From there, the comic tracks Rand Paul’s life as a young conservative in Texas being his own man. As a schoolboy, he passes out flyers for his father’s run for Texas’ 22nd congressional district. He spreads the word about dad’s Foundation for Rational Economics and Education, as kids do. During one family dinner—as Rand Paul summarizes the tenets of Objectivism—the ghostly visage of Ayn Rand hovers over the Rand family dining table.

Yet it’s when the comic book takes the reader to Baylor University that things really get supernatural. Michael L. Frizell, the comic’s author, relates a story from the senator’s college years that Rand Paul might rather we’d never heard: the tale of Aqua Buddha and the NoZe Brotherhood. In costume, Paul and his secret-society brothers kidnap a woman friend from her apartment. “You are addressing the Lorde Mayor, bearer of the Enlightening Rod of Elmo!” one of Paul’s fraternal buddies tells the young woman. Paul asks her to address him as “the Cunning Linguist.” She is unimpressed.

The NoZe bozos carry the young blindfolded woman to a remote spot, where they introduce her to their god: the Aqua Buddha, a happy, Siddhārtha-shaped bong. In the comic-book retelling, Rand Paul recalls the story as a jocular flashback from his fun-loving college days. But in real life, where the episode was first revealed by Jason Zengerle, a GQ correspondent, the story was an eye-opener, one that nearly prompted legal action from Paul. It helped to cement the liberal media as a favorite foil for Paul.

Fast forward to the senator’s wedding. A giant splash page frames Rand Paul and Kelley Ashby as they walk out of the doors of a church, man and wife. (Behind them, inside the chapel, floats another Ayn Rand vision—this time of the suffering titan from the cover of Atlas Shrugged—which might overstate ever so slightly the significance of Objectivism in his personal cosmology.) As illustrations tell the story of the couple’s courtship in a flashback, Paul talks about his views on women and the GOP in floating text. “I don’t see that women are downtrodden; I see women rising up and doing great things,” reads one snippet—a quote taken nearly verbatim from an appearance on Meet the Press.

In the comic’s most dramatic segment, Paul challenges Senator Hillary Clinton during a 2013 hearing on—what else?—Benghazi. Comic text bubbles of Paul’s scathing questions (featuring quotes drawn from his testimony) annotate a scene of militants burning the American consulate in Libya. “Had I been president at the time, and I found that you did not read the cables from Benghazi, you did not read the cables from Ambassador [Chris] Stevens, I would have relieved you of your post,” his testimony reads. “I think it’s inexcusable.”

By the end of the the comic, it remains unclear whether Rand Paul has all the mystical powers of The Fountainhead’s Howard Roark. Or if he has the wherewithal to face down his enemies, including Clinton, Obamacare, and the press. The book makes a good-faith effort to turn Paul into a compelling character. But, on the whole, it fails.