Superheroes Need Disabilities

Found Image at www.comicsalliance.com

Spent a good part of the day watching YouTube videos of people participating in cosplay at all the different nerdy conventions; i.e. Dragoncon, Comicon, Animecon, etc. and was a little surprised at my lack of surprise that there were very little in the way of disabled comic superheroes or anime characters.  We have Prof. Xavier and Daredevil, but is that the best we can come up with?

A Handful of Cosplay

One of the reasons I got so caught up into watching the different YouTube videos is because A) I am a nerd and I love everything sci-fi as I'm sure you already know, and B) I have been really wanting to participate in the hugely popular cosplay.  However, I am interested in keeping true to the characters back story, I'm not into trying to be a person in a wheelchair trying to portray a character who normally walks.  As strange as that may sound, and somewhat defeatist, I see it as an acceptance of reality and who I am, better to be true then lie to myself.

With the great advancement in technology, and a seemingly perfect origin story for a great superhero, you would think there would be more opportunities to tap into a more gritty, dark, and yet real story for a comic or graphic novel.  By great advancement in technology I mean the concept of advanced technology we can think of in the realm of storytelling.  Imagine we have a Ironman in a chair, who gets in a fight with a villain and is getting his butt kicked.  The villain knocks the hero out of his chair, the source of most of his technological advantage.  As the hero, scraped and bloodied, slowly clawing his way, grunting excruciatingly back to his chair while the villain cackles behind him… Now see, you're in anticipation, waiting for what happened to the hero aren't you?  Admittedly, I am not as much into the graphic novel scene as I should be to make any real judgment on the state of disabilities within comics or graphic novels, but I have not seen anything like that before.

There Have Been Some.

You look at Batman, a billionaire with a dark origin, leading to a lot of money to spend, time, and no superpowers.  We have a man's parents slaughtered in front of him as a child, who grows up to use technology to fight crime and clean up the streets of Gotham city.  Switch out a healthy individual with someone who has lost the ability to walk, deepening the plot, and you have yourself a interesting and quite compelling superhero.  Professor Xavier gets pretty close, but is somewhat assisted with his telekinesis abilities.

Back in February, 2013, there was a story issued by CNN that talked about a hearing-impaired boy who got a superhero created for him.  But I guess for me I'm hoping for something on the lines of Daredevil.  With its dark and gritty realism, in the form of a wheelchair for not only comic or graphic novels, but also in anime.  I am not much of an artist, and I'm barely a writer, but maybe one day I could create something.  If any of you know of anything like this, be sure to comment down below.