Issue 08: Marvel’s Christian Comics (Part 2)

Picking up where we last left off, it's time to learn about Marvel's second attempt at comics for Christian audiences. Highlights include comic adaptations of "classic" Christian stories and the creation of an evangelical superhero, but the results were decidedly less impressive than the "Saint Series" from the early 80s. 

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Episode 8 Transcription

[00:00:00] Jessika: Good, I can see, perfect. No sneaking up on me, Jesus. 

Mike: Welcome to Ten Cent Takes, the podcast where we partake in comics’ forbidden fruit, one issue at a time. My name is Mike Thompson and I'm joined by my cohost, the muffin of mayhem herself, Jessika Frazer.

Jessika: Hello. 

Mike: How's it going?

Jessika: Oh, pretty good. Even better, now that you're calling me a muffin. I love it.

Mike: I mean, it was either that or the scone of scorn and I liked muffin of mayhem better.

Jessika: Oh, either way. I mean, it's very close. I do have a cupcake on my shoulder as you know.

Mike: Yes.  [00:01:00] Well, as always, the purpose of this podcast is to perform deep dives on comic books in ways that are both fun and informative. We want to look at their coolest, weirdest and silliest moments, as well as examine how they're woven into the larger fabric of pop culture and history. Today, we're picking up where we left off with our last episode and concluding our look at Marvel's short-lived run of Christian comics.

Are you ready?

Jessika: Yeehaw. 

Mike: Well, I'm going to give you a quick break before we actually get into that. What is one cool thing that you have read or watched since we last recorded?

Jessika: I started reading the Princeless series by Jeremy Whitley. 

Mike: Nice.

Jessika: Yeah. The art for the first book was by M Goodwin, but there are other artists involved, including Emily Martin, who is local to our area, which is super neat.

Mike: Yeah. I met her at Luma [00:02:00] Con a couple of years ago. 

Jessika: Oh, that's rad as heck. Nice, nice. 

So, the story follows a princess, Adrienne, who from a young age, is not at all on board with the conventional helpless role she's expected to take as a princess, and is not happy about being locked in a tower alone. So she decides that she doesn't need to continue this path that has been chosen for her and escapes to help others.

She's also a person of color and her hair care routines and style reflect that, which is wonderful. And I'm only one issue into the first book, but I'm so excited to see what destiny Adrienne writes for herself. 

Mike: I think I read the first volume a couple of years ago and I really enjoyed it. It was a really fresh feeling story.

Jessika: That's how I felt about it, it was very refreshing. 

Well, what about [00:03:00] you? Whatcha been reading? 

Mike: So, one of the series that I have on my pull list at Brian's comics up in Petaluma is We Only Find Them When They're Dead from Boom. It’s about six issues. And now it's this really cool sci-fi fantasy sort of series by Al Ewing who has really gotten big while he's been writing the Immortal Hulk, which I also highly recommend because that takes the incredible Hulk storyline and turns it into pretty much a horror story.

Jessika: Oh, cool. 

Mike: It's really neat. And it's really unnerving and, he’s been writing it for over 30 issues now, I think, but it's really solid. And the whole idea is that the Hulk is effectively an immortal being and he can't die. But how that comes into play is genuinely terrifying at times.

But Al Ewing did this new series called We Only Find Them When They're Dead. The series is just incredible. And it's set in this weird dystopian future where [00:04:00] the bodies of these giant space gods, for lack of a better term appear out of nowhere. And then humanity is so stretched thin for resources that, that what they've started doing is they have these spaceships that will harvest the bodies for parts.

And nobody knows where these gods come from until the crew of one of these harvesting ships decides to solve the mystery. It's this really tight kind of small scale story so far, but it's set against this really insane, massive cosmic backdrop. And it's also very queer, so, I think you would probably enjoy it more so than usual.

Jessika: Very nice. Very nice. 

Mike: All right. Let's turn back to Marvel's Christian Comics. Would you be so kind as to give us a quick recap of where we left off after the last episode?

Jessika: Sure. Last week we went [00:05:00] through the first years of the Marvel Catholic comics, how it got its start printing religious material, cue the power of asking that we keep discussing on this show, and who was involved in making these particular Comics. Our focal comics were the Saint series, comprised of the stories of St. Francis in Francis Brother of the Universe, Pope John Paul. I can’t not do it that way. 

Mike: It's so good.

Jessika: Pope John Paul II, and Mother Teresa. Oh man. Do we want to take a quick second and talk about the recent news? It was so timely about Mother Teresa. You wanna? You want to talk a little bit about that, Mike? 

 I just had to talk about it. It was so freaking timely. 

Mike: Oh, absolutely.  I think this happened a day or two after we recorded the article.  So over the past couple of days there's been a number of stories that have come out, basically highlighting that [00:06:00] Mother Teresa was running a cult and I think the headline that I sent you was, “Are there still people who didn't know Mother Teresa was running an alleged cult?” And. 

Jessika: Cue. 

Mike: I think. 

Jessika: Cue me raising my hand. 

Mike: Yeah, I think this was a day or two after, after you and I had recorded and it just felt ridiculously timely.

It was really funny.

Jessika: Oh, serendipitous. 

Mike: No,  she was not a good person by the increasingly numerous accounts that I've been seeing.  She was quote unquote good by a very narrow definition that unfortunately it was kind of like what the media presented her as back then in the eighties. And since then, I mean, if she was operating today, there's no way that she would have received the Nobel Peace Prize.

But.

Jessika: Oh, no, absolutely not. 

Mike: But you know, we're talking, she received that 40 years [00:07:00] ago, so.

Jessika: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Oh gosh. Well, back to what we were talking about last week. After the St. series, after all of that wrapped up, Marvel seemed to decide to walk away from religious content after these winning Comics, we did however, land on a bit of a cliffhanger because Mike, you teased that they took another swing at religious comics in 1992. 

