EXCLUSIVE Interview With MARVEL COMICS' First Latina Writer, AMERICA CHAVEZ Scribe Gabby Rivera

EXCLUSIVE Interview With MARVEL COMICS' First Latina Writer, AMERICA CHAVEZ Scribe Gabby Rivera

In the spirit of Hispanic Heritage Month, we here at Comic Book Movie decided to catch up with Marvel's first Latina writer, Gabby Rivera, after her presentation at the Cleveland Public Library. Read on!

By LiteraryJoe - Sep 23, 2019 11:09 AM EST
Filed Under: Marvel Comics
We were lucky enough to catch up with Gabby Rivera, first Latina Writer for MARVEL Comics. After writing her breakout novel, Juliet Takes A Breath, Marvel reached out to her and asked her to build the backstory for the queer, latina, America Chavez over twelve issues released in two trades - The Life and Times of America Chavez and Fast and Fuertona.

Gabby spoke at length for the better part of two hours about her time working for MARVEL, her new series for BOOM, and her journey to get to where she is today. A lot of that we will be covering over the next few days in several articles, but since we had time to ask her a few questions of our own, we wanted to share those first!

CBM: I know you said that you don't make any decisions at MARVEL, but do you know anything about the rumors that America is going to be getting her own live action series on Disney+?

Gabby Rivera: What?! You know more than me! (Laughs) Wow! Yes, I hope they use this crazy ass story I wrote! Because I didn't tell yall but she has like a luchador buff ass Grandma and I want her on a cartoon.

CBM: (Laughs) Yeah, it's a rumor that she might be in the Young Avengers.

Gabby Rivera: So like I said, I don't know anything about a live-action America Chavez - that is all MARVEL. If you are a fan, you should let MARVEL know that whatever you want from them - that has nothing to do with me. That would be so cool if they made a live action series.

CBM: For your new series for BOOM, B.B. Free, is that going to be a limited series or is that going to be an ongoing title?

Gabby Rivera: With B.B. Free for BOOM, that's gonna be an ongoing series. They're gonna do books of four because I think that's what they did for Lumberjanes. And Lumberjanes is incredible, whether you have kids or queers, or whatever it is - it's a beautiful story. Yeah, no I'm writing that now and right now I have an outline for twelve issues of B.B. Free and as long as we can get those twelve I'm super happy.

CBM: When you were a kid, who was your favorite hero?

Gabby Rivera: Definitely my Grandpa, hands down.

CBM: Same here! What about any superheroes?

Gabby Rivera: I never understood why but I really liked Rogue as a kid. I was a big fan of how she could take everybody's powers.

CBM: It definitely gave the writers a lot to work with, but I'm a Kitty Pryde fan myself. Were you surprised to learn you were the first Latina writer at MARVEL?

Gabby Rivera: Well, kind of. I think that there have been Latino people who have written for them before but I happen to be the first Latina or Latinx, but yeah, it was a big deal!

CBM: If you could write another character for MARVEL Comics, who would you choose? Gabby Rivera: That's easy - I'd write a solo title about America's Luchador Grandmother, Madrimar.


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Have you read The Life and Times of America Chavez yet? Be sure to check it out!
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sneakybastard
sneakybastard - 9/23/2019, 11:30 AM
So are they building a new backstory or are they building off of the old one. Her current backstory is horrendous. Hopefully it is the former and it is good.
Thing94
Thing94 - 9/23/2019, 11:41 AM
Garbage
Alphadog
Alphadog - 9/23/2019, 11:59 AM
@MarvellousPORG - Ben Grimm deserves that
Alphadog
Alphadog - 9/23/2019, 12:02 PM
I love the idea that she can literally punch reality. It's Silver Age Superman properly. But yes, her origin story isn't all that interesting to me.
LiteraryJoe
LiteraryJoe - 9/23/2019, 12:17 PM
@Alphadog - You don't find it interesting that the love of her two mothers manifested into a child and then those two mothers sacrificed themselves for the multiverse - not to even mention the luchadora grandmother lmao. To each their own but it's not super boring lol. Also, love your pic.
Battabing
Battabing - 9/23/2019, 12:29 PM
That America comic was one of the worst comics I'd ever read. I don't think I made it to the 4th issue.
Thing94
Thing94 - 9/23/2019, 1:21 PM
@Battabing - HAHA!
Franshu
Franshu - 9/23/2019, 1:01 PM
I'm from Latin America and in all honestly... America Chavez effin' sucks. It's almost embarrassing how badly written it is, with it's oddly placed interjections in Spanish which don't make sense grammatically i either language and end up being simply cringeworthy.
Thing94
Thing94 - 9/23/2019, 1:21 PM
@Franshu - HAHA!
ThunderThighs
ThunderThighs - 9/23/2019, 1:13 PM
America was probably the worst Marvel comic I have ever read if it weren't for the existence of One More Day and ULTIMATUM. But it's close behind those two.
Thing94
Thing94 - 9/23/2019, 1:21 PM
@ThunderThighs - HAHA!
OptionFour
OptionFour - 9/23/2019, 1:42 PM
Terrible, terrible comic. Hopefully some better writers can salvage the character.
4thMaster
4thMaster - 9/23/2019, 2:03 PM
Wooo! Feliz Hispanic Heritage Month.
Never read the comic, but that was a fine interview.
Reeds2Much
Reeds2Much - 9/23/2019, 2:25 PM
@8thDoctor - I mean, it's bad but it's basically completely out of continuity so that makes it better than what Daniel Way did to Deadpool or what Bendis is doing to Superman.
4thMaster
4thMaster - 9/23/2019, 5:20 PM
@Reeds2Much - How's Superman being doing? I dropped it after the mini and the two #1's didn't catch my attention. I saw he aged up Superboy and Reis gave him an awful costume for no apparent reason, but otherwise I haven't kept up to date.
Reeds2Much
Reeds2Much - 9/23/2019, 6:03 PM
@8thDoctor - How's Superman being doing?

