you’ve watched the show?
Okay, here we go.
The main character in this story is a boy named Jodie Christiansen. As an adult man in “the present”, Jodie is narrating this story to a group of people, telling them about what happened to him when he was a 12-year-old boy growing up in Peoria, Illinois. For some reason I thought I remembered this story as taking place in the 1970s, but rereading now I see that it doesn’t actually give a time when the flashbacks take place, but due to some of the pop culture references, like Return Of The Jedi, it’s got to be the early 1980s.
Jodie was an average kid, or maybe less-than-average. He wasn’t a bad, but he didn’t try hard in school, was more likely to ditch with his friends and liked to smoke weed, and try to get ahold of porn magazines. He was a single child, leaving with his mother and father who were often fighting with each other. One day he gets hit by a truck, which was swerving to avoid hitting a dog that had run into the road in front of it, but miraculously Jodie survives with barely a mark on him. When he goes back to school, he suddenly finds himself a lot smarter, acing a history test that he barely studied for. That’s when his mother gives him a Bible and tells him to read the part of Revelations that details the second coming of Christ, which is when Jodie realizes that that’s him.
His mother makes him promise not to tell anyone, but like most 12-year-olds, he can’t keep his mouth shut. He tells his friend and starts performing miracles. He turns water into wine and gives a nearly-blind kid perfect vision, and then in the hospital he visits the driver of the truck that hit him, who’d been in a coma ever since, and he heals him, the man wakes up from the coma in perfect health. As the stories of Jodie’s abilities grow throughout the town, more and more kids start following him, as he holds regular theological discussions in the local park.
Millar does a good job of showing that, despite all of the stuff that’s happening to him, Jodie is still just a kid, and he’s rather confused by all of this but is trying his best to live up to what he believes is his destiny. Like throwing away his secret stash of porn mags, and trying to ignore the lust he feels for Maggie Kane, a girl who lives next door for him and seems to like him.
As Jodie’s fame in his city grew, the only person in town who refused to believe that he was the second coming of Christ was Father Tom O’Higgins, the local Catholic priest. He thinks this is all some big scam and is constantly arguing with Jodie and others who believe in him. It turns out that due to some personal tragedies he’s endured, Father O’Higgins doesn’t even believe in God anymore and has just been going through the motions at his church. I’m sure Millar is making some kind of statement about organized religion with this character.
Finally, after performing his biggest miracle ever (think: Lazarus), even Father O’Higgins becomes a believer. And that’s when Jodie is informed that a group of “Church elders” who’ve been preparing for his return are coming to take him away to New York, to begin training him for his mission, much to the chagrin of his mother. And as Jodie leaves town, he’s given some information that changes everything.
He’s not the second coming of Christ, he’s actually the Anti-Christ.
Flashing back to the present, as adult Jodie finishes his story, we learn that he’s not the President Of The United States, and he boards Air Force One which is taking him to Isreal, for the big showdown with the real second coming of Christ, as per the Book of Revelations.
I have to say, I didn’t see that coming. I was already enjoying the book up to that point, but the ending made it all even better. Once you get to it, you can back through the series and you’ll see little hints Millar cleverly dropped into the story about Jodie’s true nature.
And Pete Gross’ art isn’t “flashy”, but it fits the tone of the series. It takes place during a simpler time in America, which he conveys very well. I definitely recommend this book.
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