The origin myths of many superheroes lie in life-altering accidents or bodily mutations. Fans of the genre emphasize that disability, largely unrepre… - Pasquale Toscano

The absence of characters living with permanent disabilities affects the way viewers and readers see themselves, argues Rachel Kolb, an Emory University graduate student who is deaf and writes widely about disability in literature. “If we don’t see ourselves within the cultural representations that surround us,” she says in an interview, “it becomes more difficult to imagine ourselves in various kinds of situations, various ways of exercising agency and justice and power and goodness. And all the other themes that tend to be a part of superhero movies.”

ACCORDING TO LAWRENCE Carter-Long, spokesman for the Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund , about 20 percent of Americans identify as disabled, while only about 2 percent of characters on television and in film have disabilities.

Fundamentally, what Carter-Long and others want are more complex representations of people with disabilities — and not just in superhero blockbusters. “If there are few disabled characters being created or shown for disabled people to identify with, we then have fewer opportunities to be a meaningful part of what a huge number of non-disabled people simply take for granted,” Carter-Long said.