Jesus walked on water and performed miracles. Santa is a mutant in Marvel. To someone back then, he would have been perceived as a mutant.

So, when the Marvel universe has norse and greek gods, Jesus must be a mutant?

But they are the actual gods, aren't they? :D

I did say 'perceived'. I wasn't insinuating that he was a mutant. I was trying to show that it's the intention of the writer that it would be a logical conclusion for one to think that way and that it's not disparaging. It makes sense in the context of the book and in the Marvel universe.

The scene is insulting for several reasons: 1) If Jesus were a mutant, it implies that he was a fraud that lied to his followers when he made claims to be the son of God 2) Gillen trivializes Christ's accomplishments by diminishingly summarizing everything he did as "raising a couple from the dead." He further reduces this to the status of a cheap gimmick by saying even this accomplishment was "beat in five minutes," lessening Jesus's stature to less than that of a fictional comic book character

3) He insults Christian believers by implying they were duped into following Jesus because of what he already established was just a gimmick. Those who believe in Jesus do not follow him solely because of "raising a couple" but because they truly believe what he said when he said "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me" (John 14:6).

4) He is tiptoeing the line of committing the unpardonable sin by calling the Phoenix force the Holy Spirit. "Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven, but the blasphemy against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven" (Matt 12:31). Everyone will have to answer to their own conscience in this life, and to God in the next, but I for one was not comfortable with a comic that openly ridiculed Jesus.

But this is fiction. I'll give it to you that your beliefs wouldn't allow you to call anything other than your god a holy spirit, it's been done many times before. This isn't trying to rewrite Judeo-Christian 'history'. It's an interpretation in a fictional universe where you and I don't exist and Jesus could have been completely different from our world.

Agree with Hex on this. Fiction is fiction still no matter what. However, some people still might be offenced by it and I'm sure they will.

Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I don’t think Gillen would target any other major religious figure for ridicule like he did to Jesus and it just came across as very distasteful

Either way, I think we’re at a fascinating point in our culture where a fictional character can be canceled because they share a name with a real historical person, but a real historical person who is deified by over 2.5 billion people can be insulted openly and no one will bat an eye. I want to make it clear I don’t support canceling anyone, Gillen can insult whoever he wants and I’m just voicing my own personal reaction to it, but the double standard is interesting

I'm assuming you're referring to the King Conan character? I really don't think these are comparable.

The character who says it is a man who is religiously obsessed with mutantdom and has religious perceptions in regard to mutantkind. He's made similar statements before. What he says isn't inherently canonical, as he is like literally a cultist. It's kind of like getting mad about an atheist's statements in an anti-atheist film imo.

Y'all just get mad over anything

@highdesolate and @Daredevil, you bring up some good points I didn’t think of it that way. @SurvivorLib, who is “Y’all”? I’m just one person expressing one person’s opinion.

You and the many other reviews on this site I have interacted with that are just like you.

“The many other reviews on this site that are just like you.” Quite the heuristic leap...