To be fair, Bendis is pretty much the only one not doing something Batman so that's a positive, but it's still basically Bendis being Bendis. Clark and Lois are parents of the year letting their kid go off into space with a deranged killer because reasons, only to age him just to have Jon kind of sort of age appropriate for the Legion which makes no sense when Damian isn't aged up and permitted to have a character outside the World's Finest. And Lois left Clark because, I don't know, she can't handle not being a wife and writer, and rumor is she'll be the one to expose Clark's identity ... again. Also, true to Bendis, pretty much every character's tonally the same. The whole young adult New York faux-Jew thing marginally might work for like Spider-Man, but it's basically every character. Rogal Zaal, an ORANGE ANGEL CHARACTER DONUT STEEL he hyped during his first few pages is just ... boring. Zod ... I think was boring. I know he showed up but I can't for the life of me remember anything he really did. And the worst of it is is that this isn't even surprising to anyone that read anything post-Ultimatum by Bendis. It's what he does. He wrecks continuity to do whatever he feels like, pisses in the pool, then moves on somewhere else leaving the broken toys for the next writer to deal with. I'm sure someone with less Bendis experience can get more specific; After the second half of his Ultimate Spider-Man, Iron Man, and his X-Men I'm more just tired of his antics than anything. I'm just waiting for him to introduce a new young brunette meta with phasing abilities that happens to be dating a bald overweight co-worker at the Planet, because that's a'comin'. Bendis gotta Bendis.

I'll concede that his Naomi book is pretty okay, but I'm willing to bet that has a lot more to do with his not having/having shallow continuity to ruin.
4thMaster
4thMaster - 9/23/2019, 7:39 PM
@Reeds2Much - I remember Zaal from the mini, he was incredibly boring.
4thMaster
4thMaster - 9/23/2019, 7:41 PM
@Reeds2Much - Seems like I'm not missing much good. Superdad was my favorite Rebirth book, it's sad to see it come to this.
LiteraryJoe
LiteraryJoe - 9/24/2019, 11:08 AM
@8thDoctor - Thanks!
hsanjose
hsanjose - 9/23/2019, 2:49 PM
I'm from Argentina. I live in Argentina. I'm latin. I think "America Chavez" is the most stereotypical and stupid character I ever seen in my life... How to get profit yelling "I'm a racism victim!" with a self promoting sectarianism...
BuzzKillington
BuzzKillington - 9/23/2019, 3:01 PM
@hsanjose -

Have you actually read any issues?
GeneralZod
GeneralZod - 10/2/2019, 1:06 PM
@hsanjose - Thank you!! Someone that gets it.
Fogs
Fogs - 9/23/2019, 6:44 PM
Cool and all.

But the comic is good? That's what really matters to me.
FearTheLiving
FearTheLiving - 9/23/2019, 8:13 PM
Ew why are you interviewing her? She didn't create the character nor was here run anything to applaud. It was one of the worst comic series I've ever read, filled with some god awful dialogue, terrible plotting and main story, and worst of all was probably the atrocious self insert character that she made that was a leader of just as stupid characters.

If anything you should have interviewed the original creators of the character (Joe Casey & Nick Dragotta) not this hack.
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