Obama as Super-Hero

We'll be deconstructing the Super-Hero in our class next semester, and I was thinking tonight about how many super-hero images of Obama I've seen during the campaign.


It also seems like Obama is complicit in this characterization, i.e. During the Alfred E. Smith dinner (even in which both candidates do comedy routines), Obama said, ""Contrary to the rumors you have heard, I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father, Jor-el, to save the planet Earth."

I was trying to remember if any other president or presidential candidate was labeled in this way. A quick google image search gave me some interesting results:


I found no super-Clintons. President Clinton does pop up
in comics, but not in the hero role.
James Kolchaka did an indie version of the Monica Lewinsky story, and Clinton does get rescued by heroes -- although in this "Secret City Saga" it's revealed that he's been replaced by a shape shifting super-villain.





Ronald Reagan appears in many comics as President, most memorably in Frank Miller's Dark Knight
Returns, but he also has a brief run as an actual super-hero. The difference is that his persona is being satirized -- Reagan as a super-patriot Rambo:
Notice how close though this is to the Obama T-shirt at the start of this post.

And what about our current president? To the best of my knowledge he has never been represented as a super-hero in comics, but renowned comic artist Alex Ross, who did the illustration for that Super Obama T-shirt did, in fact, do a Bush illustration that was used on many T-shirts as well:

I might argue that Bush would never have fostered a super-hero persona because he immediately imprinted the alternative cowboy image. As we study both cowboys and super-heroes next semester, we can think how these icons play in our politics.