http://metromix.chicagotribune.com/movies/mmx-0704280324apr29,0,5611564.story?coll=mmx-movies_heds
Masked Crusaders
A wave of multicultural offerings for kids has birthed a handful of
heroes of Latino descent. Here is a look at a few of them from
television, movies and comic books
By Web Behrens
Growing up in Mexico City, Jorge R. Gutierrez watched a lot of
American cartoons and read American comic books, dubbed and translated
into Spanish. Like many kids, he loved the adventures of the icons in
capes and tights. But after a while, he wondered why Superman, Batman,
Wonder Woman and their pals were so white bread.
"I would watch 'Los Super Amigos' [the 1970s version of the "Justice
League" cartoon], and I would wonder, 'Where's the guy from Mexico?' "
says Gutierrez, a 32-year-old animator. Meanwhile, 1,700 miles away,
another future artist was growing up in Tijuana. Living in a bustling
border city, Sandra Equihua enjoyed "the best of both worlds" of
Mexican and American television. She loved cartoons, and she watched
the U.S. programming in English.
Gutierrez and Equihua, now married and living in Burbank, Calif., have
translated the passions of their formative years into a new chapter in
children's animated programming. Together, they created the wacky
world of "El Tigre: The Adventures of Manny Rivera," which centers on
the misadventures of the titular super-powered youth. Manny must
constantly choose between the heroic legacy of his father, the White
Pantera ("pantera" means panther in Spanish), or the mischievous
influence of his granpapi, the retired villain Puma Loco ( "crazy
puma"). The delightfully manic Saturday-morning cartoon, which debuted
in early March on Nickelodeon, mixes visual influences of folk art and
Mexican wrestling heroes with dashes of Salvador Dali and Frida Kahlo,
then pushes it through a high-speed cartoon sieve.
It's part of a 21st Century wave of multicultural offerings for kids
that have birthed heroes of many different races and ages. Meanwhile,
the two big comics publishers, DC and Marvel, have promoted non-white
heroes in high-profile books such as "Fantastic Four" and "Justice
League of America." Further, more heroes of color star in their own
monthly series. While many of these new monthly comics struggle
saleswise, a few have garnered critical buzz, including "Blue Beetle,"
which follows the evolution of Jaime Reyes, a Mexican-American
teenager who discovers an alien blue scarab that allows him to
generate a coat of super-powered blue armor. Unfortunately, the suit
doesn't come with an instruction manual.
"Beetle" grew partly out of its creators' desire to write "a different
kind of hero," one whose adventures would appeal to kids, without
being too dark and violent, says writer John Rogers. As a result,
Jaime isn't an orphan like Bruce Wayne or Clark Kent, but a high
school kid who lives at home with his working-class family in El Paso,
Texas (just as Manny lives with his dad and grandfather in the
fictional Miracle City).
Jaime doesn't hide his predicament from his parents. Instead, he talks
to them about his confusing new responsibilities. "When Jaime has to
ask his parents to break curfew to fight crime, that's a lot more
interesting to me than a 35-year-old angry white millionaire who
fights samurai villains and killer clowns," says Rogers, a TV and film
scribe who recently moved to Canada. ("Beetle" is truly a modern-day
collaboration: 25-year-old artist Rafael Albuquerque lives in Porto
Alegre, Brazil; he got the job last summer after meeting his New
York-based editors at a comic book convention in Chicago.)
"As people do with any fictional entertainment, [kids] look for points
of identification," says Seattle-based Greg Hatcher, who teaches comic
book writing and drawing to middle school kids. He recalls two
students becoming "absolutely mesmerized" a few years ago by an old
comic he brought to class featuring Marvel's Luke Cage, an
African-American hero for hire.
"They read it together," Hatcher says. "One boy was black and one boy
was Latino. But what grabbed them about Luke wasn't his ethnicity; it
was his poverty."
When Dr. Doom stiffs Luke out of his fee, the hero borrows the
Fantastic Four's jet "and flies to Doom's home country to beat [the
money] out of him. To this day I remember [the student] saying, 'Five
hundred bucks is a lot of money! He better go after that guy!' "
Stories such as this make the fictional worlds more real to kids. "By
reconfiguring superheroes with an ethnic component into them, the hero
becomes more palpable," says professor Carmelo Esterrich, director of
cultural studies at Columbia College Chicago. "They don't come from
space like Superman; they're closer to us. ... Having comic books
reflect that is going to make these [younger] readers better citizens
10 and 20 and 30 years from now."
"The job of a writer or artist is to reflect the world around you.
That's not an agenda," says Rogers, who gets frustrated by claims that
the comic exists only to fill some imagined quota. "Racism is
believing that other people of different backgrounds can't speak to you."
"My fondest wish," Rogers adds, "is that, 10, 15 years from now, a
Hispanic kid is going to take over writing 'Blue Beetle' -- or start
writing his own comics -- because he feels that the medium is
accessible to him."
Gutierrez and Equihua say they sometimes still are surprised as well
as excited that "El Tigre" actually made it to the airwaves. Before
Nickelodeon, a number of major animation studios turned down their
pitches, claiming, "There's no real audience for this kind of thing,
or this is too unique to one culture," Gutierrez says. But now,
"there's a whole generation of children thinking a show about Latinos
is normal."
"It's a great honor because we're contributing to something
important," Equihua says. "We're fortunate enough to show people our
love and our joy in being Mexican."
New episodes of "El Tigre" air Saturdays at 9:30 a.m. on Nickelodeon.
"Blue Beetle: Shellshocked," collecting the first six monthly issues,
is in bookstores now; the second volume arrives June 20.
- - -
Predecessors to 'El Tigre'
You couldn't say there's been a long line of Latino heroes in U.S.
media, but there are a few forerunners:
Zorro. Granpapi of them all, this swashbuckling Spanish nobleman
(created in 1919) clearly inspired Batman.
The Cisco Kid. He morphed from a white villain in O. Henry's original
short story into a heroic Mexican (with sidekick Pancho) in later
versions.
El Santo. A real-life Mexican wrestler, he inspired countless B-movies
and comic books from the 1950s through the '80s.
Batmanuel. Indie comic "The Tick," a superhero spoof, spawned a 2001
cult comedy that included this tweak of Gotham's finest.
Dark Angel. Before she went blond, Jessica Alba starred as genetically
enhanced Max Guevara in this 2001 sci-fi show.
Spy Kids. Siblings Carmen and Juni Cortez save the world in a trio of
Robert Rodriguez flicks -- James Bond for the middle-school set.
!Mucha Lucha! A trio of youths study to become masked wrestlers in
this whimsical Flash-animated cartoon series from 2002.
White Tiger. Marvel Comics' current mini-series finds Angela Del Toro
assuming the heroic mantle and powers of her dead uncle.
Web Behrens
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