Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness makes it way to Disney+ this week, allowing fans to experience (or revisit) the Marvel Studios blockbuster. One of the most buzzworthy additions to the saga’s ensemble just might be America Chavez (Xochitl Gomez), who made her live-action debut in the film after just over a decade of comic appearances. Gomez’s portrayal of America ended up factoring into Multiverse of Madness in some pretty unexpected ways — and the events of the film just may have set the groundwork for a spinoff surrounding her.
Created by Joe Casey and Nick Dragotta in 2011’s Vengeance, America Chavez originated as a unique legacy version of the Golden Age superhero Miss America, with the abilities of super strength, super speed, and flight. Over subsequent comic appearances, America’s status quo was further fleshed out by other creative teams, with the revelation that she existed from a corner of the multiverse known as the Utopian Parallel. Along the way, America was confirmed to be a lesbian, entering in romantic relationships with characters like Lisa Halloran and Ramone Watts, and developing a close friendship with Kate Bishop / Hawkeye. As her popularity grew, America ultimately headlined her own comic on several occasions, making her the first LGBTQ+ Latin-American character in the Marvel universe to have her own ongoing solo book.
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America’s appearance in Multiverse of Madness condensed a lot of these qualities within the film’s two-hour runtime, showing the origin story of her powers on the Utopian Parallel, and setting up the lingering mystery of whether or not her two mothers might still be out there in the multiverse. We also got to see America briefly sharing a scene with an alternate-Earth version of Billy and Tommy Maximoff, who she eventually operates alongside on the Young Avengers. The end of the film left America comfortably at home on Earth-616, studying as a student at the Mystic Arts school on Kamar-Taj. And while the film did not explicitly confirm America’s own LGBTQ+ identity, with the majority of the discussion surrounding the appearance of her moms, Marvel executive Victoria Alonso has confirmed that Gomez’s version of the character is also part of the LGBTQ+ community.
All of these elements feel substantial enough to be explored in the future, and it certainly seems as if Marvel Studios has aspirations to do so, with Multiverse of Madness writer Michael Waldron teasing to Vanity Fair that the film deliberately attempted “to set up a mystery to be solved in the future” with regards to America searching for her moms. While that storyline could easily be folded into the MCU’s next multiversal story, or even into a larger Young Avengers spinoff, there’s more than enough meat on the bone to justify a hypothetical solo spinoff for America. Just look at America, her first solo series written by Gabby Rivera with art from a rotating array of artists. The series followed America during her time as a college student at Sotomayor University, and established a supporting cast of diverse allies and adversaries around her. While the MCU’s version of America might not be headed to college thus yet, it’s not impossible to imagine a solo story of her navigating high school, her role as a superhero on a new Earth, and possibly even her ties to the Masters of the Mystic Arts. If the overwhelmingly positive critical and fan response to Disney+’s recent Ms. Marvel series is any indication, MCU audiences are enjoying creatively-driven, diverse coming-of-age stories — a formula we already know they’re going to replicate again with the upcoming Ironheart series.
With the future of the MCU seemingly only getting more multiversal and more character-driven, it would be delightful to see America Chavez be part of that fold, possibly getting her own solo story in some capacity. Not only would this strengthen the character’s inevitable future appearances in things like Young Avengers, but it would allow Gomez’s portrayal of the fan-favorite character to really shine.
Do you want America Chavez to get her own MCU spinoff? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!
