Marvel’s New Queer Latina Miss America Chavez Gets Beyonce Treatment for Latest Cover

So long truth, justice, and the American way. Our superheroes are for social justice, now.

The latest cover for Marvel’s new comic series, America, has been revealed and it is heavy on the Beyonce reference. That is, her look from the video of her militant Black Lives Matter anthem "Formation," which she sang proudly at the Super Bowl dressed as a Black Panther. Yeah, that one.

Artist Joe Quinones debuted the cover on Twitter:

That’s America Chavez, a second Miss America, who fights crime as a queer Latina teenager. She was first introduced in 2011 by young adult writer Gabby Rivera. The series hits shelves in May. 

BuzzFeed raved about the new cover:

It’s godd*** gorgeous…

Having a queer and Latina superhero like America Chavez is important, now more than ever. When asked in an interview with Refinery29 about how America will represent women, Rivera had this to say:

“I love women. I love myself. I feel like sometimes I’m not considered a woman. People assume I’m a masculine kind of person because I wear hats or boots. And to me, womanhood is so flexible and so ever-expanding and how beautiful is it to show all the ways that it manifests? And especially when it comes to Latinas and Black women. Our bodies’ shapes and sizes vary, and are equally supported by the community and equally loved.”

Others are raving, too, especially Omar Holman at Black Nerd Problems:

I was on Twitter earlier, minding my damn business, when the universe saw it [sic] fit to bless me with the light of what’s to come. Now when I say the universe, I, of course, mean Beyoncé. We knew we were getting America Chavez in her own solo series. We knew that was coming but what we didn’t know is that Joe Quinones was going to drop Slay Day and have America Chavez AKA Bawse Ass Bae pay homage to the universe that is Beyoncé…

That’s how you pay homage. That’s how you give back to the universe, (when I say universe, I, of course, mean Beyoncé). Look at America Chavez thriving right now. That’s the America I been [sic] trying to see. That’s the only America that’s been great from day one.

Holman went on to say that America Chavez isn’t for the “fanboys” but “to make Marvel’s feminism intersectional.” Then he listed dozens of other reasons this “slays.” The choicest selections are below:

Look at Chavez modeling the America we voted for back in ’08 attire.

Look at Chavez being the history book we need and deserve.

Ya [sic] girl lookin’ like, “Suzanne B who? Honey, this is Ida B. Well(s)-alright [sic] now.”

Chavez walkin’ round [sic] like the Millennial’s Lady Liberty.

Chavez walkin’ round [sic] like, “Yea, though I walk through the valley of fuckshit.”

Chavez walkin’ round [sic] like, “No Republican presidency formed against me shall prosper.”

America Chavez out here having Kolin [sic] Capernick [sic] stand up to salute a real one.

America Chavez out here replacing Uncle Sam posters, sayin, “I want you… to stop with the racism, sexism, misogyny, transphobia, homophobia, Islamophobia, glass ceilings, unequal pay, white privilege, male privilege, appropriation, and acoustic covers of hip-hop bops.”

There is a possibility in the future that an older America Chavez might become a member of S.H.I.E.L.D. and become the new Captain America. If that happens, she’s sure to break the tradition of the pro-America, pro-God, male patriarch before her and never say something like, “There’s only one God, ma’am, and I’m pretty sure He doesn’t dress like that.”

We’ve come a long way since the days of the white privileged, cisgendered, heteronormative, nativist superhero:

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