REVIEW: La Boriqueña Vol. 1

Man, I’ll be honest. Sometimes this whole comic reviewing gig is a hard job. Sometimes you get comics like this that put you right where Aron Ralston was, between a rock and a hard place. So let’s get you a little context before we begin reviewing. First of all, I am Antonio “Mabs” My full name is Antonio Luis Rodriguez Padilla, not a particularly American name you might think, and you would be very right. I am a born and raised Puerto Rican comics fan that lives on the island of Puerto Rico and has left maybe a handful of times. Puerto Rico is a US commonwealth or what we like to call a bounty of war. First Puerto Rico was invaded by the Spanish, led by Cristobal Colón, aka colonizer supreme Cristopher Columbus. In his infinite ignorance, he thought he was sailing to India and when he landed he started calling our natives, Indians when in reality, they were a tribe of very spiritual and smart people called Tainos. Slowly but surely, through the pillaging of villages, and the raping of women, lands, and culture the Tainos were mostly wiped out and Puerto Ricans became a melting pot of Spanish heritage, African slaves, and Caribbean visitors. A little bit later when the United States won the Spanish-American war in 1898 they tied us and Guam into a neat little present and gave us to the winner, and here we are today. Part American, part Puerto Rican we are Boricuas.

So you can imagine that when you have a comic called “La Borriqueña” which by the way is the same name as a local bakery here in the town of Toa Baja where I live, you will have a lot of buzz around it. Puerto Ricans are obsessed with their heritage, and it makes sense right, it’s a traumatic response to being usurped of your culture by pretty much every government that ever decided to lay their hands on our island. This title has made the rounds of the local newspaper, and gone viral amongst all PR social media and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this girlie in television and billboards around the island, it was bound to happen that I would read this book at some point. I am a comic creator, and I often frequent comic conventions on the island and talk to different artists of the PR comic scene, but this title hasn’t been my cup of tea. I’m not sure if it’s because it’s different when you’re still living in PR, but this always felt like a story written by someone that left Puerto Rico and has a yearning to insert our history in that of American comics. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, it’s just a thing that I feel you know. Well in any case, today was the day, I picked up this book rather excitedly as being a Comic Crusader has led me to this moment and this opportunity to review this book and well being maybe the other Puerto Rican in the team, was my duty to read it and talk about it. So yeah, let’s do that right now.

It’s good. It’s not as bad as I thought it maybe could have been. The art is really good, I’ll be honest, Edgardo Miranda- Rodriguez has a style that fits right in there with DC books and it is obvious how inspired he is by the likes of Superman and Wonder Woman. There are a couple of illustrations where the anatomy of the character is a little wonky, but most of the art is nice. I have to say that where they excel is the coloring. I think this book is filled with some rich and vibrant coloring schemes and the backgrounds capture Puerto Rico’s beautiful beaches and caves. I also really liked the panel that had the UPR, which is one of the most prestigious universities in Puerto Rico and also happens to be the University where I studied for a brief period of time. It was nice to see the huge clock tower in the middle of campus in this book, it gave me a nice feeling of nostalgia for my college years. Other than the main protagonist, Marisol Rios de la Luz, I don’t think the character designs are particularly interesting, I much rather enjoyed the background art than the actual character art but what I didn’t like about this was the writing. It’s just weird for me. It’s not that it’s bad writing, it’s just that it feels forced… From the Spanglish dialogue to the almost meme, cliche PR culture stuff like “sancocho” or the use of the word “juepa” which by the way is not Puerto Rican, it’s Columbian and also used in the dominican republic (according to Google), we use a different spelling of it, we use “wepa”. I don’t know man it feels forced you know. Puerto Rico is messed up bro, this comic makes it seem like this beautiful island of fun, dance, and beaches when in reality we have a corrupt government, a super high poverty rate, and people here kill each other over dumb issues in a heartbeat, and yet here is “La Borriqueña” using her powers to save falling planes and sea turtles with bad GPS reception…

I write this from the bottom of my heart if you’re gonna make a comic about a superhero called “La Borriqueña” you need to write about the real stuff that’s going on in Boriken. Not sugar coat it, because that’s not helping anyone, it’s just creating an unrealistic vision of Puerto Rico that only serves for further gentrification when more Americans with money purchase land in Rincón and Luquillo (a real place where Marisol is said to live) to then turn around and turn them into AirBnb’s. It’s hard cause I know it’s not done out of spite, or done intentionally. It’s done out of this idea that many Puerto Ricans in the diaspora have that Puerto Rico is the promised land because the United States is such a gritty and shitty place, but trust me Puerto Rico is not as magical as you might think. It’s just, a grass is greener fantasy that we need to step away from.

