We should've seen this coming, of course; both Clinton and Palin have their own comic books now, not to mention action figures... so why shouldn't these two already sci-fi political figures become superheroes, too?
Well, for one thing, there's the laziness of the how-to:

Their superhero capes were intended for a dracula costume, but we tucked the high collars in to make them look more superhero-ish.

But for another, there's the fact that, well, we like our superheroes to be better than politicians. There's a reason that you don't see attack ads against the Joker or the Penguin every two seconds on television, and it's not because Bruce Wayne can't afford them. No, to us, superheroes have a deep-seated morality - a belief that with great power comes great responsibility, if you will - that makes them people we can look up to, not people who'll happily pander to win our support every four years. The idea that the person saving you from some wife-beater-wearing mugger in a grimy back alley somewhere in Gotham City will then hand you a button and ask for your vote seems beneath them - and we've got no interest in finding out that Wonder Woman spends $11,000 a week on her hair, either.

No, we'd prefer to keep our superheroes free of party politics, thanks very much - unless it's done tastefully... or in a comic that no-one actually reads.

Halloween costumes: Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin [Metromix Des Moines]

Hillary is technobabble, Sarah is The Force.

Ask Hillary how she plans to reform the Alternative Minimum Tax, and she'll give you a twenty-page explanation, involving cross-connecting the warp core to the deflector dish and generating a phased polaron burst on a wavelength of .003 gigaflops. If you ask Sarah how she'll fix the financial problems in the U.S., she'll say "trust your feelings," and tell you to put on a blindfold so you can see the problem more clearly.

Hillary is the Prime Directive, Sarah is the Rebellion.

Hillary believes in working with the United Nations to keep everyone out of the Neutral Zone, and create treaties to keep our precious replicator technology from falling into the hands of civilizations that aren't advanced enough to cope with it. Meanwhile, Sarah Palin is part of a "team of mavericks," who have broken away from the Empire and are willing to do whatever it is that a maverick does, to get things done, even if it means hiding out on an ice planet somewhere. (Luckily, Sarah Palin's right at home on an ice planet. And you can totally see Coruscant from Hoth. If you squint.)

Sarah Palin uses Jedi mind tricks, Hillary Clinton makes a deal with the Borg.

If you ask Sarah Palin a question she doesn't like, she'll wave her hand and say, "Those aren't the answers you're looking for." Meanwhile, when Hillary gets in a tight spot, she's not above calling up the Borg and trying to work out a little arrangement. She's been on the Borg, I mean board, of a bunch of big companies, so she knows how to work with anyone.

Sarah Palin is Yoda, Hillary Clinton is Deanna Troi

Sarah is full of wise sayings, even if they often don't make sense and lack a certain amount of grammar. She seems like harmless and a bit goofy, until she's under attack — and then she'll start hopping around like a maniac. Hillary, meanwhile, acts kind of cold and uptight — but she really, really, no really feels your pain. And Hillary stands by her guy, even though he's overweight and always running off to Risa to hook up with some Trill skank.

Sarah Palin hangs out with Jar-Jar, Hillary Clinton knows Wesley Crusher

If Sarah Palin ever gets to be president, you just know that Jar Jar Binks would be in charge of FEMA, or maybe become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. "Meesa ate habeas corpus — meesa so sorry!" Sadly, we already got to see what a great job Jar Jar did when he got "promoted" to the Senate in Attack Of The Clones thanks to knowing the right people. Meanwhile, the Bill Clinton administration (why do I keep almost typing "Klingon administration"?) gave us George Stephanopoulos, who actually WAS Wesley Crusher back then.

Hillary has the Holodeck, Sarah has the Cantina.

Hillary belongs to that sophisticated, big-city, elite world where you can go off to cocktail parties in the 17th century just by clicking open a big door, and anything goes in your happy fantasy world. You can even act out scenes from literature! La di da! Meanwhile, Sarah Palin belongs in the small towns, where the real people are. Where you can go and have a drink, goshdarnit, with honest bounty hunters and the drinks come in two flavors: green and purple. Sure, it's a wretched hive of scum and villainy, but it's not fancy or anything.

