Seeing Yourself On The Page: The Importance of Disabled Heroes

We all want to see heroes that are like us when we pick up a book or go to the movies. So what does good representation mean for the disabled community? What disabled heroes are there, and what makes them great?

If I were to ask you to name some disabled heroes in fiction, who would you think of? Charles Xavier, for sure. Maybe Daredevil or Oracle. But today, I’m going to talk about some of my favorites- Toph, from Avatar: The Last Airbender, Cyborg from DC Comics (and the Zack Snyder version of Justice League), Legion from Marvel Comics, Deadpool from Marvel Comics, and Percy Jackson from Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

Why Are These My Favorite Disabled Heroes?

Toph, Cyborg, Legion, Deadpool, and Percy are some of my favorite disabled heroes. And what I love about them is that they aren’t heroes despite their disabilities- they’re heroes because of their disabilities. Would Cyborg be one of the most powerful members of the Justice League without his prostheses? Would Toph be the most powerful Earthbender in history if she wasn’t blind?

No.

Someone like Charles Xavier is definitely great disabled representation, particularly for wheelchair users, I’m not denying that. But my issue with him is that he falls into that category that most people put those of us who are disabled into. The category of being too frail, too weak, to really manage to do things ourselves. Sure, Professor X is a powerful telepath, but that’s got nothing to do with his disability. He just happens to be disabled.

Toph, Cyborg, Legion, Deadpool, and Percy Jackson wouldn’t be the heroes we all know and love without their disabilities. And that’s what I love about them so much.

So let’s break it down from there.

Toph Beifong:

Toph Beifong, Earthbender extraordinaire

I don’t know anyone who’s watched Avatar: The Last Airbender and not absolutely fallen in love with the show. It’s a modern classic. A masterpiece. And one of everyone’s favorite characters is Toph Beifong, the blind Earthbender that the Gaang meets partway through Season 2, to teach Earthbending to Aang. So what makes Toph different from all the other characters in the show?

Well, for starters, she’s blind.

When we first meet Toph, her parents don’t know about her unequalled abilities. They coddle her; think of her as helpless. But that’s not how we, the audience, meet Toph. We meet her watching her kick a grown man’s ass without breaking a sweat. If I’m remembering correctly, the whole fight lasted maybe 5 seconds, tops.

So what does her being blind have to do with her unparalleled abilities?

Toph is the greatest Earthbender who ever lived because of her seismic sense. She can’t see, so she has to feel everything around her through the ground. Every other Earthbender we meet, even other powerful ones like Bumi, rely on brute force to bend. But for Toph, there’s a grace and easiness that comes to it from her unique and unequaled abilities.

If Toph wasn’t blind, she wouldn’t have her seismic sense. And without that, she wouldn’t have created Metalbending. She wouldn’t be able to Earthbend the way that she does. She’d just be an above-average bender, not the greatest Earthbender who’s ever lived.

Also, Toph’s blindness isn’t overlooked. She regularly cracks jokes about being blind, and there are even entire episodes dedicated to her blindness. Toph’s disability isn’t forgotten, it’s an integral part of who she is.

Victor Stone, AKA Cyborg:

Victor Stone, everyone’s favorite prosthetic-reliant superhero

Cyborg has been one of my favorite superheroes for as long as I can remember. One of the most powerful heroes in the whole Justice League, and his powers are 100% reliant on his protheses he needs to survive? I mean, come on. What’s not to love there?

A lot of people don’t think about it and I bet even fewer would consider Victor Stone, AKA Cyborg, to be disabled. But the fact of the matter is that before his accident, he was just a regular human with no special powers or anything. Just a regular guy.

But then he had his accident.

After that, he was reliant on his robotic prostheses to live. And those prostheses make him one of the most powerful members of the freakin’ Justice League. The same team with Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, and the Martian Manhunter.

The fact is, what makes him Cyborg is prosthetics. And the fact that he was just a regular person until he had an accident, which then made him rely on prosthetics to survive, is super relatable to many of us who are disabled. Sure, a lot of us don’t have prosthetics. But everyone who isn’t currently disabled is one bad day away from being disabled. Just like Cyborg, you could be a regular person one day and then disabled the next. And the fact that his disability makes him a freakin’ superhero is awesome.

When the original cinematic version of the Justice League movie came out, I was sorely disappointed. Cyborg was almost totally axed and turned into a shell of a character with no arc, no characterization, and nothing to do. But then Zack Snyder’s Justice League came out. I finally got to see the Cyborg I know and love- he was given an arc that had him finally learning to come to terms with his disability and no longer be ashamed of who he had become, no longer mourning his past self and past life.

