Booksology Third, I’m not counting characters whose disabilities disappear when they transform into superheroes, such as Freddy Freeman/Captain Marvel Jr. and Don Blake/Thor. Nor does it discuss conditions associated with superpowers that could be considered disabilities, such as Cyclops having to wear red glasses or Aquaman having to take a bath every hour. I’m sure someone will write a great article about whether these limitations are a good metaphor for disability, but that’s not my purpose. Instead, what I would like to tell you here is…
really famous things you already know
I’ll save most of this list for characters who aren’t on the A-list. However, for the sake of completeness, we do not claim to include all disabled heroes in this list, just in case, let us introduce some of the more famous names.
stack
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- Daredevil lost his eyesight after an accident involving the same ooze that created the Ninja Turtles. It’s true, check it out.
- Professor X, the leader of the X-Men, begins using a wheelchair because of the aliens. This is also true. X-Men #20.
- The Winter Soldier was believed to have died after losing an arm in an explosion while serving as Captain America’s sidekick Bucky. This turned out to be the least of his problems.
- Accounts of how the original Nick Fury lost his eyes have varied over the years. His son, Nick Fury, as most people know him by now, lost an eye due to torture, or if you’re an MCU fan, a Flerken attack.
- You may have been fooled, but Iron Man is on this list because he has a heart condition that can sometimes be painful and even fatal. Treatment attempts have not permanently resolved the problem.
niles calder
Born three months before Professor X, Calder uses a wheelchair and is the leader of the Doom Patrol, a group of heroes of sociopaths. Like Professor X, Kaulder is known for engaging in ethically questionable activities, complicating his status as a hero.
madame web
Cassandra Webb, who is clairvoyant and occasionally uses her powers to help Spider-Man, is blind and suffers from myasthenia gravis. In the latter state, she is extremely weakened and unable to survive except on a customized web-like life support system. But that doesn’t stop her from being sarcastic when necessary. She first appeared in amazing spiderman #210.
Sadly, Madame Web is currently dead, but given the way the comics work, we can expect her to return soon to make more predictions.
Doctor Midnight/Midnight
Dr. Mid-Nite (sometimes Dr. Midnight) has to be the most tangible legacy character in comics. Charles McNider, Beth Chappell, and Peter Cross, all doctors who lost their eyesight in an accident, discovered they could still see in the dark. Naturally, they decided that the only thing to do with this ability was to fight crime.
hawkeye
Clint Barton lost most of his hearing in a supervillain attack in 1983. hawkeye I took part in a mini-series and started wearing hearing aids as a result. Due to reality-warping reasons, his hearing was briefly restored, but he eventually lost it again during Fraction and Aja’s escape. hawkeye. Issue #19 takes place right after Clint becomes deaf for the second time, and is filled with blank speech bubbles and sign language.
jericho and ravager
The children of the mercenary Deathstroke, Joseph Wilson and Rose Wilson, both have disabilities. Joe’s vocal chords are damaged in an attempted kidnapping, leaving him without the ability to speak, and Rose stabs herself in the eye in a maladaptive attempt to bond with her one-eyed father. No way. Both would join the Teen Titans at different times: Jericho The story of the New Teen Titans #44 and Ravager new titan #122.
shroud
Maximilian Coleridge may not be obvious from his name, but he is extremely wealthy. After his parents are killed Batman-style, he endures intense training to become a superhero, eventually losing his eyesight. He’s not a very fun guy to be around, but he mostly has good intentions. He could have been Moon Knight for about 10 minutes, but it didn’t work out.
Pied piper
Another troubled rich kid! As revealed in flash #190, Hartley Rathaway was born deaf to disabled parents who spent a fortune to “fix” their “incomplete” son. The resulting high-tech implant gave Hartley super-hearing and sparked an obsession with music. He initially used this obsession to commit crimes, using a hypnotic whistle to commit robberies, but has since become a trusted ally and friend to the Flash.
misty night
After losing her arm while working in the New York City Police Department’s bomb squad, Misty is given a bionic prosthetic limb by Tony Stark to increase her strength. After some upgrades, the arm became even cooler and virtually indestructible. Misty continued to work in law enforcement for many years and even ran a private company with her friend Colleen Wing.
oracle
Barbara Gordon served as Batgirl for years until she was shot and paralyzed by the Joker. killing jokeone of the most controversial Batman stories ever published. Silver lining: Barbara appeared as another villainous and iconic character, the computer hacker Oracle.
Unfortunately, DC brought back the use of Barbara’s legs in 2011 in an even more controversial move. One of the reasons to justify this is the fact that the DC world is filled with miracle cures and resurrections, and it makes little sense for Oracle to remain paralyzed. In fact, as mentioned at the beginning, there are many examples of severely injured heroes regaining their lost abilities in a short period of time.
But how far do they want to push this discussion? Should Nick Fury’s eyes be regenerated, since it’s obviously illogical not to regenerate them? Are disabled people not allowed to exist at all in fantasy and science fiction? I hope that’s not the case, because the characters listed here are fascinating as they are.
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