A 45-minute-long "Guardians of the Galaxy" Christmas special is now showing on Disney Plus (which I'm no longer subscribed to after having binged two seasons of "The Mandalorian"). I won't be watching it, but I'm pretty sure that, however good the filmmakers' intentions are, the special will have nothing to do with the Christ in "Christmas." I don't say this because I'm an offended fundamentalist Christian; Christmas has been secularized for a long time in American culture; plenty of non-Christians celebrate the holiday in their own way, and that's fine with me. No: what bugs me is that Disney-Marvel is missing a huge opportunity to include Jesus Christ in Marvel's pantheon of heroes as a hugely superpowered being—one who can heal others and bring the dead back to wholesome life while avoiding the problem of zombie reanimations. Marvel already has its own version of God who has many ineffable qualities in common with the God of the Bible: he's a cosmic being called The One Above All. So why not have the Guardians crew discover what Christmas is originally a celebration of? And maybe have some characters time-travel back to Jesus' time to see some miracles firsthand, and maybe involve Jesus in some wacky adventure? I'm pluralistic enough that I wouldn't want to stop with Jesus: canonize some other religious founders as well: Mahavira (Jainism), Zoroaster (Zoroastrianism), and if someone has some balls, even Muhammad (Islam). Take the Spielberg/Indiana Jones approach: assume that all religions are true and confer power on certain believers. This would be awesome. Why not do this?
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