It’s Disability Pride Month, which is the perfect time to profile a few notable disabled heroes. Given the nature of superhero comics, however, I should set a few guidelines.
First, many heroes have existed for decades, and many have suffered disabling injuries at some point. Batman is maybe the most famous example, having had his back broken in Knightfall, but there are others. Iron Man was shot and paralyzed for a while in the late 1980s, and Arsenal lost an arm in Cry for Justice. While these were devastating in the short term, the status quo was pretty thoroughly restored in each of these cases. For this list, I’m sticking with characters whose disability was significant, either in its duration or its impact on the character.
Second, I’m only including characters with physical disabilities, mostly for space reasons. But for the record: mental disabilities are disabilities, too, and they should be taken just as seriously as physical disabilities. I’d like to give mentally ill and disabled superheroes their own list at some point.
Third, I’m not counting characters whose disabilities vanish when they transform into superheroes, like Freddie Freeman/Captain Marvel Jr. or Don Blake/Thor. Nor am I discussing superpower-related conditions that could be considered disabilities, like Cyclops having to wear red glasses or Aquaman needing to take a bath every hour. I’m sure someone could write an excellent piece on whether or not these limitations are good metaphors for disability, but that’s not what I’m here to do. Instead, I’m here to tell you about…
The Really Famous Ones You Already Know
I’m reserving most of this list for characters who aren’t on the A-list. However, for completion’s sake–not that I’m claiming this list encompasses Every Disabled Hero Ever, mind–let’s shoot through a few of the more famous names:
The Stack
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- Daredevil lost his sight after an accident involving the same ooze that created the Ninja Turtles. It’s true, look it up.
- Professor X, leader of the X-Men, began using a wheelchair because of aliens. This is also true, as you can read in X-Men #20.
- The Winter Soldier lost an arm in the explosion that supposedly killed him when he was Captain America’s sidekick, Bucky. This proved to be the least of his problems.
- Explanations regarding how the original Nick Fury lost his eye have differed over the years. His son, the Nick Fury most people are familiar with now, lost an eye due to torture or, if you’re an MCU fan, flerken attack.
- Fooled you, Iron Man goes on this list anyway due to his sometimes painful and potentially fatal heart condition. All attempts at treatment have failed to permanently address the issue.
Niles Caulder
Predating Professor X by three whole months, Caulder is the wheelchair-using leader of a band of misfit heroes, the Doom Patrol. Also like Professor X, Caulder has been known to engage in ethically dubious activities, complicating his status as a hero.
Madame Web
A clairvoyant who uses her abilities to help Spider-Man on occasion, Cassandra Webb is blind and has myasthenia gravis. The latter condition leaves her extremely weak, to the point where she can’t survive outside her customized, web-like life support system. It does not, however, stop her from being sarcastic when necessary. She first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #210.
Sadly, Madame Web is dead at the moment, but given how comic books work, one can hope she’ll be back to make more predictions soon enough.
Dr. Mid-Nite/Midnight
Dr. Mid-Nite (sometimes Dr. Midnight) must be the most specific legacy character in comics. All three–Charles McNider, Beth Chapel, and Pieter Cross–are medical doctors who lost their sight in an accident, only to realize they could still see in the dark. Naturally, they decided the only thing to do with this ability was to fight crime.
Hawkeye
Clint Barton lost much of his hearing in a supervillain attack in the 1983 Hawkeye miniseries and started wearing hearing aids as a result. While his hearing was restored for a while due to reality-warping reasons, he ultimately lost it again during Fraction and Aja’s run on Hawkeye. Issue 19, right after Clint is deafened for the second time, features a good deal of blank speech bubbles and sign language.
Jericho and Ravager
Both children of the mercenary Deathstroke, Joseph Wilson and Rose Wilson, are disabled. Joe lost the ability to speak after his vocal cords were damaged during a kidnapping attempt, and Rose, uh, stabbed herself in the eye in a very maladjusted attempt to bond with her one-eyed father. Ick. Both would join the Teen Titans at different times: Jericho in Tales of the New Teen Titans #44 and Ravager in New Titans #122.
The Shroud
Maximillian Coleridge is, if you couldn’t tell by the name, super rich. After his parents were killed Batman-style, he endured intense training to become a superhero, which ultimately cost him his sight. Not the most fun guy to be around, but he usually means well. He also got to be Moon Knight for about ten minutes, which went badly.
The Pied Piper
Another rich kid with issues! As revealed in Flash #190, Hartley Rathaway was born Deaf to ableist parents who spent a fortune to “fix” their “imperfect” son. The resulting hi-tech implants gave Hartley super-hearing and sparked an obsession with music. He at first parlayed this fixation into crime, using a hypnotic flute to commit robberies, but he has since become a dependable ally and friend to the Flash.
Misty Knight
After losing her arm while serving on the NYPD bomb squad, Misty was given a strength-enhancing bionic prosthetic by Tony Stark. Several upgrades later, the arm became even cooler and was made virtually indestructible. Misty has remained in law enforcement over the years, even running a private-eye business with her friend Colleen Wing.
Oracle
Barbara Gordon was Batgirl for years before being shot and paralyzed by the Joker in The Killing Joke, one of the more controversial Batman stories ever published. The silver lining: Barbara emerged from this as another badass and iconic character, the computer hacker Oracle.
Unfortunately, in yet another controversial move, DC gave Barbara back the use of her legs in 2011. Among the justifications given for this was the fact that the DC universe is filled with miracle cures and resurrections, so it makes little sense for Oracle to remain paralyzed. Indeed, as I said at the beginning, there are plenty of examples of heroes who were severely injured only to regain their lost abilities after a short time.
But how far do they want to take this argument? Should Nick Fury regrow his eye because, apparently, it’s illogical for him not to? Are disabled people not allowed to exist at all in fantasy and sci-fi? I hope that’s not the case, because the characters listed here are compelling just as they are.
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