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President Evil: Difference between revisions
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== Anime and Manga ==
* In the ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist]]'' anime and manga, {{spoiler|Fuhrer King Bradley is a homunculus.}} When Colonel Roy Mustang tries to expose him to top military brass, he gets a shocker: {{spoiler|most of them were already in on it.}} In the manga, {{spoiler|the entire country of Amestris was founded by Father and the homunculi. Bradley was a human chosen to be the country's ruler and injected with the Philosopher's Stone to make him a homunculus.}}
* In ''Steel Ball Run'' (Part 7 of ''[[JoJo's Bizarre Adventure]]'') the president, Funny Valentine (yes, that is his name), is a corrupt, morally devoid lunatic who somehow still manages to be a [[Villain with Good Publicity]] (probably the American flag scar). Among other things, he uses government funds to secretly hire criminals and lackeys for his dirty work and he obviously has some sort of plan for ultimate power that involves using said lackeys to get [[Upgrade Artifact|"Saint Parts"]] for him. Oh, and he tried to rape a 14 year-old girl in one scene. He wasn't sure she was 14 years-old, but attempted none the less.
* [[Mai-chan's Daily Life]]- [[Complete Monster|president]] of [[Eagle Land|"A Country"]]
* In [[Bloody Monday]] (Season Two) President Adams seems to do this, only he's just more of a [[Jerkass]] than someone that's genuinely evil.
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* Dr. Doom, archenemy of the ''[[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Fantastic Four]]'', is probably the best-known, ruling Latveria, an archetypical [[Ruritania]]. He's been deposed a couple times, but always manages to get back in.
** And, of course, in the 2099 series of comics, Doctor Doom literally became President Evil when he managed to become President of the United States. Though in that series, he was basically the HERO compared to the soulless evil corporations he was fighting.
*** And he was succeeded by a President who was ''worse'' than the corporations. For added irony, this drug-addicted psychopath claimed to be [[Captain America (comics)|Steve Rogers]].
** It should be noted that he's generally a very good ruler, bringing his country peace and technological advancements. It's only his hatred towards Reed Richards that pushes him towards the [[Mad Scientist]] side.
*** Except for the part where Latveria (and when he conquers it, the world) is a hyperefficient [[Police State]]. Which, granted, is still a step up from the corrupt, brutal, crapsack [[Police State]] it was ''before'' Doom cleaned it up.
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** And then they did it again in the early 2000s, as part of a plot to nuke New York City.
* ''[[Transmetropolitan]]'': Spider's problems get a whole lot worse once The Smiler becomes president. The Secret Service stalks his filthy assistants, assassins start crawling up his butt, and his stories get killed for reasons of "national security." Mind you, he's able to give as good as he gets...
** The Beast, his predecessor, isn't much better. He is, by all accounts, a venal, selfish bastard, and the main reason he's called "the Beast" is because Spider nicknamed him that and it stuck (to the point that even the guy's ''kids'' call him that). But Spider insists that, for all his corruption, the Beast is something America's handled before -- the Smiler is just someone who wants to be President for no reason other than he thinks he should, and he'll do anything to get in there.
* Around the time of the Watergate scandal, [[Captain America (comics)]] discovered that the head of the terrorist organization known as the Secret Empire was in fact "a high-ranking government official" (i.e. President Nixon). He was sufficiently horrified by this that he temporarily abandoned the Captain America identity, calling himself "Nomad". [[Mabus|This troper]] has no idea what Nixon was supposed to have meant to accomplish by running a conspiracy to take over the U.S.A.
** [[Zero Punctuation|Crown himself king?]]
** During an arc on Geoff Johns' Avengers run, America got a Secretary of Defense called [[Meaningful Name|Dell]] [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Rusk]] {{spoiler|The Red Skull, yes that's an anagram}}. Who gassed large parts of the country with the Crimson Mist virus.
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* President Leland McCauley in ''[[The Legion of Super Heroes]]'' (postboot version) turned out to be immortal supervillain Ra's Al Ghul in disguise.
