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Sunday, April 05, 2020 

The ComicBook news site fluff-coats their interview with the new America Chavez writer

ComicBook did a laughable interview with Kalinda Vasquez, who's writing the next take on SJW-themed America Chavez. Here's something odd mentioned about the character:
Marvel's America Chavez is back in a new ongoing series coming later this year, and we had the chance to talk to writer Kalinda Vazquez all about it. The new series is titled America Chavez: Made in the USA and is set to dive into Chavez' origins as well as the origins of her impressive power set. That said, it will also serve to spotlight Chavez as a character and her internal struggles with identity, both from the point of view of a LatinX hero living in modern-day America and as someone who wasn't born on Earth. Those themes are what led to Vazquez taking a closer look and exploring the character's origin story in the new series, and you can even get an exclusive sneak peek at the art (which includes a certain Kate Bishop) from the series below.
Wait a minute. Are they saying she's an alien in human form?!? In that case, how can she truly be Latina, or any Earth-based ethnicity? Surely that doesn't contradict the premise they supposedly set out to establish?
"Speaking as a Latina woman, I was thrilled when America Chavez was introduced to the Marvel universe," Vazquez said. "Growing up, I loved comics, but you didn’t see too many LatinX heroes back then, and I think it’s wonderful that a younger LatinX generation will be able to see themselves reflected in pages of Marvel comics. Specifically in America – a powerful, heroic and noble figure. Beyond her ethnic identity, America is a character who I think has even more potential beyond what we’ve already seen. She has a complicated relationship with her identity, because she is not of this earth and in many ways, she’s had the experience of an outsider. These are really rich themes to explore – and it’s particularly this notion of America as an outsider that drew me to dig into her origin and work with the amazing team of Marvel editors to go even deeper into her past than has ever been done before."
I guess she never heard of Bonita Juarez, Marvel's Firebird, co-created in 1981 by Bill Mantlo and Sal Buscema, debuted in The Incredible Hulk #265, and later made appearances in West Coast Avengers. I guess Bonita doesn't count because Mantlo developed her as a Roman Catholic adherent, and it conflicts with today's ultra-liberal vision, explaining why she wasn't considered for the star of her own solo book, or why the above writer didn't lobby for an assignment starring Bonita instead.
"Oh there will definitely be some new villains for America to face both during this series and after! It’s a true privilege to be able to work Sana Amanat and editor Annalise Bisa as well as artist Carlos Gomez to expand America’s mythology and deepen her 'villain bench'," Vazquez said.
But the real villain is Amanat. Because she's been only so instrumental in tearing down what made the MCU work, and seeing her name on the project is reason enough to avoid it.

All that aside, some interesting discoveries have come up that the very people this book is geared for aren't going to buy the book no matter how it's written or drawn. Artist Carlos Gomez made the subject look hotter, which, granted, is better than making her look absurdly masculine like what happened with Carol Danvers several years ago, and for this the anti-sex crowd on Twitter attacked him. But, chances are this still won't be worth reading, assuming it even goes to press at all during the time Coronavirus is still a serious issue. Though the reaction to the latest character design is similar to what J. Scott Campbell experienced when he drew Riri Williams, the contrived diversity replacement for Tony Stark, with a tank top. Given the Riri Williams Iron Man series was cancelled early on, and few complained, it proves without a doubt those attacking Campbell never had any intention of buying the series anyway. And chances are, no matter the quality of story and art in this new rendition of America Chavez, they won't be buying it either.

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Comic books have a long history of finding Caucasian aliens in outer space, not to mention in other dimensions and micro worlds inside the atom, many of them native speakers of English. So it is fun to find a Spanish speaking one out there.

Comic books are a hopelessly redundant form of literature. The only hope for any genre is that it tells good stories. All other aspects are secondary and are usually tolerable if the story is compelling.

There have been other Latinx heros - Zorro of course, and all his imitators, like Marvel's El Aguila and DC's The Whip; El Diablo; the female Wildcat that Roy Thomas created fro Infinity Inc; Bill Mantlo's White Tiger; a number of others. But Vasquez didn's say there were no Hispanic characters when she was growing up, just that there weren't many of them. Mentioning a minor character like Firebird doesn't exactly put the lie to what she was saying; the fact that the only character you trot out is a minor one who never hard her own book or series kind of confirms it.

Roman Catholicism and Liberalism often go together. Biden and Pelosi are both Catholic. The Church hierarchy has recently been relaxing its stand on liberation theology. No reason to think that making a Latin-American hero an adherent of Catholicism would cause 'ultra-liberals' (kind of a contradiction in terms) to be against her.

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