America Chavez

"American chavs"? No, we just call them-- oh, wait. Wait, yeah, no, never mind. America Chavez is a young girl from another universe, being hunted for her power - the unique ability to open doorways into the Multiverse. In the comics, America was originally a princess from another world, whose parents sacrificed themselves to save their reality from destruction; knowing the Utopia she lived in didn't need heroes, she decided to honor her mothers' actions by travelling the multiverse and helping those in trouble. Later she learned that might have been a fairy tale she told herself to cover up some pretty traumatic stuff, though who knows? Revelations made by bad guys aren't the most reliable things in the world. Whether her powers came accidentally or intentionally, they're still the same, and so is she. America is played in the movie by Xochitl Gomez, who's just 15 - the character in the comics is a little older, since she attends college, but clearly the MCU is hoping to have her around as a kid for a while. The likeness is decent, and her skintone is appropriately tan; the Funko POP!s had to be fixed after the digital renders were too light. The live-action costume is very true to the books. Miss America wears a jean jacket with stripes on the shoulders and stars on the sleeves, plus a large star covering the back. She's got black jeans and big, chunky sneakers that help her look young - you know, exaggerating the extremities to make the body look smaller. These aren't the existing jean legs - they're sized more like the teen body's, logically - but the more they can sell the idea she's a kid now, the longer she can "be" a kid later. That's right, the MCU is stealing tricks from Twilight's Cullens. The arms are existing parts, but the rest of the body (below the neck) is a Dennis Chan sculpt. So the bio reveals 'Murica will have her interdimensional portal powers, but we're going to guess she won't have the rest, because that would make the story too unbalanced. She's basically got the standard combo platter: strength, speed, flight, and invulnerability. There's also bit of cosmic awareness that lets her teleport to the places she means to, and she can even open portals through time if she has the focus to do so. This figure doesn't have any accessories, just alternate open hands and lots of articulation. She does, however, get the biggest piece of the Rintrah, the full torso. America Chavez was created by Joe Casey and Nick Dragotta for Vengeance, a miniseries pretty much no one read. She was saved from obscurity by Kieron Gillen when he was prepping his Young Avengers run and was told he couldn't use Elijah Bradley; just wanting a star-spangled stand-in for the Captain America slot, he picked Miss America and (with Jamie McKelvie) revamped her into the character who's popular enough today to get adapted into the MCU. -- 04/23/22

Tweet