* The atomic war that originated the ''[[Judge Dredd]]'' mythos came around because President "Bad" Bob Booth stole an election, went around seizing the resources of foreign countries, and then ''openly'' announced he was going to start nuclear war with ''everyone'' if they didn't shut up. And then started it. (In "fairness", he thought America's nuclear screens would keep it safe from retaliation. ''They didn't.'')
** The Judges took over America and have since had one active supervillain for a Chief Judge (Cal), one who gained dementia and began some horrific policies (McGruder), and currently one who is a puppet for Shady Interests (Francisco); every other Chief Judge has carried out some morally questionable acts in the name of protecting Mega-City One, from foreign regime changes (Hershey) to ''deliberately starting a riot'' so they could have an excuse to beat up on a pro-democracy march (Silver).
** The office of Mayor of Mega-City One isn't exempt from evil either, with examples including a [[Greed|greedy]], [[Villainous Glutton|gluttonous]] wannabe-king (Amalfi), and an unrepentant serial killer (PJ Maybe).
* The leader(s) of Bialya, a fictional country in the DC Universe. Always some kind of homicidal whackjob who got the position by offing the previous leader. Oddly, this doesn't seem to have stopped even after Black Adam kills most Bialyans.
** The [[Arch Enemy]] of the [[Justice League]] Europe, and really of the whole [[Justice League]] International, the Queen Bee, was the ruler of Bialya.
* ''[[The Authority]]''. The President of the U.S. even ''confesses'' to being a shill for big business. The Authority, who has had a long history of taking down dictators, depose ''him.'' Things go okay for a while, until The Midnighter figures out it's all heading south and fast. Unfortunately, the only way to stop it is to {{spoiler|let D.C. explode. Boom.}}
* Mark Waid's ''[[Empire]]'' details what happens when a Doctor Doom-esque villain actually succeeds in taking over the planet.
* Though not exactly a President, [[Spider-Man|Norman Osborn]] was like this from the [[Secret Invasion]] to the [[Siege]] storylines.
** Norman Osborn managed to become (de facto) President of the U.S. in the ''[[Earth X]]'' series, after the Absorbing Man destroyed Washington, D.C. Although strictly speaking, his title was illegal--he simply assumed power without an election--most people were willing to go along with it rather than starve. Curiously, he does relatively little harm before the mind-controlling Skull usurps power and kills him.
** Now Osborn is considered a criminal by the general public once again following the Siege.
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** There were several attempts at justification in-story, mostly of the "Direct Parallels To Nazi Germany" variety. Voldemort and his most infamous Death Eaters {{spoiler|stayed in the shadows, so mostly semi-legit followers/not-necessarily-enemies like Umbridge were the public face of the DE government; the general wizarding public were lied to as to what was really being done to half-bloods and muggle-borns, and those that did suspect the truth were either too scared to act (remembering Voldemort at his height, 20 years earlier) or were otherwise neutralized (like they attempted to do with the Weasleys).}}
* In the ''[[Left Behind]]'' series, Nicolae Carpathia starts out as the president of Romania, and moves on to become Secretary-General of the UN (later called the Supreme Potentate of the Global Community). He's [[the Antichrist]].
* President Lindbergh in Philip Roth's ''The Plot Against America''.
* GamePro Magazine used "[[President Evil]]" during the April Fools issue (with a zombie version of Abe Lincoln on the cover) a few months after [[Resident Evil]] first came out.
* In one of the ''[[Wild Cards]]'' books, Puppetman runs for president. (This is a man who controls people's minds to make them commit mayhem, just so that he can get off on their emotions, for crying out loud.)
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== Live Action TV ==
* U.S. President Charles Logan and Russian President Yuri Suvarov from ''[[24]]''.
* In ''[[Read All About It]]'', Dunedon, the evil ruler of Trialveron, is also secretly Don Eden, mayor of our heroes' home town on Earth.
* Nathan Petrelli {{spoiler|/Sylar}} of ''[[Heroes (TV series)|Heroes]]'' becomes the U.S. Prez in the alternate future presented in "Five Years Gone", and tries to enact a program to kill off all the superpowered people in the world (except himself, of course. Because "I can fly. I'm hardly dangerous.").
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