LATINO SUPERHERO SPOTLIGHT: EL DIABLO

Well, looks like DC Comics has three for three for classic Latino superheroes. Interestingly enough, this may in fact be the company's first solo series starring a Latino character, brought to life by Gerard Jones and Mike Parobeck in 1989. The editor who delegated this side passion project was Brian Augustyn, writer of the 1996 Firebrand.

Honestly, I love Gerard Jones El Diablo, where a grounded hero is in his proper element, handling cases such as drug cartels, child murder, social political uprisings and immigration.

Normally, I prefer politics to stay out of comic books. However, this was the time when comics would naturally become darker and grittier, reflecting the harsh realities of our world.

X-Men’s God Loves Man Kills by Chris Claremon comes to mind. Superheroes like Daredevil and Batman thrived (others like Spider-Man got buried alive by a psychotic Kraven The Hunter), and the old pulp heroes would adapt quite nicely, characters like The Shadow and The Question. Stories like Alan Moore's Watchmen were dissecting the traditional superhero.

The stage was set for a new age of heroes, and among the chaos was the second iteration of El Diablo, a comic about the current climate of systemic racism that bled America, that of which shockingly holds relevance to this day.

If that's enough to turn you away.. I get it. We're living in a time now where anyone with a phone and Twitter account feel as though they've had a breakthrough about everything, and attempt to bring down the man as though they were the first to do it, hence the "woke" age. However, good writing can make one hell of a difference!

The main draw of El Diablo is that old fashion pulp charm, where a guy puts on an eye mask and uses nothing but his bare fists!

Rafael Sandoval is a rookie Counselman in the slowly developing town of Dos Rios in Texas. He is a good, honest man who tries to change the system to benefit the peoples interest, but soon finds the only way to do so is to conformity.

Outside of the suit and tie, he dons the costume of EL DIABLO, a Robin Hood like character who fights for the unheard people of Dos Rios.

The thing that personally hooked me more than anything were the characters. Rafael (El Diablo) interacts with a group of delinquent teens who wish to turn their lives around after being inspired by El Diablo, their one and only hero. They form a clika, and help out with the community alongside him.

The comic takes a lot of time to develop the relationship of said characters, making them feel alive and breathing. You end up feeling the weight and impact when their lives are at risk during these adventures.

Rafael Sandoval is an honest man who wants to do good, though has a shady past (one which we don’t see too much of unfortunately, due to the series cancellation)

However, the people see him as, for lack of a better word, an “Uncle Tom. Speaking as a Latin American who is often considered whitewashed, I can’t help but relate a little bit.

This all brings me to my main critique of this limited series. The same thing that makes the story interesting is the same thing that alienates the readers who wanted more traditional superhero fanfare.

It’s all about racism within the Hispanic community, external and internal.This sort of topic was not new for comics at the time, but Gerard Jones really splays it out like a vivisection. The second story arc “The Storm” being an absolute page turner, which is a mystery on a string of child murders in which the press tries and make into a brown vs white case.

The stories don’t offer much else. The later half of the series isn’t as solid. Maybe it was burnout on the subject, or maybe because we hardly see the masked hero often, only in short well placed bits.

In a world with Superman, Wonder Woman and Batman, this seems rather mundane, but within the little pocket of a universe that is El Diablo comics, it manages to be just as immersive for how real everything is.

The fact of the matter is, this was made with passion, from the writing to the art on every page!

Perhaps it’s for the best it is a limited series, but I still would have liked to see this character more in action. I like him so much that I would watch any adventure he was in, whether there was a political message or not.

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As for El Diablo, the character would go through another change in the form of Chato Santana in 2008, created by Phil Hester and Ande Parks. They gave him pyrokinesis and went full in on the devil motif. This would be the version that would appear in 2015’s Suicide Squad movie.

In my honest opinion, El Diablo 1989 is really a worth a read, just for the novelty of a small town hero inspiring the less fortunate to become better versions of themselves. That’s the makeup of any great hero, powers or not.