Written by Mark Millar
Drawn by Peter Gross
Published by Image Comics
This is the final series in a trilogy of miniseries that began way back in 2004 with Vol. 1: The Chosen, where a 12-year-old boy named Jodie believes that he’s the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, only to find out in the end that he’s actually The Antichrist. And then in 2020 we finally got Vol. 2: The New Messiah, which follows the life of a young Black girl named Catalina, who is raised by her parents to believe that she is the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, but she just thinks they’re crazy fanatics and runs away from home to live a normal life. In the end, her Christ powers finally kick in, and she accepts her destiny. Both volumes end with each character preparing to face each other in Isreal, as prophesized in the Book of Revelations.
The first two issues mostly focus on Jodie, now an adult, and show how he rose to the position of President of The United States, which is where we last saw him at the end of Vol. 1. The issue opens with a flashback sequence, showing how Lucifer lead an army of angels to try to overthrow God, due to his anger over God’s plan to create humans. If you read the Bible (Or Qu’ran), you know how that ended, with Lucifer and his followers cast out of Heaven. We see how Satan has cultivated a vast global network of disciples who’ve been covertly causing chaos for centuries as they prepared for Jodie’s arrival. When it’s decided that a wife would be good for his political career, the Satanists find and corrupt a former child star named Kelly Tyler to be his mate and be the mother of his two sons.
Basically, Millar is pulling from many real-life conspiracy theories regarding Satanists here. They were behind 9/11, they’re intentionally causing wars and tanking the economy as they plan to control humanity with microchips and virtual reality programs, etc. While Kelly is all in on the plans, we get hints that Jodie himself is not as enthusiastic as he should be. At one point his sneaks out of the White House to go back to his hometown, where he meets Father O’Higgins again after all this time, and confesses the truth about who he is, although the Father doesn’t believe it.
Then we meet Catalina, who has been traveling the world getting to know humanity since the events of Vol. 2. She makes her first public appearance at the Vatican itself, where she admonishes the Pope for corrupting her message and tears down the entire instruction. And then she heads to Israel, where she and Jodie are supposed to face each other. It’s Armageddon time.
And we get the big showdown, but once again we get a classic Mark Millar plot twist. When they meet, Jodie reveals that he’s changed his mind, he doesn’t want to enslave or destroy humanity after all, he thinks they deserve to live free. But Catalina is the one who disagrees, everything she’s seen of humanity over the past couple of decades has convinced her that they’re even worse than they were the last time she was on Earth. It’s Judgement Day, and she’s Judged us as being beyond redemption. She plans to destroy humanity and just start over again like God did with the flood. Can the Antichrist save the world from the Messiah?
Well, I won’t spoil that ending. But I loved it.
This closes out the trilogy in a satisfying way, and I highly recommend this book whether you’re religious or not
Now I still need to check out The Chosen One on Netflix, I hope the first season is successful enough that can they can adapt the next two volumes as well. I want to see Jodie vs. Catalina in live-action.
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