David Haller, AKA Legion:

David Haller, my favorite hero with DID and schizophrenia

I’ll be the first to admit that David Haller, AKA Legion, isn’t always the best-written hero. After all, when you’ve got a superhero with Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly known as Multiple Personality Disorder) and Schizophrenia, you’re going to get writers who don’t understand the disorders and therefore don’t have good portrayals of them.

Regardless, he’s a superhero with the disorders that are always given to the villains. David Haller, AKA Legion, has hundreds of alters (formerly referred to as personalities), all with different superpowers. He can be unpredictable and is nearly unstoppable- he’s one of only 25 omega-level mutants in all of the X-Men out millions. That means out of millions of mutants, he’s one of the 25 most powerful to have ever lived.

Even though Legion is sometimes written as a villainous character, and sometimes isn’t written as the best portrayal of mental health issues, the fact still stands that he’s a hero with the mental health issues almost always assigned to the villain.

If you want to see a version of Legion that is written well, FX had a great show about him that’s available on Hulu. Plus it stars Dan Stevens, which is always a good thing.

Wade Wilson, AKA Deadpool:

Deadpool, everyone’s favorite asshole

If I were to ask you everything you know about Deadpool, what would you say? He talks too much? He’s kind of an asshole? The 4th Wall doesn’t exist to him? He can heal from anything and is functionally immortal? Well, what if I told you he also has chronic pain and perpetual cancer?

I want you to think now- how many characters can you think of who have chronic pain? And how many of them either become a villain because of their pain, or have that pain be their Defining Characteristic? It’s so not Deadpool’s defining characteristic that I’d bet it’s not even in the Top 10 things someone would list about him. Granted, the movies tend to gloss over that part of him (it’s hinted at, but never directly addressed), but it’s present in the comics.

“But chronic pain isn’t a disability!” I hear the nay-sayers say. It absolutely is. How well do you think you’d function if your pain level every single day, day in, day out, without break, was around a 6-7? We all know I’ve avoided going to the hospital and then under-reported when the doctors and nurses insisted I was at a 10.

And that’s nothing unique to me. Chronic pain patients under-report their pain and over-report their activity. We’re used to being in pain all the time, and we know how to push through it. And it is absolutely, without a doubt, 100% crippling. I can’t remember the last time I genuinely worked out. I can’t. When it hurts as much as it does just to walk around or do basic menial tasks, you don’t even think about going to the gym.

Which is why having such a popular hero like Deadpool have chronic pain is so important. It shines a light on us. And it gives us a hero who’s like us. Who isn’t a villain because of their pain. Who doesn’t have their pain their defining characteristic.

Percy Jackson:

Percy Jackson, everyone’s favorite ADHD/dyslexic demigod

Rick Riordan wrote The Lightning Thief originally because his son has ADHD and dyslexia, and was upset that he never saw any heroes like him. So, he wrote a series where being dyslexic and having ADHD was central not only to the main character, but to almost every character. And that series turned into two series, which turned into three. With two additional spin-off series.

In the world of Percy Jackson, the Greek gods exist. And demigods- the half-mortal, half-god- children of these gods, all have ADHD and dyslexia. It’s explained in-universe that they have dyslexia because their brains are hard-wired for Ancient Greek, not for English. They have ADHD because their brains are constantly wired for battle, so they can’t sit still and are constantly taking in either every detail or nothing at all.

Percy gets kicked out of school after school and labeled as lazy and a bad kid because of his ADHD and dyslexia. But he’s not- he’s just a superhero with two learning disabilities. Two incredibly common learning disabilities.

The truth is, learning disabilities are disabilities. And they’re incredibly under-represented in fiction. Rick Riordan gave us not just one character, but dozens, all with these incredibly common and under-represented learning disabilities.

As someone with both ADHD and dyslexia, Percy Jackson and his friends are the only heroes I’ve ever seen who are like me. And having them there means the world to me, and to so many others.

The Moral Of The Story:

Having disabled heroes matters. And having disabled heroes whose disabilities don’t relegate them to the sidelines, but instead allow them to be heroes because of those disabilities, is important.

Heroes like Professor X and Oracle are important. But give us more Tophs, more Cyborgs, more Percys. Give us more heroes who can only be heroes because of their disability. Help break the stigma and assumption that we’re all fragile and need to be taken care of and coddled.

We’re just as badass as anyone else. So let’s see more heroes that show that.

Until next time.

-Nick




Twitter: @disabled_writer

Instagram: @the_disabled_writer

TikTok: @the_disabled_writer

Facebook: Nick O’Brien, Writer