Mao Tse-Tung

Few comic characters straddle satire and history quite like the Mao Tse-Tung who leapt off the pages of Mad #62 in 1961, conjured by the wickedly talented team of Gary Belkin and Wally Wood during the height of the Silver Age's anything-goes irreverence. Born in the gleefully subversive world of EC's Mad, this version of the Chairman kept extraordinary company — sharing panels with Fidel Castro, Nikita Khrushchev, John F. Kennedy, and Richard Nixon, a rogues' gallery of Cold War titans that tells you everything about the sharp political edge Mad was wielding at the time. His appearances stretch across a remarkable 54 years and turn up in unexpected corners of the catalog, from Herbie to Hawkworld, a testament to how potent a satirical figure he remained for generations of cartoonists. Eleven appearances may sound modest, but in the world of comics-as-commentary, this is a character who punched well above his weight.