Prez: Setting a Dangerous President by Mark Russell (text) and Ben Caldwell (art)

Published by DC Comics on June 4, 2024

The Prez I remember from my teenage years was published from 1973 to 1974. The premise was that a constitutional amendment eliminated the age requirement for service as the United States president and lowered the voting age to 18. A teenager named Preston Rickard ran as a third-party candidate and prevailed. I don’t remember much about the series apart from my belief that it died a fitting death after a four-issue run.

DC’s Mark Russell gave Prez a reboot in a 6-issue series that was published in 2015 and 2016. In this version, the teen president is Beth Ross, a 19-year-old who works at Lil’ Doggies House of Corndogs in Eugene, Oregon. She gets enough votes from other young people to deprive the major party candidates of an electoral vote majority. That throws the election into the House of Representatives, where a tie vote encourages Congressmen to vote for Beth, never expecting her to get a majority but with the expectation that they would change their vote to whichever mainstream candidate promised them more political pork. Their shenanigans result in Beth’s inadvertent election to the presidency.

Betsy doesn’t owe anyone a favor and doesn’t care if she’s humiliated. That makes her an ideal president, apart from her ignorance of anything unrelated to corndogs. Fortunately, she’s a quick learner who isn’t afraid to ask for help. In this version, Preston Rickard was never elected, but he once ran for president and is now Beth’s vice president. She fills her cabinet with reality-based people who aren’t science-deniers. Her old boss at the corn dog restaurant was good with details, so she becomes Beth’s chief of staff.

Beth has some great ideas. Once of my favorites is an international apology tour. She personally apologizes to other nations for America’s history of unfortunate behavior (“sorry Vietnam; our bad, Nicaragua”).

At the time of its publication, Russell’s story earned recognition for its political satire. The story skewers America’s refusal to assure decent healthcare to everyone, price gouging by pharmaceutical companies, the dominant role played by social media (rather than debating, the candidates appear on Puppy Slap’s podcast), religious beliefs in God’s preference for bigotry and extremism, America’s hypocritical definition of terrorism (“it’s not terrorism if you can afford a stealth bomber”), border security, useless technology, government surveillance, the stock market, consumerism, self-driving cars, war, artificial intelligence, gun nuts, the Supreme Court, and cats.  The story even envisioned a pandemic and the search for a vaccine, although Russell didn’t anticipate the rise of vaccine-deniers as a political force.

Prez is pretty funny. DC is presumably reissuing Prez because this is an election year. This edition collects the 6 issues of the rebooted Prez, as well as a story from Catwoman: Election Night that was published in November 2016. It also includes a new story and “bonus material” (the usual collection of preliminary sketches). The reissue is a timely reminder that politics always provides fodder for mockery and satire (just ask Mark Twain).

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