Sarah Palin is bacta, Hillary Clinton is the magic salt shaker

Sarah Palin's health care plan involves losing your shirt and taking a bath. Hillary's health care plan involves a certain amount of waving a salt shaker around and hoping for the best.

Sarah Palin has Jawas, Hillary Clinton has Ferengi

In Sarah Palin's world, the biggest threat is guys who come along and try to steal your land-speeder or jack your robots when you're not looking. You need to keep your blaster ready and one eye on your binoculars in case they show up. In Hillary's world, the biggest danger is a bunch of crooked businessmen with funny ears who will pull any hustle to score some gold-pressed latinum.

Illustration by Stephanie Fox.

Pick any candidate you want, even their spouses are available. I gotta admit, though — tiny Cindy McCain looks hilarious and Michelle Obama is vicious with her big hammer/pick axe.

I actually assume that this is how Biden is preparing for tonight at this very moment.

Palin's secret weapon is a big fat gun, which she uses an unfair amount of times. Go play now at Kung Fu Election.
[Atom]

Palin is being shown as a Hockey Mom out to return to the infamous McCarthyist censorship of the 1950s (The cover refers to an editorial by the daughter of Crypt creator, William Gaines, where she refers to the rumors of Palin's interest in book-banning; well, it is Banned Books Week, after all).

Meanwhile, fan-favorite artist Alex Ross has already portrayed Barack Obama as Superman in a painting that premiered at this summer's San Diego Comic-Con, and Image Comics' superhero The Savage Dragon spent his most recent cover endorsing Obama as well (A move that has led to the series' most successful issue in years, saleswise). Some feel that such bias isn't contained to op-ed pieces like those, however; Conservative comic critic Augie DeBlieck Jr. was unimpressed with IDW's two presidential biographies in their Presidential Materials series:

In the end, the "Obama" comic is a nice piece of campaign literature for the Democrat candidate. The "McCain" comic is an indictment, something to be cherished by the Obama fans... I'm not screaming media bias here, by any means. I just think they had two different writers create two different comics. They didn't attempt to make sure the stories were "fair and balanced." They just wanted general biographies that could be fact-checked appropriately. McCain's is so much longer and so much more storied (both good and bad) that his biographer had more to pick and choose from. Obama's biographer could just follow the same short and sweet message that we've been hearing about through the candidate's two books. It makes for a simpler message to convey. None of it is factually inaccurate. It's all in the presentation of those facts, and which ones are used and which ones are omitted. Emphasis is everything.

So, is it just that the comic industry - like, if certain political figures are to be believed every other facet of the media - is just naturally biased towards Obama? We asked DeBlieck whether he thought that this was a case of genuine passion, or a cynical attempt to ride the political zeitgeist and seem relevant:

It's a bit of both. The comics industry can't help itself. It is, from a creator and publisher level, predominately liberal. That's well established. The fact that they have a Democratic candidate as media friendly as Senator Obama just means they can try to leverage it. It's a bandwagon they're all too happy to jump on. (See, for another example, presidential candidate Bill Clinton showing up at Superman's funeral in 1992.) Let's put it this way: If Ronald Reagan came back from the dead tomorrow and cured cancer, you wouldn't see him glorified on a "Tales from the Crypt" comic cover.

Writer Sarah Grace McCandless disagrees. She's one of the people behind the creation of Comics Industry for Obama. The organization - which aims to raise funds for Barack Obama's campaign as well as becoming a network of comic creators supporting the Democratic Party's candidate - is by far the highest profile example so far of the industry not only politicizing itself but also trying to mobilize its audience into doing the same thing, but that has more to do with personal beliefs than any attempt to be cool, she says:

I can tell you off the bat that my personal support for Obama has zero to do with bandwagon motivations, nor does it have anything to with whether or not the comics industry as a whole is predominately liberal. I'm not aware of any research or polls that have been conducted to measure the political preferences of the comics industry, but I would guess that there are artists, writers, editors, publishers, retailers, fans and the like on both ends of the spectrum.

