All Beth Ross wants to do is mourn her recently deceased father. But after a disastrous training video goes viral and, thanks to an unfortunate series of events, she finds herself elected President. She now faces a world run by the worst people imaginable. What else can she do other than take it upon herself to make things right? It’s a new political order in the first volume of Mark Russell and Ben Caldwell’s biting and excellent “Prez.”
Written by Mark Russell
Illustrated by Ben Caldwell and Mark MoralesMeet Beth Ross, the first teenaged President of the United States. In a nation where corporations can run for office, the poor are used as human billboards, and tacos are delivered by drone, our only hope is this nineteen-year-old Twitter sensation. But the real question isn’t whether she’s ready for politics-it’s whether politics is ready for her. Writer Mark Russell (God Is Disappointed in You) and artist Ben Caldwell (Star Wars: Clone Wars) take on a very unusual hero.
“Prez” is an angry comic, but it’s not like that anger’s unfounded. Writer Mark Russell and artist Ben Caldwell (with the assistance of inker Mark Morales and colorist Jeremy Lawson) take the extremities of the current political climate and turn them up to eleven. This is a world where our worst nightmares are realized. Right now, we have Donald Trump trolling the whole political system, we have Ted Cruz spewing archaic nonsense. We have Senators and representatives not even hiding the fact they’re making decisions for their own benefit, neglecting the people they were elected to serve in favor of selfish pursuits. Caldwell literally displays corporations as people — well, he has these hologram version of their logo projected on the heads of the CEOs. I think a reason we can laugh at it is because we recognize so much of it.
Because of this, Russell doesn’t need to spend a lot of time establishing the world, which leaves him a lot more room to focus on the characters. In a way, throwing in a couple panels about the social media wars that claimed over 100 million lives but never fully exploring it makes them feel more real and horrifying. (Think a lot of the stuff in “Chew” or the mention of The Clone Wars in Star Wars.) Beth Ross is an excellent gateway into this crazy world. This book covers Beth Ross’s swearing into the Presidency and the first actions she takes as Commander in Chief. The biggest threats aren’t insurgents, terrorists, or plagues, but these giant corporations who see their employees as commodities and who take actions that only result in them getting more money.
Ross is idealistic, sure, but sometimes idealism is a good place to start out. Not all of them work — the camps for cats to help detail the spread of the cat virus, for instance and who knows if her putting her trust in a dude who bought Delaware is going to play off well, but she wants to come up with solutions. Russell and Caldwell make sure to point out that even the smallest gestures can stretch for great lengths. At one point, she sets off on an international trip to apologize for America’s past infractions.
Russell’s tongue is sharp, but the book wouldn’t work without Caldwell’s cartooning work. He presents his information clearly, and has a strong instinct for when a character needs to be dominating the frame or the gag should be at the forefront. This is a world constantly surrounded by stuff, but he only lets it be overwhelming and unnerving when the story asks for it. He turns in some excellent work with Beth, especially, and her actions feel authentic because we’re reacting to the situations in almost the same way.
However, Russell and Caldwell introduce a lot of elements that don’t exactly come together. Maybe because this is the first volume of a series (it was part of that DC You launch, which promised at least 12 issues, but this is DC we’re talking about, so take that with a grain of salt). Apart from Beth’s ascension into power, we’re presented with Tina, the reformed killer robot; Manuel, the poor laborer, who’s essentially turned into a walking billboard by the fast food company he works for and has his BMs measured to make sure he’s not spending too much time in the bathroom; the group of Anonymous hackers, who intervene in the moments when something horrible is about to happen to President Ross; some frat boy dinguses who treat their jobs manning drones as a video game, going so far as to gun a kid down for chasing a soccer ball into the street; and a group of religious fundamentalists who believe that bacteria and viruses are the chosen organisms on earth and must all be protected. Nothing ever gets resolved, but that’s the nature of serialized storytelling I guess.
Continued belowOne of the things I most appreciated, though, is that Russell makes it a point to hold everyone responsible. Too often something like this will dovetail into an old dude saying kids just aren’t that great these days. Too often something like this will come from a creator who doesn’t quite understand that the world around them is changing, and they assume it’s immediately terrible. (See “Tokyo Ghost,” which I think wants to say something similar to this book.) Here, we have older generations desperately seeping out the last life blood of the planet, mixed in with the younger generations who allow themselves to be distracted (which has always been true, but now they have the means to distract themselves on a larger scale). Russell is not afraid and damning of technology, but more concerned with its application and use by evil corporate interests. It’s important that Ross is a teenage girl, not only for that idealism, but that inherent sense of rebellion, of being willing to see the world as a jacked up place.
It’s difficult not to get angry and frustrated by what’s going on in the world of this book, and maybe some people will be like, “Oh, I don’t want my entertainment to teach me anything or lecture me because I get that enough elsewhere, *ack*.” But the book wants to offer solutions, even if they seem small and insignificant. It wants the world to be better, and it approaches it by blasting a spotlight on the worst infractions of today. Russell and Caldwell make no effort to hide that this will be an uphill battle, but they believe that it also just might take someone special to inspire us to do great things. And isn’t that the purpose of a superhero?
Final Verdict: 8.9 – biting satire, strong characters, and a horrifying world that rings too close to home.
