Heroes
A work in progress, featuring real and fictional members of our disability community. To be in the community, someone must have health issues that create limitations and opportunities. They may have noticable or invisible disabilities. They may have mental or emotional disabilities. They may be obvious. They may be surprising.
I don’t always agree how each hero approaches their disability, or how they compensate for their challenges, or how their disability issues are resolved, but they still belong here 
I welcome new ideas- we are a big inclusive community!
Tony Stark/ Iron Man
Tony Stark depends on mechanics to keep him alive. He creates technological compensations for his physical challenges. He is a man who has it all: money, power, intellect . . . and yet he is flawed at heart. I found a great discussion of Tony Stark/Iron Man and disability storylines at Handy-CAPEable.
Darth Vader
Even before his terrible injuries that led to prosthetic supports and breathing-mechanics, he dealt with major social-emotional challenges. His inability to deal with big emotions, from rage to love, led to his great downfall . . .
Yoda
Yoda stirs up controversy online, especially when (or if) his hoverchair is called a wheelchair. People hold up his lightsaber fight as evidence that Yoda is fit and able. He is amazingly strong and quick for that battle. How much of the force is helping him? And what price does he pay for that activity? He may have been resting for a long time after that battle. And we all know that disability can change from day to day. We have moments of strength. For most of the story, Yoda relies on a cane and hoverchair for mobility. Yes, he has the force. He also accepts his limitations.
Toothless the Dragon from How to Train Your Dragon
Yes he’s strong and fast and dangerous. He also has a major disability. Look at his tail. Early in the film, he is injured. For the rest of his life, he will not be able to fly. Until Hiccup builds a prosthetic tail for him and begins the relationship that defines the movie. I love Toothless as a character with a disability for many reasons. One of the big reasons is that Toothless needs cooperative problem solving. Helping one another is important and being helped by someone else is not a weakness. Instead, we are stronger when we let others help us and build relationships with caretakers. Another reason that I adore Toothless is that he is no less Dragon for his challenges. He finds opportunity in his changed life. And he makes everyone around him change, too.
Hey I think your post is good!I found it on Yahoo. Keep up the good work.
Good picks so far. I have some other suggestions;
Snake-Eyes ( G.I. Joe comics ): A mission left him facially disfigured and incapable of speech. He’s a completely silent hero who never removes his mask. He’s also the most badass character in the series.
Toph ( Avatar: The Last Airbender ): An excellent example. She’s blind, but uses her other senses to develop her affinity for Earthbending. She also defies all helpless blind girl stereotypes, being extroverted, sarcastic, and uncouth.
Oracle ( Batman comics ): The original Batgirl, left paralyzed by the Joker’s bullet. Became Batman’s communications expert from her wheelchair, and the information hub of the entire superhero community.
Daredevil ( Marvel ): Blind, though his other senses are radioactively enhanced. But it’s through intensive training that he was able to hone his senses and use them to support his martial arts abilities. He also has the advantage of being a fully developed ( and extremely tragic ) character for reasons unrelated to his handicap.
Solid Snake ( Metal Gear Solid video games ): Redefines PTSD, to the point where he has the same cold demeanor talking about having to fight and kill his best friend as he would for calling for a pizza. In the fourth game he suffers from Werner’s Syndrome ( accelerated aging, adult onset ), and has to use a mechanical muscle suit to compensate.
Rock Lee ( Naruto anime ): Not disabled by our standards, but is incapable of ninjutsu magic, limiting his skills to strength and speed achieved purely by hard work.
Wolverine ( X-Men ): It’s been established not only that the healing factor does nothing to eliminate the pain and trauma he endures, but that his adamantium skeleton is constantly poisoning him, leading to a dull ache that follows him wherever he goes.
Sweet! thanks! I’m off to find good graphic pics for all of them
. I’ll let you know when I get them up. The more I learn, the more characters I find. We are everywhere 
Yeah, the line between disabled and super-naturally abled is thin to absent, because any difference that substantial is inherently isolating. I’ve just thought of some more…
Cyclops ( X-Men ): The fact that he can’t control his optic blasts is credited to severe head trauma. Originally it was believed to be physical brain damage that interfered, but Joss Whedon explored it further and said that it was PTSD from his traumatic, orphaned childhood. Even after realizing that, he hasn’t been able to fully control them, and still wears the visor.
Avengers Academy ( Marvel ): This recent series deals with a group of teenaged superhumans that the adult heroes suspect will become villains due to their traumatic backgrounds, and try to train ( with a degree of success that has yet to be seen ). Three members are physically deformed; Veil ( dying because her powers are turning her into a gaseous state ), Hazmat ( a girl who’s forced to wear a radiation suit or kill everyone in radius ), and Mettle ( a boy whose skin is hard metal, and has a skeletal face ). Another girl, Finesse, has an unspecified autism spectrum condition that allows her to pick up information better than anyone, but impairs her ability to empathize.
Doom Patrol ( DC Comics ): Dear god, where to start? The leader is a genius in a wheelchair. The original three members were a brain in a robot body, a burn victim whose body hosted a ” negative spirit “, and an actress whose size-changing powers ruined her career. At first the latter was a human with the ability to become giant or tiny, but later her powers mutated and she became an intelligent lump of putty that takes human form by conscious effort. Other members include Crazy Jane ( MPD, 52 personalities with their own sets of powers ), Dorothy Spinner ( a girl whose face looks like that of a chimpanzee ), and others.
Herr Starr ( Preacher, from DC’s Mature Readers Vertigo Imprint ): The article you wrote about evil characters being scarred is utterly exemplified by this character. He starts out as a noble extremist, obsessed with order due to a childhood trauma where bullies carved a star into his eye , a trauma that also caused his hair to fall out. With each evil deed he does, he is karmically punished by a horrible mutilation; the loss of an ear, having a line carved down his bald head to make it look like male genitalia, the loss of a leg, and the loss of his own groin. At that point he loses any pretense of being morally motivated and just becomes a vengeful madman.
Ruby’s World ( http://www.rubysworldcomic.com ); my own comic is utterly defined by this notion. The protagonist is a girl mutated into a 9-foot-tall giant state. Her boyfriend is an autistic boy with cybernetic enhancements on a cellular level. Her best female friend has an undefined ASD that allows for unusual psychic abilities. And they’re fighting against a corporation that has a superhuman eugenics plan for society.