(In an interview with Newsarama, McCandless explained that the organization was inspired by similar efforts like Artists for Hope and the Manifest Hope auctions.)

One attempt to include voices from both sides of that spectrum has been DC Comics' topical series DC Universe: Decisions, which attempts to be fair and balanced by putting together the liberal Judd Winick and the conservative Bill Willingham to co-write a story in which your favorite superheroes start endorsing (fictional) politicians in order to save the world, or something. The resulting comic is fun enough, but ultimately too bland to entertain enough that it wipes away the feeling of pandering to a (possibly fictional) new political potential audience.

Of course, Decisions is just following in the footsteps of the highly successful but equally-politically-confused Civil War from Marvel, keeping alive a grand tradition of naive political lip-service from four-color funnies that's seen Superman help JFK make America a fitter place and Captain America socking Hitler on the jaw. Perhaps this latest burst of political activism from the comic industry is simply taking that proud history one step further — going from subtext to text, commentary to endorsement — due less to a desire to sell out to an increasingly dynamic political landscape filled with characters who have captured the public's attention than the simple, laudable desire to engage with it.

Or perhaps someone's just trying to tell you that Sarah Palin really does just like to hunt witches from the 1950s.

Tales From The Crypt Vs. Sarah Palin [Blog@Newsarama], Comics Industry for Obama [MySpace]

Say what you like about The Stepford Wives, but it's definitely an American dream. A wife that, as countless fictional mothers across the world will tell you. fulfills the male fantasy of being a whore in the bedroom, a world-class chef in the kitchen and a Madonna to raise children... Which red-blooded American male wouldn't want that? But with the entrance into the national political arena of Sarah Palin - a woman who is all about family values but doesn't mind dressing in a patriotic bikini clutching in a rifle for the NRA fetishists amongst her constituents - we may now have reached the point where subservient fembots have left their Connecticut home and reached Washington, DC - Via Wasilla, Alaska, of course.

There have been some signs that Palin may, in fact, be more programmable politibot than human; look at the way that she has disregarded her past decisions for the good of her new political husband, for example, or the fact that she's distracting potential voters from the issues with her feminine wiles (Four times more popular than Obama, which is just a shame. I mean, he's a fine looking man, people). And what about her strange permanently excited monotone used in public speaking, that places the same emphasis on being proud to be an American and disliking Barack Obama's stance on taxes?

But how will we ever know for sure whether our possible next VP is, in fact, a cybernetic dupe? Here are some warning signs:

No-One Ever Sees Palin Go Through A Metal Detector At Airport Security. Sure, you can get away with that in Alaska - It's a different world up there, after all, and the only security they need there are polar bears guarding the check-in desks. But on a whistle-stop tour of the other States, she's got to be seen going through security at least once, right...? Unless... there are reasons otherwise.

John McCain's Speeches Start Including Phrases Like "We Need To Invest More Into Medical Technology, Such As Synthetic Skin" Sure, Palin may look good on camera - But how many people have seen her up close and personal? Being on the stump is going to wear out even the best fake skin substitute we have, considering all the handshakes and baby-kissin' there is to do, after all.

Every Woman In The Republican Party Starts To Look Like Nannette Newman. Or, in the case of Palin herself, the former spokesperson for Overstock.com. But if all female members of the Republican party suddenly start indulging in librarian chic, then it may be time really start to worry. And if they all appear on news reports saying that nothing's wrong, but if all the women in the audience could come into the kitchen because they have something interesting to show them? Run away.

The VP Debate Ends When Palin's Head Explodes In A Shower Of Sparks. Look, I'm not saying that Joe Biden can't talk up a storm or anything, but he's never made anyone's head explode in the past. If it happens whenever he and Palin go up against each other, I think it's more of a sign that something is up with her than a victory for him.

So there it is. The Republicans' plan to get re-elected will have less to do with issues and more to do with what voters take from candidates, as McCain's campaign manager has said, but what they take away from the candidates may end up being more along the lines of a robotic replacement wife than previously suspected. It's a devious plan, but it might just work.