donald trump

There’s a certain theatrical nihilism to Donald Trump that lends itself well to Batman’s greatest nemesis, as we’ve seen Mark Hamill repeatedly demonstrate with his Joker-ized take on Trump tweets. As it turns out, the parallel works eerily well with other Jokers, as The Daily Show discovers with horrifying precision.

At some point we’re all going to have to stop asking, “Is this real life?! Is this really happening right now?!” The daily proliferation of surreal news headlines will never feel normal (nor should they), but it’s the frequency our country is operating at now, and it will likely continue at this pitch for the next four years, which officially kicked off today. In the latest episode of The Surreal Life, Donald Trump basically plagiarized Bane, Tom Hardy’s mush-mouthed villain from The Dark Knight Rises, in his inauguration speech.

The most widely recognized iterations of Batman’s constant foe the Joker would probably have to be Heath Ledger as the unchained mad-dog of The Dark Knight, Jack Nicholson as an urbane creep in Tim Burton’s 1989 film, and to a lesser extent, Cesar Romero’s campy turn in the goofy TV series from the ’60s. But Mark Hamill logged more hours as the Clown Prince of Crime than the rest of them put together, voicing the Joker in the long-running animated series and its many spin-offs. The man with the greatest claim to the Joker persona dusted off his special crazy-voice this week for a more pointedly political purpose than the usual cocktail-party entertainment.

Does politics belong in comics? Can comics influence politics? And what impact do we expect the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States to have on the comic industry and on the stories it tells over the next four years? ComicsAlliance contributors Elle Collins, Kieran Shiach, Tom Speelman, and Tara Marie join editor-in-chief Andrew Wheeler for a roundtable discussion about the relationship between politics and comics.

Look, we’re all a little stressed out by the election, and seeing Trump-monsters everywhere we look. Some fans even thought The Walking Dead might have taken that notion literally this past Sunday, but fear not; no such attempts to make the zombie apocalypse great again occurred, at least intentionally, per AMC.

Jason Latour, Robbi Rodriguez and Rico Renzi's Spider-Gwen has been one of Marvel Comics' most ceaselessly inventive and exciting properties since the character first debuted in what was meant to be a one-off starring role. Since then, we've been followed Gwen Stacy's ongoing adventures as Spider-Woman, and encountered her world's versions of Captain America, Daredevil and The Punisher --- but there's still a hankering to learn more about this universe. This week's Spider-Gwen Annual #1 scratches that itch as Latour explores the larger world of Earth-65 with stories featuring Koala Kommander, She-Hulk as a pro wrestler, and a terrifying alternate version of Donald Trump who is even more dangerous and has even tinier hands.

Late last week, word broke that the CEO of Marvel Entertainment donated $1 million to a charity connected to Donald Trump, a political figure of… some controversy. This is not the first time Perlmutter's name has arisen in a negative light — leaked e-mails implied he cautioned against female-led superhero movies, he's cited as the main reason Marvel Studios extricated itself from under the Marvel Entertainment umbrella, a famous story claims he was so cheap that Marvel Entertainment had to make do with one bathroom per gender for an entire floor, and he comes off especially poorly in Sean Howe's Marvel Comics: The Untold Story. A number of fans are surprised that Marvel, in the midst of making an extended push for diversity in its line, would have someone sympathetic to a candidate as xenophobic as Donald Trump at the very top, but there are good reasons not to be. First, Marvel's diversity push has been pretty haphazard, and second, this is a corporation we’re talking about.

Donald Trump held a special pity party on Thursday night after running scared from a Republican debate because he doesn't like outspoken women. Ditching the debate because broadcaster Fox refused to bow to his demands to bench moderator Megyn Kelly, the racist Cheeto bloviated to adoring fans at an event intended to raise money for wounded veterans, though the money is routed through Trump's own Donald J. Trump Foundation, which hasn't been noticeably generous to veterans in the past. Among the chief donors to the fundraiser were billionaires Ike and Laura Perlmutter, who gave Trump $1 million, or one sixth of the total amount raised on the night. Ike Perlmutter is the reclusive CEO of Marvel Entertainment, who avoids publicity and either doesn't like having photos taken or doesn't show up in them. Trump thanked Perlmutter personally from the podum, referring to him as "Ike Perlmutter from Marvel" and calling him, "One of the great, great men of our country in terms of business and talent."