How cool is this?
Representative Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) was sworn in to Congress earlier this month on the Constitution, with a copy of the first Superman comic—on loan from the Library of Congress (LC)—tucked underneath (along with a photo of the Peru-born lawmaker’s parents and his citizenship certificate).
Garcia is a lifelong Superman fan. “I became a Superman fan as a kid because I related to him. An immigrant, a sense of justice, and a secret identity,” he tweeted in 2021. His office has said that Garcia learned to read and write English via the famed superhero comic.
A week after being sworn in, Garcia joined Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden at LC for a photo opp with the iconic comic book. Superman No. 1, a copy of which recently sold for more than $5 million, is one of hundreds of thousands of comic books housed at LC, which has the largest publicly available collection of comic books in the country, totaling about 146,000 issues.
Garcia isn’t the only member of Congress to use a comic book at the Congressional swearing-in ceremony. Puerto Rico Del. Jenniffer González-Colón (R) requested that a copy of Sensation Comics No. 1, the first comic where Wonder Woman appeared on the cover, be used when she was sworn into office with the 118th Congress.
A spokesperson for González-Colón told The Hill that the representive “grew up admiring Wonder Woman” and that she’s a diehard fan because the superhero “represents the power of women in conflict resolution, in the search for justice, and for her representation of equality.”
