Supercrip

From Encyclopedia Superheroica -the Encyclopedia of Superheroes

The image of disability in the genre of superheroes is examined by an academician.

Contents 1 History 2 Mission 3 See Also 4 References 5 Back to

History

It started out in 2005 as an idea for an academic paper written by an undergraduate student double-majoring in Social Relations and Film Studies. Dissing Abilities: the Contradiction of Disabled Superheroes was eventually published in Comic Foundry magazine in 2006. Retitled The Superhero and the Supercrip: Disability and Superhero Discourse, it was later featured as interstitial text in a 2007 art exhibit called "Super Heroes Super Villains".

Mission

"Part of my paper will interrogate this cultural myth and to what extent it is present in portrayals of disabled characters in comics. Is Barbara Gordon a supercrip? What about Daredevil? Professor X? What about disabled villains? In my opinion, it is really comic book writers who have had to overcome their characters' disabilities in order to write them as complex human (or mutant) characters, instead of relying on stereotypes."

See Also

STRENGTH IN DIVERSITY subsection

References

As blogged by writer Franny Howes in So So Silver Age
As archived from Comic Foundry.
Super Heroes Super Villains exhibited at Flickr.

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EDUCATION subsection