MarvelCaptain America is ready to face his toughest foe yet: beltway politics!
In what amounts to a mega job boost, the shield-sporting super soldier goes from First Avenger to U.S. president in a new comic-book series, which finds our beloved Cap fighting baddies that range from antigovernment insurgents to mutant-obliterating robots.
And here you thought Republicans and Democrats were pretty formidable adversaries in themselves!
It all unfolds starting with issue No. 15 of Marvel Comics' The Ultimates series, which hits stores on Wednesday.
In it, Captain America is elected president by a landslide through a write-in vote, and he finds himself in the midst of a country in chaos and a citizenry in the throes of a civil war.
As if that weren't enough, Silicon Valley is trying to secede as its own nation, and mutant-hunting robots known as Sentinels—which figure prominently in the X-Men comic books—are out to wreak havoc. Time to assemble Cap and his fellow Avengers!
"We wanted to dramatize an extreme version of what we see in America today," series writer Sam Humphries tells The Washington Post. "In the face of all [this] divisiveness, what do we have in common? What does it mean to be an American? What can we agree on? And what makes America the place that it is?"
Lofty thinking or savvy timing? Whatever the answer, Marvel is certainly poised to coast on the surging wave of election fever as we gear up for the Nov. 6 polls.
Hail to the chief—and his snazzy shield!