There`s a new face in the comic books industry...and it`s brown.

If you`re familiar with comic books, you might have pictured a room of middle-aged white men developing ideas for characters and stories. The last thing you`d expect to see is a thirty-something Latino with a goatee listening to Pete Rock, pouring over pages for the next issue of Spider-Man, but that is the new reality at Marvel Comics.

While most people are caught up in the hype of the Latin Explosion, following the escapades of J.Lo and Ricky Martin, other Latinos are creating adventures for mainstream icons.

"Latino talent is coming from everywhere," says Axel Alonso, the fist Latino to oversee Spider-Man comics, Marvel`s flagship publication. "Humberto Ramos (the cover artist for Spider-Man) is from Mexico. And there are cultural echoes in the way Eduardo Risso who`s from Argentina (100 Bullets, Vertigo) draws his characters!"

As a person of Mexican-Spanish-British heritage, Alonso has the uncanny ability to blend in with the predominantly white comic book industry. "I passed, because I`m mixed, but I`m Latino. I grew up mostly around Black kids. Growing up I couldn`t relate to Superman, but I could relate to Luke  Cage and Shang Chi. I desperately tried to find a Latino, character, someone I could relate to, but I couldn`t find it."

Keeping true to his words, Alonso is proud of many of the projects he is presently working on. "Back at Marvel, we`re bringing back Luke Cage to appeal to an urban audience. He`ll be reintroduced in an adult line that Marvel is currently developing because you just can`t have a Luke Cage without the word motherfu**er! Frankly, I wish we had a Latino character, but it`s just a matter of time before we do that."

Unlike most who end up in the comic book biz, Alonso didn`t take the usual route. "I wasn`t going to do art school, because no one was going to do me favors, so I took the practical route. My family at first thought I was crazy," Alonso says. "They had some concern, but they`ve always been supportive."

After studying Sociology at UCSC, he developed a strong interest in report-
ing and attended Columbia School of Journalism for a one-year intensive. "Then I realized that what I enjoyed writing wasn`t paying the bills, and what I didn`t like to write paid well," he laughed. "I took a chance with Vertigo Comics and it paid off. I`m proud of my run there too, because race became a component of all of these stories and they always had a sense of realism with an urban flair."

Although comic books now reach a broader audience due to the latest Hollywood trend (Blade, X-Men and next year`s Spider-Man) there is still a core group of readers who are still overlooked.

"Comics as a medium is like Rock, but I listen to Hip Hop and I don`t relate to a lot of it. There`s a whole audience out there that have the same cultural references that I do, and we`re untapped. We have to remind them (comic publishers) that we are out there."

 Bringing new cultural perspectives and a fresh look is what made Alonso a catch for Marvel. "When Marvel approached me, I wasn`t all that interested," he says. "Then after time, they offered me Spider-Man, and I laughed. I hadn`t read Spider-Man in almost 20 years, but they liked that because I came in with my own ideas. My take would be that this character needed to feel like New York, from cab drivers to brothers in the classroom."

As for the next Latino Wolverine, Alonso sees it as a cultural challenge. "I want to create a Latino superhero, but for example, Puerto Ricans and Mexicans don`t have that much in common. We`re also not all `spicy and hot.` There`s an audience out there and at the end of the day they want to see people who look like them."

Originally published in: