Prez (DC Comics)

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Prez

Prez #3 cover art by Jerry Grandenetti.
Publication information
Publisher DC Comics
First appearance Prez: First Teen President #1 (1973)
Created by Joe Simon, Jerry Grandenetti
In story information
Alter ego Prez Rickard
Team affiliations U.S. Government
Notable aliases First Teen President
Abilities Executive authority, power of veto; superior unarmed hand-to-hand combatant

Prez: First Teen President was a four issue comic series by writer Joe Simon (the creator of Captain America) and artist Jerry Grandenetti, released by DC Comics in 1973 and 1974. It followed the adventures of Prez Rickard, the first teenage President of the United States of America, whose election had been made possible by a Constitutional amendment lowering the age of eligibility to accommodate the then-influential youth culture of the baby boom (a premise similar to that in the cult film Wild in the Streets).

[edit] Origin

Martha Rickard, of Steadfast, Middle America, named her son Prez because she thought he should someday be President. Having made the clocks of Steadfast, whose towers were so out of sync that the town heard a constant chiming, run on time, he was hired as a ringer for shady businessman Mr. Smiley to run for United States Senator after the eligibility age was lowered. An idealist, he rebelled against Mr. Smiley. With 45% of voters under 30, the youthful Congress passed an amendment lowering the eligibility age for the presidency and Senator Rickard was voted President of the United States. He appointed his mother Martha Vice President and made his sister his secretary.

The most significant supporting character, however, was Eagle Free, a young Native American who has a deep understanding of animals. He lives in a cave well-stocked with books about them, but knows most of what he knows first hand. Prez appoints him director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Eagle Free wears a headband with feather, braids, and no shirt, and is often accompanied by a menagerie of native and non-native animals. Eagle Free trains Prez in multiple fighting techniques. This is never shown, but it is referred to when he utilizes them.

[edit] Original series

Prez fought legless vampires, a right-wing militia led by the great-great-great-great-great-grand-nephew of George Washington, "Boss Smiley", a political boss with a smiley face, and evil chess players. He was attacked for his stance on gun control, and survived an assassination attempt during that controversy.

After four issues, the series was abruptly cancelled. Several years later, Issue #5 was included in Cancelled Comics Cavalcade #2, though Prez itself predated the DC Implosion.

Prez also appeared in issue #10 of the 1970s Supergirl series, cover dated October, 1974. Although the first issue Prez specified that the series was an imaginary (non-continuity) story, this story by Cary Bates implies that Prez Rickard is President of the United States on Earth-One of the DC Universe. In the story, Supergirl (Kara Zor-El), also known as Linda Lee Danvers, saves Prez from two hoaxed assassination attempts to be entrapped into a third by a politician working with a witch who is called Hepzibah, though she looks exactly like Eve, who stabs the head of a doll of Supergirl's likeness in attempt to make her drop him. Kara is able to resist and flies Prez to the Fortress of Solitude, then drops a plastic dummy dressed as Prez into the East River so that they will leave her alone. The story played up Prez's ability with clocks to the point that they seem a predominant interest in his life, and Kara believes he has the precision of a jeweler.

[edit] Later use

In this issue, Prez was consistent with his previous characterization of the ideal president; a young man who adored not simply his country but everything that it stood for. The story diverges when Sandman's protagonist, Dream, appears at the end of Prez's life and offers him a place in The Dreaming.