So what’s going on here? Our guess is the insistence of the above-mentioned cynical point is ruining this trope. The fact is that putting symbols of idealized good like superheroes in the same stories as presidents is indeed setting up a conflict that cannot possibly age well unless you truly accept the cost and go with it — like Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns having Reagan treat Superman like a just-following-orders goon, or Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Graphic Novel With No Zack Snyder Movie being set in a proto-corporate dystopia with Nixon as a perpetual US president. Those works get it, man. But standard superhero fare cannot help falling into the trap of treating presidents like either pure, honest public servants or narcissistic plutocrats who are necessarily put in the position of subordinating the hope for change to the whims of the rich.
In this regard, there is one comic that brings us full circle; insofar it is the most perfectly paradigmatic example of this entire problem, without even realizing it. Back in 2009, a week before Obama’s real-life inauguration, Marvel published a short backup feature in which Spidey saves the day during a fictional version of said event Before that, Biden had helped a kidnapped Obama, McCain had helped Peter Parker, all moments within the story promoting healthy, politically-mature bipartisanship, which is as realistic as radioactive spider powers. Yet the key point in all of this is the villain of the feature: the Chameleon. A shapeshifter. Yeah, we know you know where we’re going: it’s structural analysis time, baby!
Marvel Comics