Mike: That is correct. So, to set the stage, the late eighties and early nineties were a massive boom for the comic book market.  There was this huge speculation bubble that was going on, and as a result, Marvel and DC and other imprints were just seeing an unprecedented amount of success.  On average, a lot of major books were seeing over a million issues in circulation, which, even today, they don't see. 

I think in 1991, X-Men number one, the new series that was [00:08:00] drawn by Jim Lee and written by Chris Claremont had something like 12 million issues move for the. 

Jessika: Oh.

Mike: For - yeah. It's bonkers. And then shortly thereafter, the rug basically got pulled out from under Marvel's feet.

So the early nineties really went from being awesome to really rough in almost no time flat. And that was because the company's top artists were freelancers and they weren't happy with Marvel's compensation plan. So they left and they founded Image Comics back in early ’92. And that was essentially the top artists from really well-performing comics, like X-Men, Spiderman, Guardians of the Galaxy, and X-Force just to name a few, became Marvel's competition overnight. 

And DC was having some major commercial successes at the same time with events like the death of Superman, and Batman Knightfall, which is when he got his back broken. [00:09:00] So Marvel was suddenly scrambling to keep their share of the market in that light Christian book, publisher, Thomas Nelson, reaching out to former commercial partnership must have seemed like a, uh, well, for lack of a better term, a godsend.

And up until that point, Evangelical Christian audiences were a largely untapped demographic outside of their specialty markets.  Now that said, I haven't been able to find any old press releases from when this deal was announced.

It honestly seems like both. Marvel and Thomas Nelson, would just like to have everyone forget about this whole venture since neither company mentions the partnerships on their sites. I can't even find them on archive or anything like that. 

Jessika: Oh, wow.

Mike: That said - Yeah. It's, it's like buried pretty deep, but that said, I did find an article from Christianity Today, of all places, that fills in some of the details.

So, it's kind of a long-winded meandering puff [00:10:00] piece, but there are a couple of relevant details. Would you do me a favor and read the first bit explaining why this deal came to be?

Jessika: Sure. Some Thomas Nelson staff, whose young children were drawn to comics noticed there was little available from a Christian viewpoint. Realizing they did not have the resources in house, the publisher struck a deal with Marvel comics to produce a series of comics under Nelson's editorial direction. Using Marvel artists and writers that resulting comics would be marketed in Christian markets by Thomas Nelson and in comic bookstores by Marvel. 

Mike: Yeah, so, honestly, it sounds more like Thomas Nelson hired Marvel rather than the two were in a legit partnership.  Thomas Nelson was even setting the price point for the books, which wasn't cheap. For reference the average Marvel comic cost $1.25 in 1993. 

The least expensive [00:11:00] Nelson comic, for its single issue Life Christ books, that we'll talk about a little bit, and each of those was going for $2.99, a pop. So that's almost $6 in today's money. Illuminator, which we're really going to talk about for a bit, was going for $4.99 a book, which means Thomas Nelson was expecting kids to shell out the equivalent of $10 bucks per issue for a comic with like zero name recognition.

Jessika: Right. 

Mike: Yeah, and that's actually called out in the same article. Like Christianity today couldn't even give them a complete puff piece, they actually called out how maybe Thomas Nelson was a little bit high on their own fumes. If you'd be so kind to read that section as well.

Jessika: The primary difficulty in selling the Illuminator to the secular comic book market is not the subject matter, but the price. As a book publisher, Thomas Nelson wants the comics to look as high quality and [00:12:00] book-like as possible. They have more pages than standard comics, carrying no advertising, and are printed using higher quality paper and ink than standard comics. Thomas Nelson likes to call them illustrated novels, a variation of the comic industry term graphic novel. Because of this, the 48-page Illuminator sells for $4.99. As one comic store owner put it, “that’s a pretty stiff price for a comic with no well-known characters, artists or writers”. Yikes. 

Mike: When you can't even get to pull its punches for an article like this, that kinda says a lot. I feel, yeah, so I don't know what kind of marketing was done, but I haven't been able to find any ads for the Nelson comics in any of my Marvel issues from 1992 to 94, nor have I been able to track down [00:13:00] anything on the web.

I mean, absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence, but it certainly seems like the partnership got rolling and then nobody really wanted to draw the attention to the end results. Which, based on what we've seen of  the end result of the product, uh, maybe, maybe that's kind of understandable.

Jessika: Big sigh. 

Mike: Yeah, that said, I do have the Illuminator comics in my collection and they are definitely higher quality in terms of production. Like, you know, the colors still pop they're definitely thicker. But, if I had seen this in the comic store, I would have blown right past it when I was kid. 

Jessika: Yeah. 

Mike: So speaking of Illuminator, do you want to give us an elevator pitch for that comic?

Jessika: Oh my, well, if you insist. I mean, other than calling it a hot mess?

Mike: Other than calling it a hot mess.

Jessika: Okay. So this high school-aged [00:14:00] kid named Andy Prentiss goes to summer camp, is bullied a lot, and gets tricked into going into the forest in the middle of the night where he is abducted?

Mike: It's pretty vague.

Jessika: By a beam of light? Yeah. 

Mike: It's super vague. Like, they don't ever actually, we'll get into that. Okay. 

Jessika: It's very strange. And he, he somehow becomes the light? And has powers for no explicable reason? I know there are a lot of question marks behind my, my sentences, because that's how it feels. He gets semi-brainwashed by a local reverend and convinced that his powers are from God himself. 

Mike: Was he actually a reverend was, I thought that dude was just like a…

Jessika: I don’t know.  Or maybe he was just a janitor. I don’t know what he was.

Mike: It's never really explained. Like.

Jessika: I'm giving him a lot of credit. 

Mike: Yeah.  Sorry. I derailed it.

Jessika: That's okay. Well, he [00:15:00] convinced him that his power, whoever this dude was who worked at this church. He was always sweeping, he was probably a janitor you're right. 

