SPOTTED: Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) getting up close and personal with a first edition “Superman” No. 1 comic as he was reunited with the famed issue nearly a week after being sworn in with it and the Constitution.
Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden joined the first-term representative at the Library of Congress on Thursday for a chance to check out and snap a few photos on his phone of the coveted Man of Steel comic.
Garcia was sworn in to Congress last week on the Constitution, with the Superman comic tucked underneath, along with a photo of the Peru-born lawmaker’s parents and his citizenship certificate.
Garcia, 45, has said he’s a longtime Superman devotee. “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 he learned to read and write English via the famed superhero comic.
The Superman comic — on loan from the Library of Congress — is one of hundreds of thousands of comic books housed there. The library 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 find some comic inspiration at a swearing-in ceremony. Puerto Rico Del. Jenniffer González-Colón (R) requested that a copy of Sensation Comics No. 1 — known as the first comic where Wonder Woman appeared on the cover — be used when she was sworn into office last week with the 118th Congress.
A spokesperson for González-Colón told ITK that she “grew up admiring Wonder Woman” and that she’s remained 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.”
Updated at 4:32 p.m.