Making Space for Latinx Futurisms: A Review of Major Thomás!

Major Thomás debuts March 25, 2025 on Comixology

Trusty sidekick? Check.

Tragic backstory? Check.

Exoplanetary battles, space colonialism, and robot-reptoid conflict with contemporary political parallels? Check plus and then some.

Major Thomás is the latest space adventure story from Omar Morales, following the line of Morales’ earlier comics like Moon Girl (2019) and The Lunar Ladies (2021). This time around, Morales and artist Serg Acuna craft a turbulent lost-in-space odyssey that channels Latinx Futurism through its protagonist, Thomás Muñoz.

Thomás, introduced as “the youngest American astronaut to reach space” in the year 2036, has just enough self-doubt and anxiety to be as relatable as he is accomplished at a mere 25 years old. When their landmark NASA mission into hyperspace goes awry, Thomás and his monkey-robot sidekick AL-3 get stranded on exoplanet Wolf 1061, conscripted into a sentient robot army, and locked into battle with giant, mineral-hoarding reptoids.

Visually, the journey into outer space is as expansive and picturesque as any Webb telescope image, the battles fast-paced and chaotic like a Star Wars: The Clone Wars shootout. The robot-reptoid war over natural resources implies a much longer history of space colonization and destruction. However, it is through the Latinx protagonist’s interpersonal relationships– earthly and otherwise– that Major Thomás truly finds its narrative footing.

Migrant Farmworker Roots to Astronaut

Flashbacks throughout Thomás’ mission ground him to humble beginnings as youth from a crop farm in Salinas, California. For better or worse, the characters who shape Thomás’ formative years in Salinas flirt with familiar archetypes: Amelia, Thomás’ mother, is a single parent and a farmhand with unflagging kindness, Catholic piety, and a terminal disease; Lisa, the spunky childhood friend-turned-novia, is singularly protective of Thomás and follows him from Salinas, to engineering school, to (spoiler alert) the far reaches of the galaxy; Manny, Lisa’s father, is well-meaning but struggles with alcohol addiction; the racist, red-hatted, money-grubbing farm owner is named Dick for good measure while Rob, Dick’s son, is a blonde bully who simply can’t exist on the page without bullying Thomás or harassing Lisa.

Major Thomás does not hesitate to dramatize these relationships into a rollercoaster of formative successes and tragedies; for instance, Thomás grapples with the highs of promising futures (prestigious scholarships, burgeoning romance) and the lows of family tragedy.

But if Thomás’ upbringing is a Cinderella story of brown youth persevering through adversity and tragedy with hard work and loving support systems, it also speaks true to the conditions affecting those youth and the families of farmhands. Roughly 2.4 million farm workers, many identifying as Hispanic or Mexican, support the multibillion agricultural industry of the United States in harsh working and housing conditions. Children of migrant workers often labor alongside family members, contributing to family income but facing decreased rates for high school graduation. Major Thomás, then, affords readers a closer look into the agricultural workforce, distilling the nebulousness of the industry into specific, sympathetic characters whose lives and aspirations go beyond the labor they provide.

But if Thomás’ upbringing is a Cinderella story of brown youth persevering through adversity and tragedy with hard work and loving support systems, it also speaks true to the conditions affecting those youth and the families of farmhands.

Speaking of labor—

Thomás serving in the robot army in exchange for passage back to Earth is peak continuity for systematized labor. As part of the “pantheon of Latinx space travelers,” Thomás’ brown body works in service of NASA and for the rest of humanity, risking mortal danger and up to ten years of his life to find habitable planets.

On Wolf 1061c, that register of difference is even more pronounced when Thomás is surrounded by robots and giant lizards. It’s easy enough to root for Grand Admiral Gru and the robots over Randy and the reptoids at first glance—one side has a scrappy, lowrider biker squad, the other kicks (tailwhips?) furry little space Eevees.

Grand Admiral Gru, motley crew of robots, and reptoid in battle

But Major Thomás presents a jaded view of both earth and outer space labor systems in general. It takes much rallying from Lisa, her father, and the Mojave Desert hippies to get NASA director Rosales to retrieve Thomás (astral projection is involved). Davis, a gray alien who Thomás befriends, secretly gives his own spaceship to Admiral Gru in order for Thomás and AL-3 to be sent home.

The story infuses a healthy level of skepticism towards the institutions that Thomás gives his life and labor towards, which can feel frustrating when Thomás himself, internally and externally, never really pushes against the institutions that use him while his friends and loved ones do.

Morales leaves us on a cliffhanger: Thomás and AL-3 land into a near-unrecognizable San Francisco Bay, year 2502– a total of 466 years into the future. In the meantime, Lisa is now on Wolf 1061c– in the year 2492. I predict some Interstellar, time-dilation shenanigans will bring the two childhood sweethearts together in future releases, but then again, Morales has shown so far a willingness to keep his main characters under duress.

As it is, Major Thomás deserves a space among the pop culture fictions that feature Latinx characters taking part in and shaping the frontiers of space exploration (shameless plug for 2022 film A Million Miles Away, an excellent biopic on Jose Hernandez’s journey from farm worker to engineer to astronaut). In science fiction imaginaries where extraterrestrial aliens are often the go-to metaphors for human classism, bigotry, and propensity for violence against each other, it’s always refreshing to read stories that tackle such topics from the lens of the Latinx youth– and the interpersonal relationships that sustain them through it all.

Panel from Major Thomás

For more works from the creative team of Major Thomás, see:

Omar Morales (writer)

Serg Acuña (artist)

Mau Mora (artist)

Raúl Angulo (colorist)

Fabi Marques (colorist)

Taylor Esposito (letterer)

Gab Contreras (graphic designer)