Convince him that his powers are from God himself and that he is acting because God directed him to. But like slippery slope my dude. Thus, the Illuminator was created after that all of the villains are supposed to represent really obvious, evil being demon-like creatures, trying, and being mostly successful at tempting the public into acting sinfully. 

There isn't a great explanation as to why any of this happened, like we said, or is being aimed at Prentiss himself, who didn't seem to be very religious in the first place when this thing started?

Mike: No, he was just kind of like an earnest, sort of naive teenager.

Jessika: Yeah. But I’ll tell you what there is, there is a healthy amount of [00:16:00] slut-shaming. 

So that's certainly exciting for me because, you know, I hate that bullshit. So. 

Mike: Yeah. It's definitely uncomfortable to read.  Also, I wanna note that his superhero design for the Illuminator persona feels like a rip off of Long Shot, who was this popular character in the eighties who palled around with the X-Men for awhile. Like, here's what he looked like. Take a look, tell me what you think.

Jessika: Oh, he even has the little star. Okay. This does look really similar to the other comic we read. He's wearing like a black kind of jumpsuit, but it could, it really could be a motorcycle jacket and pants. He's got boots on. He has a little bullet necklace or a bullet sash?

Mike: I believe the term is a bandolier.

Jessika: A bandolier, thank you. He has a bandolier, I'm cutting all of that bullshit out. He has a bandolier [00:17:00] and he's throwing, like, I don't know, a little, are those knives?

Mike: Knives. 

Jessika: Oh, okay.

Mike: He, like that's Long Shot’s thing, is that his power is he's super lucky. He has slightly enhanced strength and hollow bones, which makes him a better acrobat. 

Jessika: Got it.

Mike: And then his weapon of choice is he throws knives that basically he just can hit anything with.

Jessika: The problem is they kind of look like sharp popsicles. 

Mike: Kind of yeah. 

Jessika: So. 

Mike: But yeah, I mean like Long Shot is one of my favorite characters. 

Jessika: Nice.

Mike: And I was reading this book again and I was just going, oh my God, they added a helmet and then kind of removed the bandolier and added some extra padding and called it a day.

He's even got the mullet.  It's just a different color.  Andy's a dirty blonde and.

Jessika: Yeah.

Mike: And Long Shot is platinum. 

Jessika: It's like three shades off, real close. 

Mike: So you gave a pretty solid summary of the comic itself. I gotta say [00:18:00] the comic series felt very unfocused.  It doesn't feel like it really conveys much of a Christian message.   Andy's powers are so vaguely delivered, as you called out, and there's no real specific link to Jesus or Christianity at that point. 

He only becomes the Christian super hero when he retreats into a church to escape, apparently a demonic opponent? Bu, the only reason that we know that he's demonic is because he doesn't want to go in the church.  And then he gets a pep talk from this one-armed wise man who lives there, apparently.

I feel like he still approached things in a very standard superhero way: punch first ask questions later.  Did you notice that there was no trying to solve problems in a way that would result in anything other than a fist fight with powers?

Jessika: Oh, no, it was just like, oh, there's a problem, I need to go beat someone up. That was absolutely the vibe. 

Mike: Yeah, I was genuinely surprised by that. I would have expected a little [00:19:00] more Jesus-inspired approaches such as turning the other cheek, or lifting people up who are suffering, things like that. But no, it was just a superhero fights with people or things that were designated as evil from an evangelical point of view.

And I mean, we should talk about that. Like, each of the comics comes across a super victim-blamey.  Like, there's that party where Nightfire, the first demonic entity, shows up and starts draining victims, and it shows they're all drinking or doing drugs or being slutty.

Jessika: Yeah. They're at a party and there are girls on guys' laps and apparently, that's not good.

Mike: Apparently, but then they all become Nightfire’s sort of undead army. So it's that implication that sinful behavior leads to damnation later on. Um.

Jessika: Okay. 

Mike: And then [00:20:00] in the second issue, the story paints college campuses out as godless places, full of temptation and being devoid of morality. So, they're susceptible to this mad scientist, who's splicing together weird animal human hybrids, which, I mean, that felt like something that was written by someone who has never actually been on a college campus.

Jessika: Yes. 

 Mike: And then the third issue was absolutely trying to link Satanism and Wiccan beliefs.  I'm not crazy, right? Like that actually, that’s how it felt. Like, Satanism and crystals, that  they're just hand in hand.

Jessika:  Yeah, it was super gross.

Mike: Yeah, it was really bad.  I mean, the book only had three issues or illustrated novels or whatever they want to call it before it was canceled. So, I personally think that the probable lack of marketing that we discussed really hurt it, but it also seems like there were some production problems that caused it to be [00:21:00] delayed because the third volume has a cover date of August, 1993, but it turns out it didn't actually hit the shelves until February of 1994.

I could not find sales figures for the months that the first two volumes came out, but the third issue doesn't even crack the top 100 issues being sold in the market when it actually hit the shelves.

You brought up the slut-shamey aspect to it. And in the end of the third issue, it really felt uncomfortable where Andy was, these days it would be incel kind of logic, where he's really mad that the girl he saved didn't go to him.

Jessika: That is so how it felt. I was just like pointing at you viciously right now, like, really aggressively.

Mike: Yeah. When you were doing that, I was like, what did I do wrong?

Jessika: Ya know that's exactly how it felt. It felt like he's like, well, I saved her and I'm the better guy. So she should just be with me. 

Mike: Yeah. And then.

Jessika: He just expected it. It was gross. 

Mike: And then they kind of have a teaching moment where they're like, well, you know, that's not always how it works, [00:22:00] blah, blah, blah. And then she shows up to be another disciple of Christ or whatever, and blah.

Jessika: Yeah. She’s like, I broke up with that other guy. 

Mike: Oh yeah. That.

Jessika: She’s wearing a knee length skirt and like.

Mike: Yeah. And before that she'd been wearing kind of form-fitting jeans and tank tops and. Well, the other guy, I can't even remember his name, but he was at the party. That's the only time we saw him. And he was basically trying to make it okay that everyone was drinking. So, you know.

