Our Comics-Loving President-Elect

As many others have noted, the Huffington Post reports that president-elect Obama "collects Spider-man and Conan the Barbarian comics." This is, of course, welcome news for right-thinking people everywhere. But it also raises more important questions that it answers. Which Spider-man and Conan the Barbarian comics? Some are pretty easy to guess--all Conan comics begin with the classic 1970s Roy Thomas / Barry Windsor-Smith run at Marvel, which arguably remains unequalled. Kurt Busiek's 2003-2006 stint for Dark Horse also stands out. But there were a lot of comics in between. Was Obama picking up the oversize, black and white Savage Sword of Conan back in the 80s? Is he re-reading old issues of King Conan for insights on how Conan dealt with the heavy burden of leadership after finally ascending to the throne? James Earl Jones as Thulsa Doom: inspired or ridiculous? These are important things to know. Similarly, will our future leader do the right thing and officially denounce the Spider-clone as the most egregious retcon in all of comics history? He's old enough to remember when it was big news that Peter Parker married Mary Jane (only to be un-married earlier this year in another retroactive continuity re-boot, ugh)--can he honestly say that his position on that has been consistent over the years? Did he publicly denounce the black suit, on the record, when it was first introduced post-Secret Wars, or did he only follow popular sentiment later on? Todd McFarlane goosed sales, but did he ultimately leave the character better or worse off? I assume he's pointing Malia and Sasha toward Ultimate Spider-man, if not an explanation on his thinking would be helpful. Frankly, the fact that we don't have answers here suggests a breakdown of the mainstream media's pre-election vetting process.