The Avengers movie continued to dominate the box office for a third straight weekend; sinking the premier of Battleship and quashing opening weekend draws for The Dictator. With Batman: The Dark Knight Rises and The Amazing Spider-Man 3D waiting in the wings, it looks like comic book-based movies will rule the world of summer blockbusters in 2012.
Comic books are capable of holding the attention of young people in a way that few other mediums are capable. As CBS News intern Rachel Allen points out in this 2009 article, the genre has evolved from stories of superheroes battling super villains to save the world into graphic novels that relate the complexities of human interaction; and, in so doing, it has expanded its audience to readers of different age groups as well encompassed more readers who are female or from other cultures.
There have been several superheroes with disabilities. The blind crusader for justice known as Daredevil has been around since the 1960s; while the whole premise of X-Men, with Charles Henry Xavier (a.k.a. “Professor X”) and his School for Gifted Youngsters can be seen as a commentary on people with disabilities. In response to a thought-provoking 2006 Ragged Edge magazine essay by George Washington University Associate Professor Robert McRuer about superheroes and disabilities, one responder named Evonne comments:
I see movies such as the ‘X Men’ and ‘Fantastic 4’ as being useful as a kind of modern legend, and to see these people as folks with disabilities making lemonade out of the lemons life seems to have handed them. Our oldest son, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, admires Ben Grimm of the ‘Fantastic 4’ as someone who is perceived to be horribly different, but when someone takes the time to look past the exterior, finds a sweet person. Our son has also found Ben a great help in learning to control his temper — something always a problem with those on the autistic spectrum.
Now comes the Silver Scorpion, which according to this post-title on the Disability.gov blog features “The First Ever Cross-Cultural Superhero with a Disability.” The comic book is a creation of the Open Hands Initiative, a nonprofit seeking to bridge gaps between world cultures and to raise awareness about “the rights and inclusion of persons with disability in schools.”
The origin of the Silver Scorpion book was a 2010 Youth Ability Summit in Damascus. (For the character’s origin, read the digital version of the comic.) The blog post says summit participants worked with disability rights expert and Liquid Comics to develop the character. Open Hands Initiative is also developing an animated Web series for the character in hopes that it can be used as teaching tool that ultimately “encourages understanding, dialogue and tolerance not just for persons with disabilities, but also for people from different cultures around the world.”
Do you have any positive identifications with comic book characters? Share in the comments section below.
Image by technochick (Angie Linder), used under its Creative Commons license.
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