Election Day: Presidents And Candidates In Comics

Today is election day, the day when citizens get to use their greatest governmental superpower - [...]

By Jamie Lovett - November 8, 2016 12:01 pm EST

Today is election day, the day when citizens get to use their greatest governmental superpower - the right to vote.

United States presidents are no strangers to the pages of comic books. Presidents, as well as this year's Republican and Democratic presidential nominees, have frequently been featured in the Marvel Unvierse, the DC Comics Universe, and other fictional comic book worlds in roles ranging from cameos to primary players.

To celebrate election day, and give you a way to wind down after casting your vote, we've assembled a collection of some of the most notable apperances in comic books by past United States presidents and this years' nominees, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump.

Take a look, and don't forget to vote!

Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton's biggest comic book appearance to date was her highly-publicized appereance in Faith #5 from Valiant Comics. Clinton was featured in a back of story featuring comic book writing legend Louise Simonson (co-creator of X-Men villain Apocalypse) and artist Pepe Perez.

The story sees Faith, Valiant's recent breakout character, assigned to cover a Hillary Clinton campaign ralley for her day job as a web journalist. Faith is called on to foil a supervillain heist, which ends with a helicopter nearly crashing into Clinton ralley. Luckily, Faith saves the day, then takes selfies with Clinton while music on how potentially historic this election will be.

Clinton has also had small roles in other comics, including Dark Knight III: The Master Race, Bat-Mite, Holy Terror!, and some older appearances dating back to Bill Clinton's presidency, which we'll get to.

Donald Trump

While never explicitly named, it is pretty clear that Republican Presidential Nominee Donald Trump was the inspiration for a supervillain featured in a story Spider-Gwen Annual #1.

Spider-Gwen takes place on Earth-65, a Marvel Universe where there never was a Spider-Man. Instead, Gwen Stacy gained spider powers and became Spider-Woman.

However, the two-page story in question - written by Jason Latour, illustrated by Chris Visions and colored by Jim Campbell - focuses on Earth-65's Captain America, Samantha Wilson as she battles a variant of classic Marvel Comics villain MODOK that has certain characters in common with Trump.

On Earth-65, MODOK is actually called MODAAK - Mental Organism Designed As America's King. While the design is clearly recognizable as Jack Kirby's MODOK, MODAAK's skin as a more orange hue. He also has quite tiny hands, and focuses the efforts of AIM specifically on the United States-Mexio border. Hmmm...

If that doesn't make it clear enough, he also begins uttering Trump's famous "Make America Great Again" slogan, but is interrupted when Cap hits him in the head with his shield.

Like Clinton, Trump also has a cameo moment in Dark Knight III: The Master Race, and has appeared in issues of Nightwing, Foolkiller, Heavy Metal, and elsewhere.

Barack Obama

Barack Obama's best known comic book appearance was in Amazing Spider-Man #583, published in January 2008, in a backup story titled "Spidey Meets the President!"

The story written by Zeb Wells, with art by Todd Nauck and Frank D'Armata, the story sees Peter Parker attending Obama's inauguration as a photographer for the Daily Bugle. However, the inauguration is muddled by the arrival of a second Barack Obama. Parker changes into his Spider-Man costume and investigates, discovering that the second Obama is actually the villain called the Chameleon. Spider-Man captures the Chameleon, is thanked by Obama, and watches the inauguration ceremony while perched atop the Washington Momument.

Dynamite Comics also published Army of Darkness miniseries titled Ash Saves Obama, in which the Evil Dead protagonist must protect Obama from a legion of deadite pundits and presidents.

In his eight years as president, Barack Obama has had numerous appearance in Marvel Comics, Marvel's Ultimate Comics line, DC Comics' New 52 universe, and DC's Earth One series.

George W. Bush

During his time as President of the United States, George W. Bush had many cameos in superhero comics. His most notable appearances were in Marvel's Ultimate Universe.

Bush appered in Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch's The Ultimates, and was one of the first to great the recently thawed out Captain America. He was later kidnapped by a group called the Liberators, and the Ultimates were tasked with rescuing him.

In Ultimate X-Men, Bush became an ally to Xavier's students after they rescued his daughter. Unfortunately, he was made to pay for that allegiance when Magneto came to conquer America. Bush was forced to strip naked, kneel, and lick Magneto's boots. Magneto was about to finish the president off by dropping a car on his head when the X-Men arrived to once again save the day.

Bill Clinton

Like the presidents that followed him, Bill Clinton had plenty of cameos in superhero universes during his time in office. However, his most notable appearance would have to be when he spoke at Superman's funeral.

Superheroroes, civilians, and dignataries gathered for Superman's funeral, seen in the pages of Superman: Man of Steel #20. The issue was written by Louise Simonson (the same writer who would later pen Hillary's appearance in Faith #5), and illustrated by Jon Bogdanove.

In the issue, Clinton - with then first lady Hillary Clinton at his side - eulogizes Superman: "His power and abilities were amazing...but how much more amazing was the way he chose to use those powers!"

Ronald Reagan

Ronald Reagan has one of the more colorful comic book histories of any president, as befitting a conservative hero.

In the Marvel Universe, Reagan met Steve Rogers while he was going through his "The Captain" phase. The villainess Viper turned the population of Washington D.C. into snakes and then attempted to kill Reagan. Luckily, the Captain was there to help.

Frank Miller lampooned Reagan for a fool in The Dark Knight Returns, but Regan was turned into the leading man of his own Solson Comics series, Reagan's Raiders, dubbed "The Ultimate Patriotic Super Heroes Book!!!"

Reagan was also featured in a Transformers comic book story titled "Plague of the Insecticons."

Richard Nixon

Thanks to his poor reputation, Richard Nixon was frequently featured as a villainous figure in comic books of his day. However, the most memorable and infamous of these appearance came in a Marvel Comics Captain America story written by Steve Englehart.

Englehart created the "Secret Empire" storyline as an allegory for Nixon's Watergate scandal. Captain America uncovers a conspiracy conducted by the Secret Empire, a shadowy, secret organizazation. Cap follows the trial until Nixon is eventually revealed to be the Secret Empire's leader. Exposed, Nixon commits suicide. The actual Watergate scandal is then manufactured by SHIELD and the U.S. government to give them an excuse to have a Nixon body double resign from the position.

This incident is what prompts Steve Rogers to drop the "America" from his name and become The Captain, the persona he is using when he later meets President Reagan, while he does some soul-searching.

It is also worth noting that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons' seminal sueprhero desconstruction Watchmen is heavily influenced by Regan's time as president. In the Watchmen universe Nixon never resigns. Instead, he is reelected several times over and his policies are largely responsibly for the gritty state of Watchmen's world.