Steve Rogers, better known as Captain America, today held his usual press conference following The Avengers’ latest battle against a cosmic existential threat to the planet. He reported that Granicus the Imperishable, along with her thousands of warrior slaves, was indeed quite perishable, and Earth would be free of her machinations in the future. Rogers then announced that The Avengers deployed Shanti Ananda, also known as Walter Mercado, during the battle. This led the Hispanic reporters in the scrum to give each other thoroughly perplexed looks.

“Walter Mercado?” asked Dolores Entrada, of Televisa. “The Puerto Rican astrologer who’s pushing 90 years old?”

“The very same,” replied Rogers.

“He fought off xenocidal aliens?” rejoined Entrada.

“He did indeed.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

A perturbed grumble travelled among the Latino journalists.

“Um, how’d he do?” inquired Rogelio Ernesto of Univision.

Rogers paused, pursed his lips, and shrugged. “He did fine, you know? I mean, Walter Mercado is an icon. There were lasers and bullets flying everywhere, and all sorts of explosions, so we decided he’d be best suited for a supporting role at the edge of the fight.”

“Did he kill any monsters?” questioned Gloria Rodriguez of Telemundo.

Rogers gave a tight-lipped smile. “I was pretty busy hitting bad guys with a shield, but I don’t think so.”

“So what did he do?” demanded Rodriguez.

“Plenty!” insisted Rogers.

“Like what?”

Rogers looked uneasily from side to side.

“Mostly raise his arms and extemporize about how Mars was in retrograde and Jupiter in Sagittarius. He also kept wishing ‘mucho, mucho amor’ to everyone, so that bolstered morale, I guess.”

“I believe I’m speaking for all the Latinos in the group when ask why the hell you recruired Walter Mercado?” asked Pedro Ponce of UniMás.

Rogers shifted uncomfortably behind the podium.

“Look, it took us a few years, but we’ve got some Black superheroes on the team, and they’re doing great! But our bosses in corporate insisted we needed more Hispanic representation, and that’s where things got tricky.”

Rogers nervously cleared his throat and stared at his feet.

“Miles Morales is a great Spiderman. We’d love to have him, but he lives in a different Spiderverse, so we couldn’t get him. I think Kyle Rayner and Jessica Cruz were both Green Lanterns. Unfortunately, they’re DC, and that’s a no-go. And so, we were at a total loss until our intern Julia mentioned Walter, and he kind of sounds like a Puerto Rican Dr. Strange, so we just brought him onboard.”

An awkward silence descended on the room.

“You seriously couldn’t find any other Latino superheroes? You know there are 47 million of us in this country right?” insisted Jeremy Guardiola of ABC News.

“Yeah look, we tried really hard, but we just couldn’t.”

“Are you ever going to recruit an Asian superhero?” queried Alice Kim of Buzzfeed.

“That’s a wrap everyone!” interjected Rogers, practically fleeing from the podium. “See you next time Earth is doomed!”

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Andrew Otazo

'Miami Creation Myth' author Andrew Otazo has advised officials on Cuba policy, worked for the Mexican president, fired a tank, and ran with 30lbs of trash.

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