The original Prez, a DC series about the United States' first teenage president, came out in 1973. Created by Captain America co-creater Joe Simon, it ran 4 issues, and from what I can tell, was about as accurate a representation of teens in the U.S. as you would expect from someone who had been writing comics for over 30 years by that point. Which is to say, not very. Ed Brubaker and Eric Shanower did a one-shot in the mid-90s under the Vertigo imprint, about Prez Rickard supposedly emerging during the '96 election, after two decades off the radar.
Then, in 2015, as part of one of DC's various post-New 52 branding exercises (DC You?), we got Prez, by Mark Russell and Ben Caldwell. Rather than set it in the present day, Russell sets the series in 2036, where Beth Ross is a 19-year-old working at a Li'l Doggies House of Corndogs in Oregon, and trying raise money to treat her father for some initially unknown illness, which turns out to be the deadly cat flu.
Beth goes viral when she accidentally dunks her pony tail in the deep fryer while filming a training video about proper grill cleaning. This doesn't help her raise the $4 million dollars her dad needs for nanotech treatment but, in a world where people can vote through social media, Beth wins Ohio in the 2036 Presidential election after a popular online personality touts her. To be clear, Beth is too busy trying to pay bills and visit her dad to ever run. The guy just gets the video extra exposure, and his followers decide to vote for this person they've heard of, rather than either of the lame-ass, middle-aged white men the two major parties are running.
The least believable part is that the other candidates are only middle-aged, rather than octogenarians.
As a result of Beth's win, no candidate gets enough electoral votes, so it goes to the House of Representatives, where each state gets one vote. This sets off a furious, hilarious and deeply pathetic scramble by each candidate to promise various spending projects and perks in return for a state's support. One side offers Ohio NASA. Texas' rep in turn demands 2 NASAs, plus a football stadium. In an attempt at extortion, states start voting for Beth, without keeping track of how many of them are doing so, and she gets elected. The system works - you over like a speed bag.
Beth isn't even sworn in until issue 3 (although it seems like Russell intended this to go longer than six issues), and spends most of issue 4 trying to pick a Cabinet (including a Neil Degrasse Tyson stand-in) and staff. Prez Rickard shows up as an aged, outcast Senator, offering to be her VP on the grounds the major powers won't try to kill her if they risk him becoming President as a result. Which doesn't stop random, gun-toting guys in hunting vests and American flag hats from taking their shot, literally.
I would give Russell credit for predicting the January 2020 insurrection, but white Americans waving guns around like fucking idiots whenever they feel the slightest bit aggrieved is, in the words of Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force, not a prediction Meat-man, it's a fact of life. Likewise, the U.S. having armed sentry robots stationed around the world that are controlled by guys in beanbag chairs treating it as Call of Duty, getting yelled at by their boss for getting crumbs on the keyboard, feels less like satire or a prediction, than simply reality.
Morales has a loose enough style to pull off the exaggeration (or attempted exaggeration) of the story. Panels are filled with what I think are holographic pop-ups that, for example, offer a patient in the hospital more info about cat flu, if they pay a subscription fee, of course. The major antagonists are various CEOs, faces always hidden by glowing cartoon logos. Like Pharmaduke, or "Jack Smiles", who is always a big gold smiley face as he proclaims they run things, or he parachutes in to tell his employees the product they sell is time, because they make sure the consumer doesn't have to wait as long for stuff they could buy any number of other places. Or the news debate program - hosted by the blonde with the ludicrous hair in the upper left, or another one just like her - which has updated results on who the viewers think is winning, with the losers' face being covered by the flag as the outro music starts.
There's also a subplot about a self-aware killbot - developed in the notion it will save money if they can fire all those guys in the beanbag chairs - that doesn't like the things it has done, changes its name to Tina, and finds religion. Morales makes Tina appear both large enough to be menacing, but with an expressive digital face and body language.
Russell writes Beth as sarcastic, yet idealistic. Bright, but unfamiliar with how things are typically done in politics, which Russell (via Rickard), paints as a positive. Beth owes no favors for getting this far, so she doesn't have to give a Cabinet post to some incompetent dickhead because he campaigned for her. Some of the outcomes are silly in the optimism, not so much Beth shutting down all the armed sentries and visiting other countries to apologize, but that many of the countries (though not Iran) accept the apology without say, demanding reparations.
Also, her end run around the CEOs and their pocket Senators is. . .to rely on someone even richer to help out? A guy who built a powerful computer, that has written every conceivable story in every language (we're shown the Oscars at one point, and he's credited as writer for 4 of the five nominated films.) Counting on a benevolent trillionaire doesn't seem any likelier to produce a positive outcome than relying on billionaires has. Maybe that was going to come back to bite Beth subsequently, but the book never got a second arc.
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