Clark Kent and Lois Lane aided Pete Ross in his campaign for President of the United States. While rescuing Ross from an assassin's bullets, Kent was publicly revealed to be Superman. The Man of Steel turned the event into an opportunity, eventually announcing his own candidacy for office. Superman of course won, and naturally became the greatest president of all time.
Sigh. And so, it eventually came to pass that in the new Messianic age, the Superman would call upon his metahuman subjects to aid in the gradual disarmament of the world's militaries. This chafed Guy Gardner severely (played per usual as a one-note kneejerk,) who objected to Superman's plan to "emasculate the American fighting man!" Martian Manhunter was present among the assemblage of U.S. heroes, and repeatedly tried to restrain the Green Lantern verbally. Gardner eventually struck Superman with an energy blast, prompting Flash to seize Guy while stating, "Let me handle him, J'Onn! I've wanted to put [him] in his place for a lo-o-ong time!" Flash's attack failed, as did a few others, until Superman rose up to handle the matter himself. The Martian Manhunter warned, "You heard him...let The President handle this!" The matter was resolved when Superman proved his superior willpower by resisting, then claiming, Gardner's ring. Green Lanterns John Stewart and Hal Jordan arrived, one to cart Gardner to an Oan prison, while the other offered Superman a Corps membership. Superman refused, happy with just his benevolent sovereignty over the Earth.
During the Armageddon 2001 event that played out across DC's 1991 summer annuals, a character from the future, Waverider, paid individual visits to Earth's heroes. One of our champions was to become a tyrant in Waverider's time, killing all the other heroes. Through his powers, Waverider could look into a potential future for each hero, to see if one led to the coming of Monarch. Alternately, it offered writers a chance to really get tacky with the glorified fan fiction. I mean, what's stopping Superman from bringing about this Utopic existence right now? When you think about it, stories that make this all look so easy also make the in-continuity Superman look considerably less than ideal.
Anyhow, I wrote this book up years ago, during the hiatus between the old Rock of the JLA site and the Idol-Head blog. I also discarded the stupid book in the interim, and without interior scans to match the blog's usual format, left it by the wayside for even more years. I figure I might as well dust some of these off, even if it means looking at just a stinkin' Superman cover every now and then. The guts of this trifle were by Roger Stern, Tom Grummett, and a bunch of inkers.
7 comments:
"Superman of course won, and naturally became the greatest president of all time." Then, crushed by his failed attempts at politics, Pete Ross decided to fall back on his earlier dream to manage a baseball team, only to be disgraced once more in the public eye.
Oh, wait...you said ROSS. I make that mistake all the time....
If Hawaii (or a shadowy cave in Kenya, depending on what you believe) is too "foreign" for a President to be from, then NO WAY is American electing a guy from another planet.
I'm pretty sure a decade back half the Birthers were ready to amend the constitution to get Schwarzenegger in. Is Kent/Palin 2012 such a longshot? "Drill, baby, drill" was just encouragement for Superman to bust into Lex Luthor's underground base donchaknow?
Guy Gardner is the only one who has a problem with Superman becoming Earth's benevolent dictator. Good for you, Guy.
I think that Kal-El would mean well, but that he and other heroes limit their ability to change the world. Otherwise, human free will and human achievement may become less meaningful. See Dr. Manhattan for an example of this.
Also, comics try to mirror the real world. You might have a lot of fun with an ElseWorlds where Kryptonian/Martian/Thanagarian/New Genesis technology has helped make Earth better and lead humanity to the stars, but many readers might not identify too closely with such a setting.
Will, that's just it-- I want to read the story where Superman tries to become president, and follow up on the consequences. Here, everything is hunkydory, which makes for both a boring story and a moral quandary for the in-continuity Superman.
Even if Superman and his allies could bring peace and prosperity to the world while preserving democracy, there would still be challenges. Earth has many enemies, and perhaps one of them might decide that the best way to hurt the Man of Steel is to destroy what he loves. If any enemy, like Darkseid were to keep the heroes busy with a global crisis, there still might be time to deal some damage to Metropolis.
Also, if humanity reached the stars, there still would be problems. Even a united Solar System would have to face different threats. Perhaps Earth would just trade off one set of problems for another.
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