Donald Trump posted a poorly photoshopped image that includes his head and those of several political allies crudely pasted onto the shoulders of the DC Comics superhero team Justice League.
Trump shared the bizarre image, which originated from an X user who posts mostly about the former president and Indian politics and cinema, just before midnight Thursday on his social media platform Truth Social.
Trump’s head is superimposed over Superman’s in such a poorly edited fashion that a shadow appears to ooze out of the lower folds of his neck. The head of his running mate, JD Vance, is superimposed over the head of Batman, with the spiked tips of the Gotham crime fighter’s cowl, representing bat ears, erupting from the Ohio senator’s hair.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s head is pasted over Cyborg, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy’s head over The Flash, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard over Wonder Woman, and ex-presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over Aquaman. Below the group is a white, all-caps text reading “TRUMP 2024.”
Ramaswamy, one of Trump’s most devoted backers, ended his campaign for the Republican nomination after the Iowa caucuses in January and endorsed the GOP presidential candidate. Musk, who has embraced right-wing culture war issues, offered Trump his full endorsement last month after the assassination attempt on the former president. Gabbard and Kennedy, both former Democrats, endorsed Trump earlier this month and were added to his transition team on Monday.
Trump and his associates have a long history of trying to compare the real estate magnate-turned-political firebrand to the Man of Steel. An image of Trump as Superman was part of a diorama on display next to the cake at his 50th birthday party in 1996.
Donald Trump blows out the candles of his birthday cake at his 50th Birthday Party at Trump Tower in New York City, 1996. (Photo by Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection)
Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection
A Trump-backing super PAC spent $25,000 on a digital billboard portraying Trump as Superman in 2016. Trump’s eldest child, Donald Jr., posted a bizarre image of a fake Time cover featuring his father as a bearded Superman in 2017.
According to New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman’s book Confidence Man, Trump wanted to unbutton his shirt to reveal a Superman logo upon being discharged from hospital following treatment for COVID-19 in 2020, but the plan fell through.
In a twist, Trump actually served as inspiration for the 1980s reboot of Superman’s arch-enemy, the corporate villain Lex Luthor. “Of course, Donald Trump was our model,” writer and artist John Byrne, who transformed Luthor from a typical mad scientist to a portrait of Wall Street greed in the 1986 limited series The Man of Steel, told The Daily Beast in 2017.
