This weekend’s light-hearted and escapist superhero story will deal with DC’s political comedy character Prez, given how this is Presidents Day weekend.
PREZ Vol 1 #1 (September 1973)
Title: The Making of the Prez
NOTE: Decades ago, Theodore White was known for his series of books titled The Making of the President, with the year of the election after each new volume. (1960, 1964, 1968, etc) In 1973, many readers would have gotten the implied joke of “The Making of the Prez.”
Villains: Boss Smiley and Misery Marko
Synopsis: On the alternate Earth known in the DC Universe as Earth 72, America not only lowered the voting age to 18 but also made 18-year-olds eligible for holding any elected positions in the U.S. – even president.
Enter stock-car racer Prez Rickard (a riff on the famous Tex Rickard), whose mother named him Prez because she was convinced her son would go on to be president some day. Prez’s political career took off when he synchronized all the clocks in his hometown of Steadfast. (Remember, this is political satire like Al Capp’s Li’l Abner on some levels.)
This caught the attention of corrupt political handler Boss Smiley, whose head was one of those syrupy and kitschy smiley faces that had become widespread by 1973. Boss Smiley and slimy advertising mogul Misery Marko recruited Prez to run for the Senate as their pawn, using the slogan “He made the clocks run on time.” (a Mussolini joke, of course)
Prez ultimately rebelled against Boss Smiley and Misery Marko and, with fellow 18-year-olds, ran his campaign honestly and won. In 1976, Rickard ran for president and won again, filling his administration with colorful youngsters like himself, thus kicking off even more satirical adventures in which Prez and company thwarted political villains. Continue reading
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