BARACK-NID

Time for another edition of my infrequently recurring feature "Weird-Ass Old Comics." This time, we're looking at...

...The Amazing Spider-Man, issue #583, from March of 2009. This is a much more latter-day vintage of comic than I would normally collect; obviously it was the presence of President (then President-Elect) Barack Obama, sharing the cover with Spidey, that made me pick it up. But I had never gotten around to reading it.

Last week Obama was the guest of Stephen Colbert in a prerecorded interview from the Obama Presidential Center, slated to open on June 19th in Chicago. The comic was shown on display at the Center--Colbert teased Obama about having been featured on a Spider-Man cover before Obama was (issue #573, November of 2008)--so I dug out my copy and read it.

Obama doesn't appear in the comic's main story, a sweet feature about Peter Parker's long-suffering office pal Betty Brant. Betty is weary of Petey's tendency to stand her up or be late, little knowing that he's off battling villains while she's waiting.

According to an editorial note, the brief "Bonus Back-Up Feature" about Obama, scripted by Zach Wells and drawn by Todd Nauck, was a last-minute add after the Marvel folks learned from an interview in The Telegraph that Obama was a fan of the webslinger. In the Colbert interview, Obama mentioned his superheroes of choice as a kid were Spider-Man and Batman, which made me swell with pride; same two for me.

In the short saga "Spidey Meets the President!" Petey, in D.C. to photograph the inauguration, switches into Spider-Man to prevent The Chameleon from impersonating Obama and becoming President 44. When Obama realizes that, his Secret Service detail notwithstanding, Spidey is the right man for the job and gives him the green light to take action, Spidey delivers the tale's best line: "Ya hear that Chameleon? The President-Elect here just appointed me...SECRETARY OF SHUTTIN' YOU UP!"

It was poignant to see the Obama interview last week, even though I'm not a 44 fanboy. I've always liked him, but he was never anywhere near as boldly progressive as I wanted him to be, or as I think he could have been, especially if he had acted decisively early on. I'm not at all sure Biden, doddering but clear-eyed and out of  f*cks, wasn't more decisive. Even so I think that, graded on the curve of what he accomplished versus what he was up against, Obama was likely the best American President of my lifetime.

But when you see a man of Obama's poise and grace and reflective intelligence and plain decency in contrast to what we have now, it's both terrifying and mortifying. If The Chameleon had successfully impersonated Obama's successor, we might well be better off.

DAYS OF OUR WIVES

Phoenix-area folks looking for some counterprogramming to the Super Bowl and/or the Olympics might consider Southwest Shakespeare Company's The Merry Wives of Windsor...

...this afternoon at Mesa Arts Center; it plays there through February 22. Your Humble Narrator has the honor to share the stage, in the small role of Falstaff's drunken sidekick Bardolph, with a very talented cast. Directed by Keath Hall--of last year's Klingon Hamlet--the production places the farce in an Arizona trailer park in the 1990s, a setting to which it quite readily adapts.

Also on the subject of Shakespeare: In case you missed it, check out the great Ian McKellen on Stephen Colbert's show last week, performing a magnificent speech apparently by Shakespeare from the play Sir Thomas More, unproduced in Shakespeare's time and first performed by McKellen in the mid-1960s. It's More, then "shrieve" (sheriff), shaming an anti-immigrant mob in London, and it's as witheringly appropriate to our time as it ever was.

Back in 1995, I got to interview a pre-Gandalf McKellen (by phone) for Phoenix New Times in connection with Richard Loncraine's pre-WWII-era Richard III movie, in which he played the title role. I asked him about Sir Thomas More and his status as the only living actor to create a new Shakespearean lead. There was a long pause on the line, and then he said, "Can you have seen it?"

No, Sir Ian, I'm just a nerd.

But to hear this beautiful piece of writing blisteringly performed by this absolute freaking master, on national television no less, is a privilege.