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Savefarris first noted this awesome yesterday.
The president-elect is featured on an upcoming issue of Spiderman, which will be released January 14. While it’s not the first time a President has been featured in a Marvel comic, it’s the first time a president-elect has graced the cover. Marvel Comics is giving a tribute to the future commander-in-chief, an admitted Spidey fan.
The best part of this is the inevitable conservative bitching and moaning. There’s a long tradition of superheroes palling around with presidents. There was even in the comic in the ’60s about a presidential superhero. But one fist bump with Spidey and Obama and comics become a part of the vast liberal media conspiracy.
Maybe this means that decoder rings are involved.
Why are wingnuts griping about this. They got one of their own, the very right wing Stephen Colbert in the comix too.
(Oh, and why isn’t there a liberal version of Colbert?)
And by the way, where’s Obama? I don’t see him anywhere in that picture.
Ronald Reagan and Superman
Ronald Reagan and Superheroes
As a huge Spidey fan growing up I can say unequivocally that “realistically” a fist bump with Obama couldn’t have happened. If Peter Parker had any politics he had to have leaned conservative, his signature motto: “With great power comes great responsibility” says it alone.
If Peter Parker had any politics he had to have leaned conservative, his signature motto: “With great power comes great responsibility” says it alone.
Hahahahahahaha! After ignoring multiple 9-11 warnings, Iraq War, torture, illegal spying, deregulation, massively regressive tax cuts, unrivaled incuriousness, and everything else, that is hilarious. Good one!
(You were kidding, right?)
The idea that someone would think that believing that (the ‘great power’ line) would inevitably lead to leaning conservative is something that – wait, Mr. Grey Ghost’s blog is called ‘politikditto’. Never mind. I’ve just gotten more insight into how his mind works.
God, does no one remember that “Nixon” (they never said his name, but you knew who it was supposed to be) an heroed himself in Captain America after his coup failed, or that both Kissinger AND Jimmy Carter rolled over for Dr. Doom in Super Villain Team-Up?
At least Obama hasn’t signed any treaties with Latveria.
This is quite cool overall, but I wish they would’ve grabbed an artist that could draw a Comic-Obama that even vaguely resembles the actual President-Elect Obama. Admittedly, Phil Jimenez does a better job on the cover than Todd Nauck on the interior, but this one panel that I’m seeing everywhere just makes me sad.
Why not bring in Ethan Van Scriver? Rags Morales? Jerry Ordway, even?
Heck, I would’ve been okay with John Byrne for this gig. Byrne might’ve lost his better sense of late, but he was remarkably adept at drawing comic-book Ronald Reagan in several titles over the 80s.
I’m cautiously optimistic that Obama’s interest will result in demand for old Spiderman comics, so I can finally sell mine for at least face value. :-/
Jerry Ordway, even?
Ew, ew, ew. Worst Superman artist ever.
This is a bad idea, long-term. And that is completely divorced from politics. It ties Spider-Man to a specific date in history.
In 1963, Superman revealed his secret identity to President John F. Kennedy (in an issue that came out right around Kennedy’s assassination, establishing Superman as born in the mid-30’s to the 40’s or so. Then, later, Superboy met President Kennedy. I think even Superbaby later met President Kennedy.
As liberalrob pointed out, a bunch of DC heroes were active during Ronald Reagan’s administration — meaning they’ve now been around for at least 20 years. That puts them around 40 or so at the least.
Bill and Hillary Clinton attended Superman’s funeral in the 1990s. Now that, too, will be soon outdated, as we’re coming up on 8 years since Bill Clinton left office. I sincerely doubt that eight years in comic continuity have passed since the “Death of Superman” storyline (the bare minimum needed to have President Clinton give a eulogy), let alone the 15 since the actual story was published.
At one point, the Legion of Super-Heroes was set exactly 1,000 years in the future. That turned out to be a mistake, as the calendar kept turning over much faster than the charactera aged.
At one point, Marvel did it right. At the height of Watergate, they had a group of bad guys called “The Secret Empire.” Their head, the mysterious “Number One,” reveal to be a “very high-ranking government official” who was plotting a coup. They never named him, but the implication (and, I believe, the artwork) strongly hinted that it was Richard Nixon — but they never said so explicitly.
That was the right approach to real-life events and people in comics — imply, but never explicitly state it. It simply causes too many problems long-term.
J.
Define “problem”. If you’re a continuity nut, yes. But if comics were always about their insular universe 100% of the time it gets odd. The X-Men dressed in 80s and then 90s style. Superman had a mullet in the late ’90s. Black Lightning once spoke in jive. Comics reflect the era they’re in.
Conservatives don’t get to claim Spider-Man. Peter Parker, after all, is a scientist.
I guess, then, I am a bit of a continuity nut. I have NEVER gotten over DC taking all the decades of Legion history — that I had invested heavily in — and trashed it all. Those were some of the greatest comics I have ever read, I was very much wrapped up in the characters, and in a wink of an eye (or, if you prefer, “zero time”), they wiped it all out. The characters I had literally grew up with all vanished into oblivion, and the “new” ones simply weren’t the same.
