Presidential Material: Barack Obama #1 – Review

By Jeff Mariotte (story), Tom Morgan (art), and Len O’Grady (colors)

The Story: Living the true American Dream, this book follows Barack Obama through his tumultuous years as an adolescent to his latest steps in the political arena as he tries to become the first African American President of the United States.

What’s Good: The book works hard to make Barack Obama’s life interesting. Because his political life has been short (thus far), Jeff Mariotte is able to give more on Obama’s personal life and how he was raised. There’s no fan fare or intense drama, but we do get to witness key points (and personal tragedies) in Obama’s life that shaped his future and made him the person he is today. I enjoyed learning that the road was never easy, nor a straight one for Obama. He took many detours before reaching his final destination. There’s a lot of inspiration here.

What’s Not So Good: This book is incredibly dense with factoids that can become borderline boring. I’m not knocking Obama’s achievements, but Jeff Mariotte, at times, comes across as copying and pasting headlines without providing any kind of entertaining narrative structure. It’s like I’m reading the man’s resume and a boring resume at that. Also, the first couple of pages are so sloppy in narrative (not the art) that I was completely lost as to who was who’s father or mother and what was going on. I had to re-read them three to four times just to put the puzzle together.

The art is serviceable, but nothing really jumps out at the reader. Also, seeing Obama portrayed as a child with his face at his current age of 47 plastered on is also a bit silly. There’s a bit too much photo referencing was going on here, but I can hardly fault Tom Morgan for trying to keep the likeness consistent.

Conclusion: This is a good book for those wanting to know more about Barack Obama’s earlier years. However, it lacks the drama and wild scandals that pellet John McCain’s book. This book shoots from the hip and brings out a lot of Obama’s triumphs as a politician. Here’s the unfortunate thing: Because Obama is a man without many flaws to point at, this book is less compelling of a read.

Grade: B-

– J. Montes

A Second Opinion

I really enjoyed that there were negative things about Obama (like the cocaine use). It also made me interested enough to look at the bibliography that it’s based on (the bibliography is supplied at the end of the book).That said, as a comic book, the story doesn’t work very well – there just isn’t enough drama in the story. I would’ve liked to see more of Obama’s own points of on issues. We get his opinion on war issues, and that’s about it.

This is not a comic book for younger kids due to it dense use of politics, but teenagers should be able to read it without too many complications. This is history. People who never set foot on a comic store will buy this just for the historic value. I applaud IDW for taking the risk of publishing these books. If it’ll get people to vote, more power to them.

Grade: B-

– Daniel Yanez