ComicMix Six: Fictional Presidents in comics
We’ve had a lot of US Presidents show up in the comics, Jossip and the Chicago Tribune both hit on the major ones– Nixon in Watchmen, Bill Clinton speaking at Superman’s funeral, Reagan in The Dark Knight Returns, JFK impersonating Clark Kent. But there are many more that stick in t here are a few truly fictional US Presidents from the comics:
1. President Ken WInd — not wind like a watch, but wind as in freedom. A dead ringer for Dan Quayle and a tool of the Beast, he was set up to become President so he could start a nucelar war. He was stopped by Elektra and a goddammed agent of SHIELD. (Elektra: Assassin)
2. President Howard Johnson Nissen. The former Secretary of Agriculture, he became president when President Rexall and the rest of his cabinet were killed in an explosion. (Give Me Liberty) Incidentally, Secretary of Agriculture Margaret Valentine also got the top spot when all the men above her in the line of succession died. (Y: The Last Man)
3. President Prez Rickard. The first teenaged president of the United States, and the only one on this list to have his own series, this creation of Joe Simon made things run on time. Later written by Ed Brubaker, Neil Gaiman, and Frank Miller– he does that a lot, doesn’t he?
4. President Gary Callahan, a.k.a. "The Smiler". A rictus grin in a suit, he hates everyone and only wants to be President in order to control and oppress people, and has no problems killing anyone whose death will help him gain or keep power, or even get a rise in the polls– up to and including his own wife and children. The sworn enemy of Spider Jerusalem. (Transmetropolitan)
5. President Melanie Henderson. Okay, that was the name of the actress playing the President in the Spidey Super Stories short, "Spidey vs. the Funny Bunny", where a mischievous woman dressing in a rabbit costume and damaging Easter baskets by sitting on them. Spidey eventually foils the villain’s plans to disrupt the annual White House Easter Egg roll. Some sources indicate that Melanie may have been the first African American actress to portray an American president on television.
6. President Lex Luthor. Yes, Luthor won the 2000 Presidential Election. Couldn’t have been worse than what really happened, right?
There's no end, is there, to the catch-all phrase that Miller coined: "the goddamn … "?>SIGH
I remember the President, or maybe it was the Vice-President playing a major role in Tim Truman's "Scout." Yeah, it was the Vice-President. I think the President had been taken over by one of the "Four Monsters" or something. Man, I need to pull out those comics and read them again.