La Borinqueña is a Puerto Rican superhero created by Edgardo Miranda-Rodriguez. She has been the central character in a series of self-published graphic novels, including La Borinqueña and Ricanstruction. Now, through connections on Twitter, Miranda-Rodriguez is working with other artists to get a live action series on Netflix.
La Borinqueña is a traditional superhero in many ways. This is no surprise, since Miranda-Rodriguez has experience working with Marvel.
Her alter-ego is a Brooklyn geology student named Marisol Ríos de la Luz. In her first adventure, she visits Puerto Rico and learns from ancient Taino deities how to use crystals to gain superpowers. In Ricanstruction, she meets up with Wonder Woman in El Yunque, Puerto Rico’s rain forest. Together, they admire the native birds, express sadness at the destruction caused by Hurricane Maria, and pledge to work to rebuild PuertoRico.
La Borinqueña has already had a display at the Smithsonian, where her costume and her first adventure are included in the permanent exhibits.
Will she become a Netflix series?
Comicbook.com shared the next part of the story. Netflix commissioned an Annenberg Foundation study which showed that Netflix needs to improve their representation of the Latinx community. Miranda-Rodriguez responded to the news with a tweet proposing a TV series based on la Boriqueña. Filmmaker Rosario Dawson tweeted that she would like to direct the pilot. Fans of actress Madison Reyes started up a hashtag campaign, #MadiAsLaBorinqueña, and Reyes expressed interest in the project.
Dawson provided the voice for several PSAs starring La Borinqueña, such as the video shown below.
Netflix has made no public response to the discussion being held largely in social media.