Jessika: Yeah. And then he was in the mall scene and he was like, trying to convince her like something stupid, something else stupid. 

Mike: Yeah. That was after they got returned to their bodies. That's right. I, I actually thought that she was the mom of one of the other characters originally because she had such a mom haircut and it was like, oh, it's kind of the sexy mom. And then oops. It was, the ages of those characters was very [00:23:00] ill-defined.

Jessika: Agreed. 

Mike: And then, like I said, like this was clearly written by someone who had not experienced really anything of the real world, it felt. Nightfire is a drug dealer who just hangs out outside of high schools and tries to randomly sell drugs to kids? Like, my dude. Do you not understand how drug dealing works?

Jessika: That's not how that works. Yeah. Your kids don't have enough money for drug dealers to be interested in them.  And they're definitely not giving your kids free drugs. Like I know I say that a lot, but it's because I believe it a lot. They're not just going to get rid of their revenue.

Mike:  It was the same thing with that college campus, with the mad scientist professor who was, he was in a wheelchair for no really defined reason, he just was. And then apparently he's just creating an army of [00:24:00] man-animal hybrids. Which, again, I was sitting there and I'm like, man, I took biology classes in college and they were never this cool, like, are you creating an army of mutant supermen at your college?

Yeah, sign me up. I'll pay that tuition. I'll take out a loan.

Jessika: Well, and it was happening in this way that wasn't really logical, to where they were kind of meshing into this larger, like alligator with massive arms and walks around like a human, but then I don't know. It was strange. He was making them come apart with his, God-light. Like they could become two separate things.

Again, it wasn't like he was chopping things up and sticking them back together or making a new creature. I don't really understand how this was supposed to be happening, from a scientific aspect. 

Mike: His powers were really, ill-defined like he, he could fly and he could shoot light. And then I guess, theoretically add super strength, but. Yeah, that whole, like God-light separating the things out, but then it turned out it killed them because they'd been bonded too long to get, I don't know, whatever [00:25:00] it was, it was fucking dumb.

Yeah. So that was the thing was Trisha goes to a crystal store where it's apparently a front for a demon cult.

And again, I'm like, I don't know, man,  if I went to a crystal store and they told me that I could traffic with demons, I'd be much more likely to buy one of their ridiculously expensive geodes. Because I've been taken on a date to a crystal shop, because I was sick and my date wanted to buy me a healing crystal and I was.

Oh, God,

Jessika: That’s, that is very sweet. 

Mike: I did not respond well to this. 

Jessika: I'm sure you did not. 

Mike: Which. I'm sure does not surprise you, but.

Jessika: No.

Mike: I'm just saying if he’d instead offered to induct me into a cult where they hung out with demons, I might've actually gone out for a second date with him. Hmm. [00:26:00]

 Do you have any more thoughts on Illuminator before we move on to our next entry?

Jessika: I mean, I didn't care for this comic. Other than the first one that was establishing his origin story, it felt like the same story in each of the three issues. It was some demon character sucking the life out of people that were making bad choices. It was literally the same story each time, not even well masked.

Mike: Yeah, exactly.

Jessika: And, it was hard to follow and it was hard to figure out the incredibly vague, read not there, ties to Christianity that this character and his actions and powers were supposed to have, like we were talking about. It felt like a stretch at best. 

Mike: Yeah. They were just trying to shoehorn it in at the end where he would go talk to, the guy's name was George, I think, where he would go and talk to his mentor at the church.  It felt like a very kind of vague, well, if you look at it this way, this could be your lesson from Jesus.

[00:27:00] Jessika: Yeah, exactly.  And you were bringing up another point that I also didn't like, they were just making fun of other religions, for example, naming someone Chakra, and mocking other spiritual practices with crystals, it was really disrespectful and in poor taste. 

Mike: Which, I mean, I can't say I'm really surprised given how evangelical culture typically goes these days. 

Jessika:  Christianity, isn't the only religion and I'm tired of mainstream society being okay with Jesus-washing everything, and then being offended when any other religion is given any space. 

It's deplorable. 

Mike: Yeah. And then also, these stories just felt very lazy and dumb. The big one that I keep on thinking about is, again, that second issue where he's at a college campus and there's the mad scientist and it's revealed the mad scientist kidnapped a football player, like the star football player from the university's team, and then [00:28:00] turned him into, I think, the alligator hybrid that we were talking about. 

Jessika: Yeah. 

Mike: I was sitting there going my dude.

You're mad that they pulled your funding. What do you think they're going to do to you when you remove their giant cash cow of college football from the campus?

Jessika: Yeah, exactly. And like, do you not know the cardinal rule of  picking people who don't have people looking for them?

Mike: Right?

Jessika: But, like, I'm not planning on doing anything bad and even I know that. Yeah. So, yeah. And other than just the audacity that Andy has making assumptions that he and Trisha are gonna get together based on the fact that he saves her from what he perceives as a bad situation. 

Mike: He's a nice guy. He is that proverbial nice guy trope.

Jessika: Hint to everyone out there: Don't you ever slide into my DMS and say you're a nice guy, because you will be [00:29:00] blocked so quickly. 

Mike: On that note, what do you say? We move on to the next books in our discussion. 

Jessika: Let's mosey. 

Mike: So, I mentioned the Life of Christ comics that were single issues. These are the two issues that were put out to retail; the Christmas and Easter stories. They were both written by Louise Simonson and illustrated by Mary Wilshire, as well as Eisner award winner Coleen Doran, she apparently helped with the Easter issue.

Simonson is a major name in comics alongside her husband, Walt. She co-created the character, Cable, from the X-Men; she helped launch the long running series, Superman, the Man of Steel; and she was one of the major stakeholders in the death of Superman storyline. And she also helped out, if I remember right, I might be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that she was a major [00:30:00] part of Walt Simonson’s really acclaimed run on Thor, to the point where both of them appear in cameos in the original Thor movie.