This all being said, this is not the worse comic in the world. There are some really good moments in this comic that I really enjoy. I think Edgardo is a fantastic visual storyteller, even if his idea of Puerto Rico is a little too positive and sometimes cringey, the scene with the turtles was beautifully rendered. The turtles look awesome and I’ve swum with carey once or twice during wild swimming in lakes, and beaches of Puerto Rico, and that was realistic, felt legit, and looks beautiful on the page. You also have stuff like, Puerto Ricans applauding when the plane lands which is real and still happens to this day because I swear we are so stressed out that we think we are gonna fall from the sky so we applaud to thank G@d that we made it to our destination. There’s even a white girl that thinks she’s hot shit and treats Marisol like a hacienda worker, which whilst isn’t all the way true, does hint a little at the overall tensions between native Puerto Ricans and American tourists. You know so there are some really good things that this comic is doing well. There are two very specific moments stood out for me that were incredibly satisfying to read, and those are when Marisol was dancing Bomba, which was handled wonderfully and reminds me of the times we would go out drinking and dancing around Rio Piedras, and the second part is how they talked a tiny bit about how the UPR is constantly losing professors and that they are cutting budgets and raising prices year after year, that really grounded the comic in reality for a second, but then we go back to stuff like Marisol wearing a brooch made out of the Grito de Lares flag designed by Emerito Betances and embroidered by Maria Benedetti. Like I don’t know that’s just so far off, Puerto Rican Independence is such a tricky subject and to have this girl have a pin made of the flag feels so try-hard. I didn’t mind seeing it hanging on the wall like an easter egg with the plaque of Grito de Lares and the date, but to have her wearing it so on the nose. It’s like if you had Captain America fighting with the torch that the Statue of Liberty has instead of his shield. I don’t know man, I like subtlety you know. I love it when a character is Latino but isn’t trying to shove it down your throat. I love Miles Morales, and I love Luis Guzman, but this feels like Luis Guzman playing Spider-Man and shooting mofongo instead of webs… Give me a story where La Borriqueña isn’t eating sancocho and quoting Julia de Burgos poems, give me a story where La Borriqueña is helping out demonstrators because the corrupt policy is trying to crack down on them at what is supposed to be a peaceful manifestation. Give a story where La Borriqueña is stopping yet another building from collapsing into the sea and killing sea life because rich, dumb tourists built yet another condo next to the ocean. Give me some real stuff, you know, not this rose-tinted, flor de Amapola in your hair stuff. Give me gritty! Puerto Rico is “The Boys”, “Invincible” and “Suicide Squad”. Puerto Rico is not “Captain Planet meets Wonder Woman with a cape.”

It’s frustrating because I come from Puerto Rico and this is hard to read for me because of who I am and where I come from, because of what I live every day. Not because it is a bad comic, which tears at my heart because I want to support this. I want it to be so good that I can’t hope but rave and rejoice about it, but I can’t because it’s too childish it’s too friendly, it’s too safe. Another thing I didn’t like is the switching between Spanish and English. I think when you have a couple of words in Spanish and the rest of the story in English it works well because it usually is words that people know, stuff like “papi, mami, abuelo, abuela” stuff that anyone can read and understand easily and make the connection quickly. Yet when you have full dialogues in Spanish and then jump straight to English again, it makes me wonder who you are writing for, are you writing so that Americans take you seriously, or are you writing so that Puerto Ricans think you are cool? Because in both cases it fails. Americans don’t know the Spanish language and will straight up get mad if they hear it and don’t understand it, and you not adding translation cues at the bottom of the page will alienate that market altogether, and Puerto Ricans either hate or love American things, anything that is flirting the line between being American and Puerto Rican is considered colonialist thinking and enough to make fun of you. Heck, I saw a viral video the other day about how the only people that say “wepa” nowadays are Puerto Ricans in the diaspora and that we don’t even use it over here anymore. Which is whatever, I think that Puerto Ricans in the diaspora are Puerto Ricans just as much as anyone else, but in the context of a comic set in an actual place that is constantly discriminated against by the people who own it, you need to pick what you want this comic to do to help tip the scale of internal xenophobia. I think this comic should focus on providing a realistic picture of Puerto Rico and it should be all in English (with bits of Spanish here and there like with Miles Morales comics and the Spider-Verse movies), and if you are gonna do Spanish between the Puerto Rican characters then you need to translate that. Teach Americans what the words mean so that the next time a little kid is at the airport and his shitty Karen mom hears me talking to my brother in Spanish and she says we’re being rude for talking a different language I don’t have to tell her to shut up and mind her business, and instead it’s her child who says “Mom, they’re talking Spanish, I can understand a little bit because I read it in La Borinqueña comic” and I can high-five that kid. Do that and you’ll be fighting the good fight, you’ll be fighting towards putting Puerto Rico’s entertainment, culture, and history right up there with the rest of the world’s.

Edgardo you got talent man, you are skilled with your pen, with your colors, and with the backgrounds, but you need to decide whether you are trying to just make a fun little story about a Puerto Rican superhero or if you’re gonna use your comic, your platform, and your writing to portray the realities of being a Puerto Rican. That is your choice and in the end, it is you who can decide. Also, check your grammar, there’s some weird stuff in a couple of bubbles here and there that needs some revising.

This is probably my longest review as a Comic Crusader, and probably my most controversial score and opinion, but trust that it comes from a place of love. Love, not only for my island but love for the rich culture that we have and for the people that this character will end up representing. La Borriqueña is wearing our flag, and whilst the costume design is outstanding and she looks stunning, she has to realize that the star in that flag has pointy ends and those pointy ends are sharp and can draw blood too. I want this comic to grow, I want it to get better, and I want it to transcend stereotypes and childish notions. I want this comic and this character to be right up there with Batman, and Green Arrow because as Puerto Ricans we deserve to be represented by real, serious characters who have struggles and who battle with demons like corruption, poverty, violence, and drug addiction because that is the reality of Puerto Ricans, not just sancocho and pretty beaches.

Writing: 3 Stars
Art: 4.5 Stars
Colors: 5 Stars

Overall: 3.5 Stars

Writing, Art & Lettering by; Edgardo Miranda- Rodriguez
Cover art by; Edgardo Miranda- Rodriguez
Published by Somos Arte

Support Vol 1 on Zoop:
https://zoop.gg/c/laborinquena

Reviewed by Antonio “Mabs”