What’s up with the DC Hispanic Heritage month Green Lantern cover controversy?
So what’s up with the DC Comics Hispanic Heritage month Green Lantern cover and what’s people exactly up in arms about it?
Ok so this is a rough timeline of what happened and at the end let’s cite some reasons why this became problematic for the Latin American crowds.
At the start, DC Comics released details for the covers that will “celebrate” Hispanic Heritage Month and these were four covers featuring DC superheroes and characters that have hispanic blood. These characters include:
Green Lantern Kyle Rayner
Green Lantern Jessica Cruz
Blue Beetle
Hawkgirl
One social media post writes:
Only problem is, the artwork just focuses on Latin food / Mexican food.
This generated more heat and criticism from Latino fans and artists stating that these covers have “reduced their communities to cliches.”
Hawkgirl is even depicted as a waitress working at the “Platanitos Fritos Cafeteria,” while one shows Jaime Reyes as the Blue Beetle flying through the air with tacos.
But the biggest offender of this batch was the Kyle Rayner cover which was drawn carrying a bag of tamales in space with a flag which reads “Viva Mexico”. The artist who did the cover, Jorge Molina started to drop some of his thoughts on his Twitter account. Here are some of what he posted.
HAAAAAAARD to keep my mouth shut….all I can say is one has my signature and the other one doesn’t, go figure.
— Jorge Molina (@jorge_molinam) August 27, 2022
Thanks to everyone who has showed their support on the original cover. I’m not mad or sad about it, the fact the everyone got to see and hear my original vision gives me some gratification and that version will live on the web for ever….for now. #HispanicHeritageMonth
— Jorge Molina (@jorge_molinam) August 29, 2022
Good news everyone !! I’m Excited to share the official DC Hispanic Heritage Month cover for Titans United: Bloodpact #1. The homage to La Patria is what is going out on the comic.
Sorry for the confusion—the edited version I drew was an alternative option, not final. pic.twitter.com/7A44vQd7tf— Jorge Molina (@jorge_molinam) August 30, 2022
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