Now it looks like DC is bringing back the Legion that I loved so long and so well, in a sense, and I am happy. But it just isn’t the same. I miss the Legion that started out in the 1950’s and ended in the 1990’s with the first in an endless series of reboots that keep fans from daring to invest themselves in the characters — because, sooner or later, they’ll just go away and a “new” Legion will be brought in.
This latest reboot had potential, especially when Jim Shooter was brought back to Legion. But that didn’t last, either.
Sigh…
J.
Well I don’t like the reboots – ie. Crisis On Infinite Earths, Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, etc. Marvel’s done a better job grandfathering in the 60s-80s stuff and ignoring the time anomalies like the presidents. DC keeps saying “we cleaned the slate” then muddying it up again (because guess what, multiple earths are FUN). DC is rebooting Superman again this year and while I think Geoff Johns will do a good job, I dunno if its necessary.
I should also note that while I’m not a Legion fan, I do like the history of Superboy being a Legion member. Did u see the recent story line where the Legion took Superman into the future? It was pretty sweet, esp with Gary Frank pencils.
DC’s frequent, botched retcons are one reason I was a Marvel junkie when I was into comics. (However, Marvel completely blew the “Heroes” reboot of the late 1990s – one of the worst things they did along with the Spidey Clone Clusterf–k.)
BTW, I now have to get rid of hundreds of comics, the overwhelming majority of them Marvels from ‘92 to ‘05, with some DC (Batman mainly), Image, and Dark Horse. Also on the block is 16 years of wrestling tapes (1985-2001), most of which I don’t feel like copying to DVD…
I got used to the continuity switches and now I take it all in stride. As far as I’m concerned, any standard-universe comic I pick up is some sort of Elseworld.
If I want continuity, I read something that’s designed to end at some point.
Oliver, THAT was “my” Legion. Or, at least, the closest I’ve seen (with one exception) in well over a decade. And it was GOOD to see them again. And them with Superman in the 31st century against a reconstituted Legion of Super-Villains (under another name)… it made me long for the days when Paul Levitz was writing them.
You ever read the Great Darkness Saga? That was the Legion at its absolute finest. And what high concepts it had… including a whole planetful of Daxamites brainwashed by Darkseid, reshaping Daxam into a sculpture of Darkseid’s face…
There was one sequence that showed a bunch of Daxamites flying off the surface that featured some very thinly-disguised Marvel characters… Wolverine, Thor, Black Bolt… that was back when Keith Giffen could actually draw.
J.
If I were Obama, I would be very upset aboutappearing in Spider-Man. I would be worried that I would wake up one morning to find that my dead grandmother is alive again, while my marriage to Michelle never happened and my two daughters have vanished out of existence.
I remember regularly being surprised at the President, whenever he appeared in comics, not looking much like the President. He was sketched well enough to be recognizable, but not ever drawn as accurately as the regular characters in the comic book. I assumed that either the artists were instructed not to draw the President too accurately for some reason, or there was some unspoken convention not to render current figures in detail unless it’s a comic book about them – like the two comics this past fall for Mr. McCain and Mr. Obama.
So seeing Mr. Obama’s face not quite right doesn’t surprise me. I think it’s intentional.
And what about that Charlie Brown dude? He’s been 12 for over 50 years!
Guys, it’s comics. There’s no rule that time has to flow in a straight line.
If I were Obama, I would be very upset aboutappearing in Spider-Man. I would be worried that I would wake up one morning to find that my dead grandmother is alive again, while my marriage to Michelle never happened and my two daughters have vanished out of existence.
And, that my running mate is really a plant from Oscorp.
Jay Tea: I miss the Legion that started out in the 1950’s and ended in the 1990
But did you notice how they didn’t really age 30-40 years in that time? As a self-described “continuity nut” did that bother you?
Those stories are still there. Can still be enjoyed. The characters you “had literally grew up with” have not “all vanished into oblivion”. And while continuity is certainly something that adds to the enjoyment, it isn’t something that anyone who enjoys comics for any significant span of time (let alone 30-40 years) can really look at too closely.
Why would a website called “Newsbusters” care about something like this? Since when are comics considered part of the “news?”
Sean, they did age — not in real time, but they did. They started out as feckless (but sincere) teenagers, grew up, and were mature, responsible adults (well, mostly) by the time they rebooted. One was one of the wealthiest industrialists in the galaxy, another two ran a very large farm/agricultural business, another was a very successful politician (albeit a bit of a joke of one), another a high police official…
Why it worked was that, apart from the occasional year-dropping, they weren’t tied to any specific “dating” references.
And yes, I can still enjoy those stories. But I also know that there won’t be any more. It ended — and on a crappy note.
J.
And when Paul Levitz actually did work. The “Levitz Legion” was good, but so was the initial reboot. I liked LEGION ‘89 (and ‘90) too.
The Crisis was OK, because it needed to be done; the DC universe was just too confusing with all the parallel universes, 5 different Supermans, all the hopping back and forth and teaming up…I remember the bit from Giffen’s Ambush Bug limited series, where Jonni DC (I think) has a post-it note (among a haphazard pile of them) saying “before going to Earth-2, check with Roy” (Thomas, I assume). That’s a ref to how confusing (and constraining) it was even for the writers.
Some of what I consider DC’s best writing came immediately post-Crisis.