You wait years for a Mark Millar creator-owned comic, and then three come along at once.

Chosen is the third, a miniseries with Peter Gross coming out through Dark Horse.  Despite the controversy-baiting interviews describing the title as "Ultimate Jesus", the content is actually quite atypical for Millar.  It's a story about a twelve-year-old boy who discovers that he's the second coming of Jesus, as predicted in the Book of Revelation.  And it's played pretty much straight, smirking cover notwithstanding.

While you wouldn't necessarily think it on reading his comics, Millar is apparently quite religious, so it shouldn't entirely come as a surprise to see him playing this straight.  Basically, the set up is that Jodie is a perfectly normal kid, but he's also Jesus.  It's an attempt to humanise Christ, while retaining the appropriate... well, sense of wonder, if you like.  With this sort of story, the theory is that the more believable the mundane world is, the more gripping the bizarre elements become.  Weirdness against a background of weirdness impresses nobody; weirdness in the real world is much more interesting.

Millar largely succeeds in that goal, helped no end by Peter Gross - the sort of quietly effective storyteller who's about as un-Millar as it's possible to imagine.  Gross is a wonderful artist, and does some great character work on this issue.  Oh, plus a great double page spread of a truck crash.

The reason why it's set in the eighties is so that Christ can reach adulthood around about now, setting up for the obvious plot - if this is the prophecied second coming of Jesus, then the world's going to end.  Of course, the adult Jodie is fairly relaxed about this, but it gives the story more interest than simply "Jesus is back, everything's going to be fine."  It's hard to avoid the feeling that the adult Jesus isn't quite such a nice guy.  After all, he is looking forward to the end of human history.

Millar is a writer who tends to settle into a rut, particularly with his notable over-reliance on shock tactics.  This is a change of pace from him; moreover, it's pretty good as well.

Rating: A-

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