President George H. W. Bush

Few figures blur the line between four-color fiction and real-world history quite like President George H. W. Bush, who made his comics debut in The Avengers #319 in 1990 — right at the dawn of the Modern Age — courtesy of Fabian Nicieza and Richard Levins. Over a surprisingly wide stretch of nearly three decades, this Commander-in-Chief turned up across publishers and titles, from FemForce and Justice League Europe to Marvel Comics Presents, sharing pages with heavy-hitters like Mr. Fantastic, Quasar, and Logan. It's a testament to comics' love of grounding its grandest adventures in the real world that the 41st President kept popping up wherever heroes and history intersected — a genuine slice of the era preserved in ink and four-color glory.