DC Comics releases special covers for Hispanic Heritage Month, and it backfires spectacularly

DC Comics released covers for some books to honor Hispanic Heritage Month, but the ham-fisted effort backfired on the company very quickly.

Twitter users began complaining that the Hispanic Heritage covers appeared to simply show some superheroes with Hispanic foods like tacos and tamales.

"DC Comics really said Hispanic heritage means putting tacos in their characters hands and that's it. This is just weird all around," responded one critic.

".@DCComics wants you to know Mexican superheroes go around doing 'hero things' while carrying a bag of tamales," tweeted another critic.

"What the actual f*** @DCComics how incredibly insulting. My culture is more than freaken tacos and being a server. #racist," replied another detractor.

The covers showed the Green Lantern character with a bag of tamales floating out into space, another character grabbing plates from a fried plantain shop, and Blue Beetle jumping on rooftops in the city with more Hispanic food.

It gets worse ...

The furor worsened when one of the creators involved said that DC Comics appeared to have edited his contribution in order to add tamales. Jorge Molina said that he drew up the image as an homage to Jorge Gonzalez Camarena, a respected Mexican muralist.

"Due to some legal issues, this cover was not suppose to see the light of day (it’s unfinished, you’ll notice both the Mexican flag in incomplete and GL chest logo is missing)," he explained. "How this image got promoted by DC is a mystery to me, don’t know if it was a mistake or in the end they decided to go for it."

The adapted cover that was published by DC Comics replaced the lantern in the character's hand and added a bag full of tamales.

It also replaced the unfinished Mexican flag in the original with a green banner reading "VIVA MEXICO!!"

"DC did not f***ing give Green Lantern a bag of tamales wtf are you doing," read one reply.

Others said the incident made them hungry for Mexican food.

"What DC did with that Green Lantern cover is terrible and problematic. But I am craving tamales pretty bad now. So I guess it's complicated," read one tweet.

Molina tweeted on Monday that DC Comics decided to replace the tamales cover with his original, less offensive, cover. The comic book company told NPR that the tamales cover was not supposed to be released, but they offered no explanation for the other Hispanic food covers.

Hispanic Heritage Month begins on September 15.