History
Family Life
Barack Hussein Obama II was born in Honolulu, Hawaii on 04 August 1961. His parents divorced when he was two and his mother remarried an Indonesian college student. When all Indonesian’s were recalled to their home nation in 1967, Obama moved with his mother and step-father. He returned to Hawaii in 1971 and lived with his maternal grandparents until he graduated from high school in 1979.
Obama grew up in a mixed race family. His father, Barack Obama Senior, had immigrated from Kenya and was described by his son as “black as pitch”. Whereas his mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, was of British descent who hailed from Kansas and was described by her son as “white as milk”. Despite the fact that neither of his parents had the same physical features of their Hawaiian neighbours, Obama recalled that as a child the racial differences “barely registered in my mind”. Likewise, his step-father Lolo Soetoro was from Indonesia, and Obama has a maternal half-sister Maya Soetoro.
It was in June 1989 that he met Michelle Robinson. He was a summer associate for a Chicago law firm, and she had been assigned as his advisor. Although reticent to go out with him, they soon began dating and announced their engagement in 1991. They were married on 03 October 1992, and went on to have two daughters; Malia Ann and Natasha (also known as Sasha). Their family later extended after Obama became President, as he had famously promised his daughters to buy them a dog if he won the election. Bo Obama, a Portugese Water Dog (or Portie for short), was introduced to the White House on 14 April 2009.
Early Career
In 1988, Obama entered Harvard Law School and during his second year there he was elected as President of the Harvard Law Review. The appointment gained national media attention, as he was the first black President of the Harvard Law Review. This led to him writing ‘Dreams From My Father’ which was published in 1995. For six months in 1992, he directed Project Vote in Illinois. With only 10 members of staff, and 700 volunteers, he successfully oversaw the registration of 150,000 previously unregistered African-American voters in the state. This led to him being included in 1993’s list of “40 Under Forty” up-coming powers. Before beginning his political career, Barack Obama spent four years as a professor of constituional law at the University of Chicago Law School.
Political Career In Brief
Obama was successfully elected to the Illinois Senate on three successive occasions, in 1996, 1998 and 2002. In 2004, he resigned from the Illinois Senate after a successful campaign elected him into the US Senate. On 04 January 2005, Barack Obama was sworn in to the US Senate, becoming only the fifth African American to do so and the only Senate member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
His candidacy for President of the United States was announced on 10 February 2007. The announcement was made on the symbolic site of the Old State Capital building in Springfield, Illinois, which was where President Abraham Lincoln made his 1858 speech of the ‘House Divided’. Despite a large amount of Democratic Party candidates who had entered the presidential preliminaries, the race for leader of the party came down to Hillary Roham Clinton and Obama. The battle between the two candidates divided the party. For an extraordinary long time the Democratic Party didn’t have a clear candidate for the Presidential Election. Finally, Barack Obama was named the presumptive nominee on 03 June 2008, and Hillary Clinton withdrew her candidacy on 07 June. On August 23 2008, Obama announced that his Vice Presidential running mate would be Joe Biden, the Delaware Sentor. At that time, Hillary Clinton made a speech that gave her full backing to Barack Obama. This move unified the previously divided Democratic Party, as she urged her supporters to vote for her former rival.
On Tuesday, 04 November 2008, Barack Obama won the US Presidential elections. He had 52.9% of the vote, compared to John McCain’s 45.7%. He had received 365 electoral votes to 173. On 13 November, Obama announced that he was to resign his Senate set on 16 November, thus avoiding any conflict in duties with his new role of President-Elect.
Barack Obama was inaugurated on 20 January 2009. Thus he became the 44th President of the United States, and made history as the first Biracial President.
Barack Obama, The Comic Book Character
Even before he won the vote in November 2008, Barack Obama had already made his first appearance of a comic book character. Ever since his inauguration, many mainstream comic book publishers have featured the first African American President in some of their more popular titles.
First Appearance
Barack Obama’s first comic book appearances was in MAD #476 (April 2007) and 479 (July 2007)
He then appears as a US Senator in Licensable BearTM #4. Only 1,050 copies of the issue were printed. It was published in July 2007, after he had made his announcement to run for President, but before he had been singled out as the Democratic Party’s candidate. He did not appear as a Presidential candidate.
Savage Dragon
Obama first appeared in Savage Dragon #137, published in September 2008. There was a 1-in-5 variant cover of the issue, with the character of Savage Dragon appearing alongside Obama with a large speech bubble saying how the eponymous hero endorced Obama for President of the United States.
Savage Dragon featured another appeance after Obama had been inaugurated as President. Issue #145 also had variant covers featuring the newly inaugurated President, with one where he was holding the American flag in one-hand, and punching Osama Bin Laden with the other.
Marvel
The Marvel Publishing debut of President Obama was alongside their flagship character, Spider-Man. Amazing Spider-Man #583 featured two stories; one a regular Spider-Man adventure, and the other entitled “Spidey Meets The President” where Spider-Man had to solve the mystery of two Barack Obamas.
Although the Obama story was only a back-up to the main story, the issue sold out. It was quickly reprinted due to popular demand. The sales of this issue continued to soar, and therefore it was reprinted three more times. Each of the four reprints had a new cover, becoming variants of the previous one. CGC graded comics of this issue, signed by Todd Nauck & Zeb Wells have been known to sell on eBay for $1,000,000.
President Obama has also appeared in Thunderbolts #128, at the start of the Dark Reign storyline.
DC Comics
Prior to 2012, Obama had few appearances in the DC line, but after The New 52 was launched, he began to be referenced more often through out the new wave of books. Most notably, he was shown to work closely with Amanda Waller, leader of the Suicide Squad in matters dealing with national security. He put Waller in charge of dealing with the new Green Lantern Simon Baz, who was framed in a terrorist plot, as well as making her the new government liaison to the Justice League, after the require a new one to replace Steve Trevor, by request of Wonder Woman.
Other Appearances
Other notable appearances in print are Presidential Material: Barack Obama by IDW Publishing, Obama: The Comic Book by Antarctic Press, Youngblood issues 8 & 9.
President Barack Obama also appears in both of the first issues of Grisly Unit and Grisly Unit: Executive Order by Blue Shirts Brown Productions (digital comic). In these two connected crossover issues, President Obama’s executive order officially activates the CIA paranormal investigative team, Grisly Unit, who is tasked to research paranormal events as well as defend the Earth from invading Nephilim monsters from the Old Testament Bible.
In 2008, Wildstorm released a 6 issue mini series based on the television show “Chuck”. In this mini series there was an African American Senator named Obanion who bared a great resemblance to Barack Obama. The Senator Obanion, who was also running for president, had a campaign logo that was also reminiscent of Barack Obama’s campaign logo.
A character named John Omaha who greatly resembled Barack Obama appeared in the Japanese manga, Air Gear. In Trick (Chapter) 206, the character appeared as Presidential Candidate for the United States of America. This was published before the elections of November 2008, when Obama was still a candidate.
Other politicians have also appeared in comics books, especially those surrounding President Obama’s political & private life. More recently there have also been appearances of Michelle Obama, and Bo Obama in print.