Anonymous Ringer: Difference between revisions

** Of course, back when Reagan was President, he appeared in the comics a lot. Both Batman and the Martian Manhunter impersonated him on separate occasions. The Phanton Stranger punched out Reagan's evil double. No, really.

** There was a [[Captain America (comics)]] comic where Reagan was [[Involuntary Transformation|transformed into a lizard-man]] that attacked Cap. He got changed back by [[You Fail Biology Forever|sweating out the poison]] during the fight. No...'''really.'''

** Marvel also had Gordon Brown appear as British Prime Minister in ''Excalibur'', save for the fact that he was blond rather than dark-haired. This was seized upon with much amusement by the British press, as their respectful treatment of him contrasted with how he was being universally lambasted at the time. Combine this with the [[Animation Age Ghetto|Comic Book Age Ghetto]] for a certain kind of person to find "SuperGordon" incredibly funny.

** This has been going on for a while. Then Canadian PM Trudeau appeared in Alpha Flight #1, for example.

*** Actually, most of these character's names are spoken at least a few times. "The Kaiser" is used in a ton of speeches, but when only one man on the planet has that particular title, it's just easier to refer to him in that way. US and CS leaders both have the title of President, so if you wanted to refer to Jake Featherston (Confederate Hitler) instead of Al Smith (US Neville Chamberlain) you had to use both name and title.

* Exception: [[Robert Ludlum]] used real life terrorist mastermind Ilyich Ramirez Sanchez, a.k.a. "Carlos the Jackal", as the [[Big Bad]] in his [[The Bourne Series (novel)|Jason Bourne novels]], and even killed him off at the end of ''The Bourne Ultimatum''. (In real life, Carlos faded into obscurity and was eventually captured in 1994.)

* ''The Prime Minister's Brain'' by Gillian Cross is one of many British stories from the 1980s that referred to "the Prime Minister" but [[Pronoun Trouble|notably avoided mentioning said character's sex.]]

* ''Mephisto'' by German author Klaus Mann did this to the extreme. The protagonist and theatre intendant Hendrik H?n is a copy of the real-world Gustav Gr?ens among others. Also the important figures of the Nazi regime are only referred to as "the dictator", "the pilot-general", the propaganda-minister" and so forth. This strategy however didn't stop West-German court from prohibiting publication of the book until much later.

* In the 1980s science-fiction novel ''Voyagers'', some real-life SETI astronomers are mentioned, but they never show up, even though they would have reason to appear, because the book is all about a signal from space.

* One of the vignettes in ''[[World War Z]]'' describes a group of celebrities holing up in a Long Island mansion to wait out the [[Zombie Apocalypse]]. The narrator declines to name names for fear of legal action from the survivors or their estates, but Paris Hilton, Bill Maher, Ann Coulter, Ruben Studdard, and Larry the Cable Guy are all identifiable from their descriptions. Several politicians get the treatment as well - the wartime president and veep are clearly Colin Powell and Howard Dean, the pre-war president's chief of staff is Karl Rove, and Vladimir Putin apparently declares himself Czar.

* Played straight in Frederick Forysth's 'The Devil's Alternative' where the female Prime Minister in power in 1979 is 'Joan Carpenter'. Averted in his next novel, The Fourth Protocol where Margaret Thatcher was referred to by name. The novel also used Ken Livingstone as a key player in a soviet plot.

* Used blatantly in ''[[Matthew Reilly|Area 7]]'': the President is a main character, but he's only addressed as "Mr. President" and referred to as "the President" during the narration.