Ronald Reagan (Earth-616)

Ronald Reagan was the 40th President of the United States who served two terms from 1981 to 1989. Presumably, the fictional character's history is mostly the same as his real life counterpart. The scope of this article is to cover the activities of the fictional character and his interactions in the Earth-616 universe.

Ronald Reagan was contacted by a frantic mayor of New York, who was seeking money to pay a ransom demanded by the Frightful Four who were holding the Fantastic Four hostage at the time -- and both Carter and Gerald Ford had been unable to help. The mayor asked Reagan if he could contact John Wayne.^[1]

He later became 40th President of the United States of America, and served two terms. Reagan died in 2004.

On March 30, 1981, Reagan was struck by gunfire from would-be assassin John Hinckley outside the Washington Hilton Hotel. His service agents protected him and got him to safety.^[2]

During his time as president, Ronald Reagan made numerous appearances on the sidelines of events in the Marvel Universe. He stayed in the loop on a number of nation- and/or world-threatening events, keeping in contact with the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, S.H.I.E.L.D., and other groups.

While inspecting a S.H.I.E.L.D. base in Chesapeake Bay, Reagan and Nick Fury were held hostage by Plantman and his plant impostors. He refused to have one billion paid to Plantman for his freedom and instead trusted that the Avengers would rescue him. Eventually he and Fury were rescued and Plantmans impostors were defeated. After this he decided to implement a higher budget for S.H.I.E.L.D. to tighten security.^[3]

One of his major contributions was the formation of the Commission on Superhuman Activities, an agency that would keep a better handle on the growing numbers of super-powered individuals in America, and find ways to manage them as a resource for the government's interests.^[4] Unfortunately, the Commission was almost immediately infiltrated by agents of the Red Skull, and so one of its first decisions was to resume control of the “Captain America” identity from Steve Rogers, choosing the inexperienced and ultimately unstable John Walker as his replacement. Unaware of this, the President generally allowed the Commission their autonomy, but stepped in after learning that Steve Rogers was being pursued by federal authorities, de facto rescinding their decision and reinstating Rogers as Captain America.^[5]

During this time, President Reagan became another victim of the Viper, who had polluted Washington, D.C.'s water supply with a mutagenic agent that caused people to transform into hallucinating “snake-men”. In this state, he was easily influenced to attack Steve Rogers, who had adopted a new masked identity as “The Captain”, but was defeated without being severely injured.^[6] Incidentally, while there were mild signs of the president still retaining attributes -- his canines had taken a sharpened, fang-like appearance -- from his exposure to the Viper's mutagen, nothing ever came of it, and they can be assumed to have been temporary side effects.

More recently, Reagan was one of the Dead Presidents brought back from the dead by Necromancer.^[7] Zombie Reagan tried to put his "Star Wars" program into motion using a former Soviet Union space station filled with missiles. Deadpool foiled the zombie, opening bullet holes through which the undead Reagan was sucked into space, and then destroyed the station before the nuclear warheads detonated.^[8]

Ronald Reagan was temporarily transformed by a mutagenic agent derived from the mutant Slither, and so for a brief time possessed aspects of Slither's pseudo-reptilian physiology, including enhanced reflexes, toughened skin, and almost superhuman strength in spite of his advanced age.