Obama’s already met our friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. Here’s some suggestions for which colorfully clad heroes he should bump into next. (Fanboys, keep your continuity complaints to yourself.)
Superman
Title: “Takin’ it to the Hoop”
Written by Mark Millar
Drawn by George Perez
Synopsis: In a semi-sequel to the famous 1978 “Superman vs. Muhammad Ali” bout, this story finds Lex Luthor beaming Obama and Superman a distant planet, where they’d be forced to play a 20-point one-on-one hoops match. (Naturally, this world orbits a red sun, which dampens Superman’s powers.) The winner gets his freedom, while the loser will be put to work in the galaxy’s dilithium crystal mines. Obama dominates Superman at first, but the Man of Steel stages a late comeback to tie the score at 18 all. The Prez finds an opening and makes his final drive…but can he really bring himself to dunk the ball and condemn Earth’s greatest hero to imprisonment? Or maybe–just maybe–they can figure out some way to team up and turn the tables on their captors…
The X-Men
Title: “X-President”
Written by Joss Whedon
Drawn by Joe Madura
Synopsis: It’s Graduation Day at upstate New York’s famed Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters and President Obama has arrived on campus to give the commencement speech. While discussing the country’s mutant policy with Professor Charles Xavier over organic tea, Obama peers out the window and sees Xavier’s supposedly reformed stepbrother Cain Marko a.k.a. Juggernaut hurtling towards the school in his battle armor. Cyclops leads the X-Men–whose ever-changing line-up now includes Wolverine, Havoc, Psylocke and, as the token red shirt, Jubilee–into battle, while Xavier leads Obama into the bowels of the X-Mansion for safety. From sub-basement, they can hear that the fight isn’t going so well. That’s when Obama reveals his secret to the Professor–the reason he’s so interested in mutant affairs is because…he’s really a mutant! Donning a spare X-leotard, Obama heads upstairs to stop the rampaging Juggernaut with his special mutant power: the terrorist fist jab.
Aquaman
Title: “S.O.S. (Save Our Seas)”
Written by Jeph Loeb
Drawn by Jim Lee
Synopsis: In this special Earth Day-themed story, the citizens of Atlantis are troubled by the increasingly sorry state of the world’s oceans. The city’s champion Aquaman (the orange jumpsuit clad-version, not the angsty one with the missing hand) journeys to the surface world for a summit at the United Nations, attended by President Obama. Standing in a vat of water to avoid the whole “one hour out of the water” rule, Aquaman delivers a sterling speech without any interruption from rampaging villains…mainly because the guy doesn’t have any villains worth fighting. (Except for Black Mantra and he’s retired from the super-villain game to open a bait-and-tackle shop in Maine.) Everyone shakes hands and agrees to launch various initiatives to clean up the seas. After Aquaman exits the building, Obama turns to the other foreign dignitaries and says what everyone’s thinking: “Man is that guy lame or what?”
The League of Extraordinary Gentleman
Title: “Time and Time Again”
Written by Alan Moore
Drawn by Kevin O’Neill
Synopsis: President Obama is surprised in the Oval Office by a mysterious stranger who calls himself the Time Traveler. After babbling on about Eloi and Morlocks for five minutes, the man informs Obama that he must travel back to the 19th century to prevent some kind of horrific disaster. Climbing into the stranger’s metal contraption, Obama passes through the fourth dimension and winds up back in England circa 1890. There he meets adventurers/lovers Allan Quartermain and Wilhelmina Murray and a bunch of obscure characters from Victorian-era literature that nobody remembers. (Fortunately, Obama has his BlackBerry on him for quick Google searches. Take that Secret Service!) In between lengthy discussions about various arcane mythologies, Obama and his new allies save the world and the President returns to the future vowing to take a refresher course in classic British literature at the Learning Annex after his term in office ends.
Batman
Title: “The Dark Knight Growls”
Written and Drawn by: Frank Miller
Synopsis: The goddman Batman is on another goddman rampage leaving a trail of the broken, spent bodies of goddamn criminals on the goddamn streets of goddamn Gotham City. Superman tries to intervene, but the Big Blue Boy Scout is helpless in the face of Batman’s taunting and flies away in tears after the goddman Bat calls him a momma’s boy for the fiftieth goddman time. It’s up to President Obama to talk Batman back from the edge of sanity. Confronting the Dark Knight on the rooftop of Gotham Central, Obama tells Batman about his own difficult childhood. This unleashes a torrent of emotion in the Dark Knight and soon Batman is weeping in Obama’s arms as he recounts his parents’ death. Finally free of the demons that have plagued him all these years, he hangs up the cape and cowl and devotes the rest his life to slam poetry under the stage name “Marv From Sin City.”
