Paul Kirk, Manhunter– er, Senator?
Jesse Ventura was elected governor, so why couldn’t a costumed mystery man serve in the U.S. Senate?
Paul Kirk, the late Senator Ted Kennedy’s temporary replacement, shares a name but (probably) not the predilection for vigilante crime-fighting, with Manhunter, a DC character with an interesting history.
In the comics, Paul Kirk used decides to become a crimefighter when his friend, Empire City
police inspector Donovan, was murdered by the supervillain known as the
Buzzard. He wore a superhero-like red costume with a blue mask. While
he had no superpowers, he was an above average athlete and possessed
superior tracking skills. Later, he went off to become a big-game hunter, but was killed by an elephant, then brought back to life by a secret society intent on ruling the world (insert obligatory Obama/ACORN reference here) and set up to lead an army of clones of him, but he rebelled and brought down the Council in a story chronicled by Archie Goodwin and Walt Simonson.
That doesn’t seem to describe the real-world Paul Kirk, but who knows? He could be a man of hidden talents.
Or it could be yet another one of those Paul Kirk clones running around…
Well, he's Paul Kirk, Jr., so obviously his father was the masked vigilante in the family. This is probably a good thing considering what generally happens to people named Manhunter in the DCU.