Like I think, I  think they're both featured at the end when they're celebrating at the hall of heroes, or whatever it is. But  it was a nice little nod because they created a lot of stuff like Thor: Frog of Thunder, and, Beta Ray bill, if I remember right.   

Likewise, Mary Wilshire did a ton of stuff for Marvel in the eighties and nineties. She was best known for her work on Red Sonja and Firestar. And then Colleen Doran, goddamn, she's this incredible illustrator who's worked on a ton of properties. I always associate her with Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. So. 

Jessika: I just started reading that. 

Mike: Yeah, like all three of these women are Legit Big Deals, like capital letters at the start of each of those words.

 And that's why it's so weird to see their names in these issues. I can't believe how bland and [00:31:00] boring everything about them felt. Like, is that mean? Am I going out of line? 

Jessika: No. No. I'm surprised to hear about the acclaim that these illustrators have, because it felt very elementary. Am I supposed to have received this as a coloring book? 

Mike: Yeah, it's really flat, like, okay. So for comparison, here is a painting that Colleen Duran did for Sandman. Check it out.

 Jessika:  Oh, wow. This is cool. 

Mike: Right?

Jessika: Wow. Okay. There's a lot going on. So I'll just describe this really quick.  There's a ton going on. So at the very top, there's a Swan couple swans, a swan and a, some sort of a harp, maybe a harpsichord thing. And you've got some planets and moons and a dude gargling some blood, it looks like.

Mike: I [00:32:00] think that's supposed to be Orpheus. Cause he, if I remember right, he was Dream’s son and then Orpheus is eventually ripped apart by the Bach the Bachinal. I dunno, whatever there.

Jessika:  And then there is a legit goth lady who has this amazing, I'm not too far into it, obviously, as you can tell. 

Mike: Right. So  that is death. That is Dreams sister. I mean, 

Jessika: That's great. 

Mike: Yeah. If, if you're not too familiar with it, I don't want to spoil all the elements for this, but this painting features a ton of major characters from throughout the Sandman series, which she provided a lot of illustration for.

And it's a beautiful piece of work.

Jessika: It's a feast for the eyes, honestly. I mean, there's so many different elements, I mean, part of it looks like it's supposed to look like stained glass and other parts of it, don't look that same way. It's very interesting. 

Mike:  Yeah. So it's very [00:33:00] much not what we got. Likewise, I want you to look at some of Mary Wiltshire's art, here.

Jessika: Oh, wow. See, that's fun. 

Mike: Right?

Jessika: Red Sonia. See, I want to read some Red Sonia. 

Mike: Yeah. The 80’s series is fun. I think Marvel might have the rights back, because it's part of the Conan properties. Oh no, wait, I think Dynamite has Red Sonia. I don't know. You can probably find some books on Hoopla if nothing else.

Jessika: This is great. I mean, the color vibe is great. There's all this shading, which there really wasn't in that other one at all.

Mike: Yeah, I noticed that, too.

It was just flat color, other than they used some crosshatching within the illustration, but  that was kind of all they did, except for Jesus's hair. That was such a, like, it was a choice, I guess, they just, the only thing that had any sort of shading was, like, Jesus's hair looked like it was a tie dye masterpiece, so, [00:34:00] oh, wow. 

Mike: Both of these books feel very, for lack of a better term, very paint by numbers.

Jessika: Yes, very much. So. 

Mike: I mean, we've all heard these stories before, too. There wasn't really anything new. The most exciting artwork for both of these books was on the cover. And, the one weird thing that really stood out to me, was that the Easter book felt kind of anti-Semitic, I don't know if I was just reading a little too much into that.

Jessika: No, you you're. I've I read that too. Yes.

Mike: I feel like  there was an abnormal focus on making Pontius Pilate into not being the bad guy. And instead of keeping the blame on the Jewish elders, it felt very weird and very gross. 

Jessika: It did.

Mike: And it's, I know that is an argument that is somewhat popular with certain extreme right-wing sectors of evangelical Christianity, too, is that the Jews killed Jesus, [00:35:00] which, I don't know how to respond to that. Like it, it just, just.

Jessika: It felt very much like they were saying, yes, we know the Romans did it, but it's your fault, Jews. And it's like, what? No, no, no, no.

Mike: Yeah. It was very uncomfortable to read.

Jessika: Absolutely. Yeah. I agree. A hundred percent. 

The other thing that bothered me from the birth issue was the angels. Like, I've read what angels are supposed to look like. If it's not some beautiful human woman with wings floating down gracefully from the clouds. It is a terrifying multi-eyed creature that shows up in some really jarring way.

The whole situation seemed way too peaceful for what I've read from the actual Bible. Like, I have read the Bible in its entirety.  I was bored at [00:36:00] 13,  don't ask, but yeah.

So, but that's not the vibe. Like, people are always really terrified when angels come down and there is a reason. 

Mike: Yeah. And that's something that I remember is that when I was growing up, you know, I was presented with the very, kind of Renaissance style angels. And so I never understood when I was reading as a kid or having the stories read to me, why are people scared of the angels? Because you know, they're just glowing people with wings.

And then later on it was, oh, oh, they're fucking monsters. They are, they are straight out of HP Lovecraft. Okay. I get it now.

Jessika: Yeah. Because technically the humans are supposed to be the ones that are like, what? In God's image. There's nothing about angels being so.

Mike: Nope. We're the, we're the mud people.  

Jessika: Yes.

Mike: Well, moving on from that, aside from those aforementioned single issues, Nelson Comics published, [00:37:00] what was dubbed the Christian Classic Series, which are comic adaptations of kind of big name Christian literature.  I was able to track down digital copies of the Pilgrim's Progress and In His Steps; What Would Jesus Do?

Let's talk about that one first. I had actually heard of iIn His Steps before this, because it took that titular phrase and it kind of brought it into the popular culture. It was originally written in the late 19th century. It's basically about a reverend who is moved to challenge his congregation to use the question when making life decisions.

