Last week, Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz revealed his top five favorite superheroes: Spider-Man, Wolverine, Batman, Iron Man, and … Rorschach. The online version of the interview doesn’t include this list, perhaps because Cruz has since faced some critique for including everyone’s favorite antisocial Watchmen character in his top five.
The interview does still include Cruz’s “psychoanalysis” (his word) for why he apparently prefers Kirk to Picard (I know — wrong again, Cruz). Given that, I’m going to feel free to “psychoanalyze” this man’s top five superheroes, even though his campaign team is clearly trying to bury his bad taste.
1. Spider-Man
Odd choice from Cruz, given the common interpretation of Spidey as a 99-percenter who grew up in Queens and currently works a probably-underpaid contract photography gig at a local newspaper, and whose powers came not from hard work but from luck and happenstance. What exactly does Cruz like about Spider-Man? It can’t be the politics.
2. Wolverine
I wonder if Ted Cruz knows Logan is Canadian? Or, like, anything else to do with the general politics of X-Men? No one tell him.
3. Batman
Batman tends to strike me as a libertarian-leaning vigilante who doesn’t realize that he’s cycling criminals into a broken mental health facility and expecting new results. Cruz does seem to like cops, so maybe that’s why he gets a kick out of Batman. I’d love to see political journalists grilling Cruz on Batman’s poor prison reform policies.
4. Iron Man
Tony Stark often feels like Marvel’s answer to Bruce Wayne, except Tony’s more self-aware about his own daddy issues. Given the wealth-as-superpower element, though, this is another point in the “maybe Ted Cruz does actually read comics” column.
5. Rorschach
So, I guess Ted Cruz read Watchmen and didn’t understand that you’re not actually supposed to like anybody in it? This is like saying your favorite economist is Jonathan Swift. I mean, come on, Rorschach is a notorious jerk-hole:
Ted Cruz may or may not read comics. But if he does, he definitely doesn’t realize that they’re political. That’s too bad. He’s missing out.
(via Comic Book Resources, image via Mind Exchange)
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