Published 5:00 am Wednesday, October 28, 2026
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Salmon Arm’s Kennett Woodhurst was in first place in the quarter-finals of the Stan Lee Super Kids contest as of Tuesday, Oct. 27, 2026.
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Kennett Woodhurst ready for <a href="https://comicvibe.com/pop-culture-costume-predictions-whats-hot-this-halloween/” title=”Pop Culture Costume Predictions: What's Hot This Halloween?”>Halloween as Hulk, his sister as Spider-Man and his mom Rachel Woodhurst as Black Widow.
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Already a super kid in his parents eyes, Salmon Arm’s Kennett Woodhurst is making new fans as Super Ear, his superhero identity.
As of Tuesday, Oct. 27, the five-year-old True Believer was in first place in the quarter finals of Stan Lee’s Super Kid, a contest run by the Stan Lee Foundation, named after the legendary comic book writer and creator/co-creator of many famous Marvel Comics characters including The Fantastic Four, Thor, The Avengers, Black Panther, X-Men, Hulk, Iron Man and Spider-Man.
The winner of the Super Kids contest will have their superhero identity transformed into a Stan Lee Universe comic book.
While Spidey is Kennett’s favourite superhero, the web-slinger and the armoured Avenger have both inspired his alter ego, Super Ear. The name comes from Kennett’s power: bionic super hearing, made possible by a hearing aid he was fitted for in April.
“He sees himself mostly in Iron Man because of the Super Ear and the kind of bionic nature it, but his favourite overall is Spider-Man. He wishes he had webs more than anyone I’ve ever met,” said mom Rachel Woodhurst.
Sharing Super Ear’s origin story, Rachel, a Marvel Comics fan, explained Kennett has been raised on comic books and superheroes “because it’s something that I think is fun and interesting.”
“He’s always enjoyed them. What really shifted and why I nominated him for the contest was that the past year has been pretty challenging for Kennett. We ended up finding out he is moderately deaf in his left ear and has been since birth – but we didn’t know until he was four.”
From numerous medical appointments, including an ear specialist at BC Children’s Hospital, it was determined Kennett was born with a congenital abnormality in his left ear called Incomplete Partition Type 2, associated with an enlarged vestibular aqueduct. Rachel said there’s no prognosis of it worsening. She said “it can be stable for a long time and suddenly decline rapidly, or can slowly decline, or not decline at all.”
“When he does his actual hearing tests it presents in a like conductive hearing loss, like when kids get swimmers ear or when they’re really sick and can’t hear as well,” Rachel explained. “So it’s been kind of a medical mystery – it stumped the audiologists, which is why we have so many different medical professionals involved.
“Sometimes his ear causes him pain, physical pain to touch. It’s still a work in progress to figure out all of it, but certainly he can hear better and he is able to do way more in terms of childhood development… you wouldn’t believe how different of a kid he is since April.”
When Kennett was to be fitted for a hearing aid, Rachel was concerned for how that might affect his starting kindergarten. That concerned dissolved soon after Kennett received the device – blue and red like Spider-Man’s costume – and Super Ear came into being.
“Since he got that hearing aid we’ve only referred to it has his Super Ear and that was his invention,” said Rachel. “He really honed in on that it was no different than Iron Man or any other superhero who has something technological and bionic that makes that makes them super. He’s so proud of it.
“He has a couple of Marvel charms for it and he doesn’t shy away from it, he’s not embarrassed by it, he wears it very proudly and I couldn’t be more proud as a mom that this isn’t something… he’s ashamed of having, because he just truly believes that it makes him like a super hero.”
When Rachel learned about the Super Kids contest, naturally she entered her son.
“All he talks about now are superheroes… sometimes the battle is letting him know he can’t wear a full superhero mask to the grocery store,” said Rachel. “So that’s why I nominated him. We’ve been successful so far just with friends and family voting for him, but now that we’re entering this next, really high stakes round, it feels we could actually get him across the finish line for it.”
In addition to the comic book, the contest winner will also receive $25,000 and four VIP passes to the 2027 Los Angeles Comic Con event – something Kennett and Rachel, a Wanda Maximoff/Scarlett Witch fan, would be in costume for.
“I’ve been posting and reminding folks to vote…,” said Rachel. “I can turn around at any given moment and he has some part of a costume on, so it’s pretty easy to capture him and show his love of Marvel. It’s very genuine. It’s not forced by any means and so I’m really hopeful that we can get him to L.A.”
The public can vote for Kennett at thesuperkid.org/2026/kennett-c458, with semi finals voting ending on Thursday, Nov. 5.