It's a dry book and the comic was super dry as well. It just, it felt like a lot of expository dialogue set in late 19th century settings with a bunch of very prim and proper white people who, for the most part feel pretty monied and pretty privileged.  

Jessika: Yeah.

Mike: There's occasionally some sort of [00:38:00] over-the-top situations where our Christian heroes are facing persecution, but it's like, it's made up persecution.

It's that idea where Christians are like, we're the victims, people don't like us. And I think maybe because you're assholes, I don't know how to respond to that otherwise.

Jessika: Yeah. Maybe it's not about your religion. Maybe it's just you.

Mike: Yeah. If everyone's telling you you're an asshole, maybe it's not anything else, maybe it's just you. I agree. But yeah, it's just, it's a boring slog and it took me way longer than it should've to get through this.

Jessika: They were awful. I'm not gonna lie. I read them, but I skimmed them because I couldn't sit there and like, let that infest my brain. 

Mike: No. There’s also a sequel novel that they didn't adapt. 

Jessika: No.

Mike: But basically, I think if I remember right, the sequel novel has Jesus actually showing up, like, it's like the second coming of Jesus. If I remember right. I 

Jessika: Man, they already got so close to that in this one, because they had that one [00:39:00] dude show up who is a scraggly stranger. 

And then the reverend has a dream that Jesus is actually lying in the bed and he's like, oh my God, it was Jesus all along. 

Mike: Yeah. Oh God, that was.

Jessika: So heavy handed. Smacked me across the face with that message. Jeez. 

Mike: Oh, and what is it? The tramp has a daughter who the reverend and his wife take in to raise as their own.

Jessika: Oh yeah. 

Mike: On what planet…?

Jessika: Because apparently.

Mike: Ugh.

Jessika: No, it's awful. No, we all know that Christians don't care about the children once they're born.

Mike: We, there are so many signs around my town, at least in our area because we live right near a Catholic church where it's the pregnancy crisis centers. And I keep on, resisting the urge to go spray, paint them or something, they're so gross.

Jessika: Oh, we have the ones up that have a picture of a baby that say my eyes are formed after blah, [00:40:00] blah, blah days or whatever. 

Mike: Gross.

Jessika: Yeah, I know they're awful. And every once in a while they do get spray painted. 

Mike: Good.

Jessika: Obviously I have nothing to do with that, but I walk past and I go, okay. Yep. Yep. Yeah. 

Mike: Side tangent, completely unrelated to comics, but there was a Reddit post within the last year, I think, from some guy who was really upset about how his girlfriend would go and deface, the local pro-life billboards that would go up near their house. She would add things like citation needed for some of the claims, or just cross them out, or whatever.

And he was saying, would I be justified in breaking up with her? Because I feel like, she's putting herself at legal risk doing all this. And literally every response was yo dude, you should break up with her and then give her my number because she sounds fucking rad.

Jessika: Seriously. Oh my gosh. That's great.

Mike: Anyway.

Jessika: Hero of heroes. 

Mike: Yeah, the hero we need. [00:41:00]

So, turning to the Pilgrim's Progress. This is a Christian allegory novel from the 1600’s that's extremely surreal. I'd actually never heard of this book before now, and I had to do some basic research just to see how close they mirrored the plot. And I'm really bummed that actually, the comic is a pretty faithful adaptation of the source material. Which means there is a giant prose novel that is just this dumb and insane, but without at least the somewhat arresting visuals that we got.

Jessika: It's basically Pinocchio. 

Mike: Yeah, I mean, it's not far off, except there's a second act where the dude’s sinful family follows him, which.

Jessika: Oh my God. They just kind of get abducted into the nether though. They don't do anything.  [00:42:00] He's the one that does everything and then they're suddenly just there. 

Mike:  Before we get into this discussion. It's about a protagonist named Christian, on his pilgrimage across this metaphorical landscape, where he confronts temptation and he learns, I don't know, moral lessons, I guess. I wasn't entirely certain about a lot of those, but whatever.  And then after he makes it to heaven, his wife and kids follow him, because he couldn't convince them to come with him originally. This was written in the late 1600’s, originally it is updated and adapted to what's supposed to be modern day, New York.

And there's a lot of like really thinly veiled criticism being leveled at environmentalists for some reason, which I did not understand.

 Jessika: It was really strange. I don't know where that came from. I read that, too. 

Mike: Yeah. And then in the novel, after he makes it to heaven, confronting all these challenges, [00:43:00] his wife and his kids follow him. And then they have a sort of angelic guardian, who helps protect them along the way, who she shows up in the comic book, it's whatever, the kids, and this was actually kind of a weird diversion from the novel in the novel.

The kids become adults throughout the journey, cause it's a long journey and they get married and they have families of their own. And so at the very end, they don't go with the wife, but they stay behind. And, basically they're living Christian lifestyles. And in the comic book for some reason, and it's not really explained well, they're left behind with their aunt who was also on the journey with them.  And then the mom was just like, okay, bye. I'm going to go off to heaven now with your dad.

Jessika: Yeah, he just like sticky handed her up there or something, like you earn the right to  snatch your wife from earth. Maybe that was the rapture.

Mike: Yeah, maybe. Well, and then at the very end, his friend, who was like, oh no,  [00:44:00] you know, we're, we're doing our part. We're recycling and taking care of the planet. He's denied access to heaven by St. Peter for some reason, that's not really explained.

Jessika: Which was so strange. Like, yeah, please, don’t recycle friends. What, what a strange takeaway from this whole thing.

Mike: It just, it feels kind of like this religious acid trip with occasional detours into misogyny and racism. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Jessika: Not at all. Very, very same page as you. 

Mike: The one piece of praise that I can offer these books is that they definitely have the best art of the Nelson comics line.

Jessika: It was decent. Yeah. 

