Word Up: Obama’s Annuary of Amazing Adventures!

A year ago, Barack Obama became president of the United States. He also gave dap to the Savage Dragon, was saved by Spider-Man from an evil duplicate, personally chose the new Youngblood roster, answered the riddle of the sphinx, was outwitted on national television by the Bomb Queen, punched out a gang leader in post-apocalyptic Chicago, fought deadites from hell, and then made out with himself.

Here is Obama’s year in comic books:

“Barack Obama: The Road to the White House” & “The First 100 Days”

Let’s get the obligatory bio offerings out of the way. Publisher IDW is a licensing machine, having already done adaptations for CSI, Underworld, and Metal Gear Solid, so I guess it was natural for them to cash-grab the fuck out of the Obama craze. But even if they did for dollars, the result was incredibly overly-written, awkwardly drawn and overall painful. Look at this shit:

EXCITING. Now stop looking at it, before your eyes die.

RATING: “GAHH MY EYES” 0 BARRIES

“Savage Dragon” 137 & 145

The Savage Dragon, who had a mo-hawk when he was a human so of course grew a fin on his head when he mutated, once ran for office himself, so when the character threw his support behind Obama the endorsement actually meant something. Not to the real world, but to the world in the comic and to the Savage Dragon himself as a character. It had been 12 years since Dragon left the Chicago police force, and the comic works in real time so it really HAD been 12 freaking years. But in issue #45 Dragon reinstates himself, and his first assignment is a security detail for a home-visiting Obama. Maybe bringing the Dragon back to the fold with an Obama appearance was creator Erik Larsen’s way of saying he’d regained his faith in the establishment. Uniforms weren’t offensive anymore, they had meaning again. Maybe ordinary people with green skin and death biceps can affect change within the system. Maybe we’re going to be OK.

Or maybe we all fuck up and everything explodes in our faces.

“There’s only so much one man can do.” Obama should use this issue as a Power Point presentation during his state of the union speech.

RATING: “Stupid but fun and fits into the continuity!” 3 OUT OF 5 BARRIES!

“Amazing Spider-Man” #583

Obama’s inauguration is interrupted by a doppelganger and Spider-Man intervenes to determine who’s the real deal.  How? BASKETBALL TRIVIA. Remember when everyone was like, “Who is this “Obama” and what do we really know about him?” BASKETBALL. HE PLAYS BASKETBALL.

Now wait though — if it’s a question only Obama knows the answer to, how the fuck would you know who’s telling the truth? And if it’s a question YOU know the answer to, how would you expect the impostor NOT to?

Yeah, OK that works for me.

RATING: “Ridonkulous but why not?” 2 BARRIES

“Bomb Queen” volume 6, #1

This issue has one of the worst covers ever. “Bomb Queen” is a cheeky throwback to the 90s “bad girl” craze, which means half-naked, distorted female bodies. With attitude. Which is kinda like comics in general, but with nip slips. And while the whole thing is trashy and exploitative it is one of the rare Obama appearances that actually does something with him. When Obama tries to negotiate with super-villain despot Bomb Queen, it’s an exploration of the U.S. president’s staunch belief in dialogue and diplomacy. Does it work?

“As I just demonstrated, motherfucking words are meaningless.” Thank god, because otherwise words would be fucking my mother!

RATING: “Nice try but too bad Bomb Queen sucks!” 2 BARRIES

“Youngblood” volume 4, #8-9

FINALLY Obama isn’t just some dude behind a desk or giving a long-ass speech. No wait, he’s still behind a desk, but he’s choosing members for the elite government-sponsored superteam, Youngblood. It’s Obama as commander-in-chief, someone not afraid to flex his armed forces. It seemed like a reach back then, but two wars and a Nobel Peace Prize controversy later and yeah, OK.

In Rob Liefeld’s mind though, Obama isn’t just a potential hawk, he’s also a potential bigot.

Yo did he just call that android a “robot”??

By the way that image of Obama is repeated like a million times because ROB LIEFELD CAN’T DRAW. I know everyone knows this, but it can’t be said enough. But it does make for laughs later when Obama goes all Bruce Willis and Liefeld doesn’t have a photo to trace:

Check out that random black dude. With no eyes. Whose pants are also shoes.

RATING: “Bad, real bad, but Liefeld made me laugh!” 2 BARRIES

“Army of Darkness – Ash Saves Obama” #1-2 (will not read 3-4)

This comic is an asshole. Obama’s only drawn from the back, which is a complete waste of time. Even though the artist can clearly draw Obama, as he does when illustrating a picture of Obama, so why not draw the damn dude? Oh and then he’s not even IN issue #2. Is this supposed to mean something? Are you commenting on Obama’s cool and distanced demeanour? His celebrity status? I don’t care because it sucks.

Oh, shut up.

RATING: 1 IS THE LONELIEST BARRY

“Barack the Barbarian” #1-4

I feel bad trashing this book because I love writer Larry Hama for all he’s done on the page and behind the scenes for minorities in comics. With that legacy, an Obama riff on Conan the Barbarian should be something more than a couple of cheap jokes and puns but that’s all Hama has for us here. Characters are named “Hilaria” or “Boosh” or “Red Sarah” after their obvious real-life counterparts, and Obama visits sphinx statues that look like Letterman and Leno and whose riddles are talk-show questions. Monsters are called “snarks.” Get it?

One thing great though are the covers, ripe for deconstruction by cultural theory students:

This picture’s worth a couple thousand word essays. I would have loved it if the comic itself played with the signifiers of a strong black man with a sword who defeated a white woman to lead a country where he was branded an outsider. Instead we get this hot mess:

“Nyaaaa!” indeed.

RATING: “Hot on the outside!” 2 BARRIES

“Drafted: One Hundred Days”

The “Drafted” series is about aliens invading earth and conscripting us to fight in an inter-planetary war. “One Hundred Days” sticks Obama in this fictional universe, examing how his much-scrutinized first one hundred days in office would be different had the election never happened and Chicago blown the fuck up instead. He wouldn’t be in office, but would he still be a leader?

“One Hundred Days” is by far the most mature comic to feature Obama. It runs him through the ringer on a couple of issues that weighed on voters’ minds. Has no military experience? Let’s conscript him in the biggest war ever. All soaring rhetoric and no action? Let’s make him lose his voice. Elitist? Let’s blow up his hometown, kill his family and have him scrounge for canned goods. “One Hundred Days” goes further than rest, and seeing Obama deal with a frustrated population just trying to survive carries extra weight now as joblessness becomes his most pressing issue in the real world.

“One Hundred Days” doesn’t just play with the Obama’s caricature — overly calm, peaceful, BASKETBALL — it prods him as a real person and puts him in difficult situations. Even to the point where he loses his temper, something we haven’t seen yet in real life but feels right because the writing doesn’t suck.

RATING: “Look I’m a real comic character!” 4 OUT OF 5 BARRIES!

Miscellaneous

I also have to give it up to Laura Hudson of Comics Alliance who fills in some of my knowledge gaps in her own Obama run down. Apparently not only does he team up with Scooby-Doo, but he grows up adorable manga style, gets filthy in some manga porn (NSFW or SANItY!)  and kisses himself on the Internet.