 So I found for both of these comics, both In His Steps and the Pilgrim's Progress, unsurprisingly, they keep replaying the same messages that have been consistent with these comics: be faithful against these huge temptations that are supposed to bombard you every day.

 I would expect there to be women and men of loose morals [00:45:00] falling at my feet to tempt me constantly is all I'm saying, like, let's make it happen. Disappointment. 

Mike: I’m, I always see these things talking about like women have loose morals or, or ill-repute,  I clearly was not hanging out in the right neighborhoods.

Jessika: That’s what I'm saying. 

Mike: Yeah. Bums me out, man.

Jessika: There's always some messages about staying on the path of God, which is always very vague and sometimes literally a path, which come on. And Beelzebub constantly shows up, because the only real villains are the devil and your inability to resist temptation, apparently. Once again, though, didn't see any queer people, which is fine because the Bible really doesn't say anything about them anyway. And I guess God didn't really start hating us in mainstream media until later on then. Huh? 

Mike: Man, I don't know. I mean, [00:46:00] like, there's that whole thing about Sodom and Gomorrah, and how we're all sodomized or whatever, but I don't know when, when it became really okay for Christian people to hate on the gays.

Jessika: Yeah. I don't know. They need to step back. Oh, did I say that out loud?

Mike: Yeah. 

Jessika: They're right behind me, aren’t they? 

Mike: Not yet, at least.

Jessika: And also, why is it such a theme that these main characters, low key become cult leaders every single time 

Mike: Right?

Jessika: It's like, yikes, Catholicism, have some awareness about what a cult-vibe you give off, just like, generally. All in all, the religion is so forced in there that the plot lines of these stories rarely made any sense. It felt like the comics were a game of tug of war, trying unsuccessfully to write a cohesive storyline while still shoehorning in religion, which ultimately caused the comics to feel frenzied and disorganized. 

Mike: Yeah. On top of that, these are just [00:47:00] so dry. They’re so dry. I get the Thomas Nelson was trying to adapt, quote unquote, major works of Christian literature. But, I can't think of anyone who really reads these books, let alone kids. I'm not really familiar with the whole Christian allegory genre of fiction, but there's gotta be better stuff out there than these books.

I know the Thomas Nelson for this line, they also had CS Lewis' Screwtape Letters turned into a comic, I couldn't find it to read, but I'm kind of wondering why they didn't try adapting some of his other work, like the Lion, the Witch, the Wardrobe, you know, Aslan is very much a Jesus' allegory and -

Jessika: Yeah. 

Mike: It just, it doesn't make a lot of sense not to do something with more name recognition.

I mean, hell, Thomas Nelson has an entire collection of fictional books in their catalog. I just scoped out their website today, and I don't understand why they didn't do a comic adaptation of something from there. But, [00:48:00] don't know, I guess that probably would have required extra effort involving research and the author's permission.

And it seems -

Jessika: Oh no.

Mike: Like no, I mean, that, honestly, that seems like more work than the publisher really was interested in committing to this whole endeavor.

Jessika: Fair. 

Mike: You know, and unsurprisingly, the Nelson comics imprint wasn't long for this world. And it was abandoned by 1994, reportedly due to low sales. Between the quality and the apparent lack of marketing and also the high price points, I can't say I'm surprised. I did find it really funny when I was looking at their website, they have  some limited edition of Dracula on their website and Shakespeare, and I'm like, those things are not Catholic friendly, or evangelical friendly.  Are these edited, are these just like, did he just decide to do like limited edition reprints? I don't know. 

Jessika: That's interesting. 

Mike:  Weirdly though, Thomas Nelson's recently gotten [00:49:00] back into comic books with Bible Force, which was a comic or a graphic novel that went on sale this year. Here, take a look at this cover, just check it out and tell me and me what you think.

Jessika: Yeah, let's see. Oh, oh, wow. 

Mike: Right?

Jessika: Okay. So, who's supposed to be the dude in the middle?

Mike: I don't know. I don't 

Jessika: Okay. So there's like some dude, there's some dude in the middle, he's got a sword, and it’s thrusting out towards the viewer. There's. What is it? Joseph and his Technicolor coat, I'm assuming that's what that was. Um, 

Mike: That's what it looks like.

Jessika: Uh, it's what it looks like.

It's a color, her coat there's there's Noah's Ark. There's definitely Jesus with arms outstretched. Although, of course, white Jesus, because why be historically accurate? All of these people are Caucasian. I might add in this entire comic, all of these people were Caucasian, except for a very few in the Jesus [00:50:00] episodes.

And those were just  people from far away, quote unquote, everyone else was very, very light-skinned.

Mike: Also, if you're going to give us white Jesus, can you at least give a shirtless white Jesus? I want to see some washboard abs.

Jessika: That's what I'm saying. 

Mike: Right?

Jessika: That's what I'm saying. So yes, this is just, it's very exciting. Says, Bible Force, the First Heroes Bible. I think that's Probably. Mary as well on the front. It's a woman also Caucasian, and she's got a head scarf of some sort on, it's pink, which they absolutely had magenta back in Bible days. I am sure, absolutely feasible. I'm there. Believe it. 

Isaac Mizrahi’s in there like designing, designing Mary’s outfit. Oh honey, you're going to look great in this. 

Mike: He is all about the [00:51:00] timeless looks, isn’t he?

Jessika: Yes. 

Mike:  So, I mean, that's the Nelson comics. Short-lived imprint. Do you have any final thoughts?

Jessika: Well, can't say I'm surprised that these didn't continue on. I can't imagine that they were really keeping kids’ attention, or giving them any type of cohesive and thoughtful messages. 

Mike: No. I mean, probably not. I don't think many comic retailers were carrying them either because this was right at the height of my teenage collecting years, and I don't remember seeing any of this stuff in any of the shops that I frequented.

Jessika: Yeah, it was pretty much like here: look at the colors. Oh, and have some antisemitism, enjoy. 

Mike: And some casual misogyny. It's fine.

Jessika: Yes. Yes, exactly. 

Mike:  If you could sum up the titles from this imprint [00:52:00] in one word, what would you use?

Jessika: Confused. 

Mike: I was going to go soulless, but that's also good.

Jessika: Oh, yours is better. 

Mike: Now is the time of the show where we discuss our Brain Wrinkles, which is the one thing comics or comics-adjacent that has been just stuck in our head for the last couple of days that we just want to talk about. I guess we should talk about the recent Highlander casting news. Would you like to take that away?

Jessika: Oh, oh certainly. Certainly. Oh my goodness. So, during our Highlander episode, Mike, you mentioned that there has been a Highlander reboot in the works since 2008

Mike: Yep.

Jessika: And we were speculating on who would be good to cast. Well, there is a reboot in the works, but we were both incorrect about casting, and sorry about that, Chris Pine and Channing Tatum, because either of you [00:53:00] would have been most fabulous in this role, but it landed and it turned out to be Henry Cavill who will be our new next Highlander.

And I'm sure he'll have a new name because that's kind of how we trend with the Highlander series, which is good. 

Mike: Yeah, they haven't announced the actual role that he's playing yet, but it's assumed that he's going to be the MacLeod who's the main character.

Jessika: I would think so. Wouldn't it be interesting if he was like the Kurgan or something that would be really funny. 

Mike: Yeah. I think I mentioned this, supposedly Bautista is going to be the Kurgan, but that he'd signed on, I think back in 2015. So it's been six years since then?

Jessika: Well, I have to say though, I'm not all that upset about this turn of events. What about you, Mike? 

Mike: No, not at all. I just tore through the Witcher series on Netflix last week, over the course of a couple of days while I was working, I had it on in the background. And it was really nice to see Cavill in a role that wasn't [00:54:00] Superman, which is, you know, I use the term, unfortunately, he is just so associated with that role right now.

And, honestly, I like him as Superman, I just wish they gave him better scripts and movies to work with. 

Jessika: Yeah. And it's hard to feel typecast as well. You don’t, you know, you don’t want to be Daniel Radcliffe, you know, playing Harry Potter for 20 years and then not being able to do anything else, although he's done very well. So I, can't say that.

Mike: I was going to say I actually really - 

Jessika: You know, not a good example, I suppose. 

Mike: I love the choices that the Daniel Radcliffe has made since Harry Potter,

Jessika: Yeah, me too.

Mike: He has chosen so many insane roles. It's great. 

Jessika: Yeah.

Mike: Um, yeah, no, like, you know, honestly, Cavill. First of all, I just, I really like Henry Cavill, like, he's given the interviews where he's talked about how playing Superman makes him want to be a better person, because he is portraying this character who is a role model for so many, especially the little kids.

And that just [00:55:00] makes me really fond of the dude. 

Jessika: That's so sweet. 

Mike: He seems like another Chris Evans, and I'm, fine with that. That said, he is fucking grumpy in the Witcher, and it’s really fun. He basically just has this very surly charisma throughout the entire show.

And he's still jacked, but he’s not as yoked as he is for the Superman rules. Like he doesn't look like a bodybuilder, he just looks like an incredibly fit dude, and I'm fine with that.  Also, he does action scenes really well. The guy who's handling the reboot is Chad Stahelski, who did the John Wick movies. Dude knows his way around an action scene.

And if you ever want to see an example of Henry Cavill in good action scenes, watch the Witcher or the Mission Impossible movie that he was in, where he literally does that thing where he reloads his arms and then puts up his Dukes. I can watch that scene on repeat for hours. It's great.

Jessika: Nice. I'll have to watch that. I haven't seen the Witcher [00:56:00] yet. 

Mike: Yeah. It's fun. We'll talk about that later on, but it's good. I really liked it even coming into it without having any real familiarity with the games or the books that it's based on.

Also, I got to say that Highlander heart group that we were in, some of those people were grumpy at the casting.

Jessika: Yes. Some people were very grumpy. It was, it was a mixed bag. Some people were very excited and some people were very, very, very grumpy. 

Mike: And even -

Jessika: Okay. 

Mike: To their credit, even the people who were unhappy, weren't toxic, like in some other groups we've seen.

Jessika: Oh, correct. Yes. That was very refreshing, cause, you know.

Mike: Yeah. the backstory to your listeners is that we have been a part of other Facebook groups that are just heinously toxic nerd culture groups. And we swipe left pretty quick when we're in there.

Jessika: Yeah, I don't want to feel like I can't like things or I don't want somebody telling me the amount of a fan. I am the type of fan I am. 

Mike: Exactly. 

Jessika: Gatekeeping is awful. Don't do it. 

Mike: Yeah, don’t be a jerk, [00:57:00] I have to say the news that has been coming out about the reboot for Highlander sounds pretty promising. So fingers crossed that it doesn't suck but, we'll see.

Jessika: Yeah. 

Mike: I believe that's it for this episode, so we'll be back in two weeks, and until then, we'll see y'all in the stacks.

Thanks for listening to Ten Cent Takes. Accessibility is important to us; text transcriptions of each of our published episodes can be found on our website. 

This episode was hosted by Jessika Frazer and Mike Thompson, written by Mike Thompson and edited by Jessika Frazer. Our intro theme was written and performed by Jared Emerson-Johnson of Bay Area Sound. Our credits and transition music is Pursuit of Life by Evan MacDonald and it was purchased with a standard license from PremiumBeat.

Our banner graphics were designed by Sarah Frank, who goes by cut_thistles on Instagram.

Jessika: If you'd [00:58:00] like to get in touch with us, ask us questions or tell us about how we got something wrong, please head over to tencenttakes.com or shoot an email to tencenttakes@gmail.com. You can also find us on Twitter, the official podcast account is @tencenttakes. Jessika is @jessikawitha, and Jessika is spelled with a K, and Mike is @vansau V A N S A U.  

Mike: Stay safe out there.

Jessika: And support your local comic shop.