*Checks the calender* No, it's not April 1... (attn: indefatigable42)

[capri0mni]

This post all started yesterday, when indefatigable42 posted this link to Women in Refrigerators, a website dedicated to women superheroes, and how they tend to meet gruesome ends. One of the heroines on the list is "Batgirl 1," because she ended up shot by the Joker, and paralysed from the waist down.

Well, years ago (shortly after that storyline began) I read a favorable review of the "Batgirl is paralysed" in New Mobility magazine,* for showing that you could still be a hero in a wheelchair, and that paralysis =/= death (But, jeez, the critique ran, couldn't you give her a modern-looking wheelchair, at least, instead of one that looks like a clunky Everest&Jennings from the '70s?)

And then, today, I get an email from a medical supply company announcing that July is National Wheelchair Beautification Month. And featured in the email is an ad for this:

A JET-POWERED concept wheelchair!

...with the price slashed from $755,000 to a mere $387,568...

Can you say "More dollars than sense," boys and girls? I knew you could...

Still, in the real-world, it looks like a would-be Barbara Gordon could out-gadget a would-be Batman, these days... And that's kinda cool...

---

*I got a few year subscription to this magazine, back when I bought my first Quickie (wheelchair brand); it just started arriving in the mail. And it's very shiny and well-written. Part of me wants to get a new subscription, but other parts of me know that I already get more incoming mail than I can handle... so I am a bit conflicted.

Comments

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

It may not be April Fool's, but it still looks like a shoddy photoshopping. ^^;;

I wouldn't want the jet engine placed exactly there, anyways...

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

Also: my first exposure to these issues was probably Geordi LaForge, on Star Trek: The Next Generation. He was blind from birth, but he had a prosthetic device that let him see (albeit in false colour, and in more wavelengths than other people could see). On occasion he was pressed into service as a lie detector because he could see blood rushing to someone's face when they fibbed.

Eventually he got his eyes replaced and ditched the prosthetic, but there was an outcry from fans who didn't want to see him become 'normal'. Realistically, it would be an individual's choice as to whether he wanted to have eyes that would make him see like everyone else (and look like everyone else), or whether he wanted to keep his own system which was limited in some respects but far advanced beyond 'normal' humans in others.

That was sort of the spirit of my question last night on AIM, and I guess there are different levels of it. A superhero who loses some physical ability could just adapt to it like any human, or she could have it magicked away by technology like Geordi's replacement eyes, or she could have some kind of compensating device like Geordi's visor.

I think the scenario I was asking you about was the third one -- what if Batgirl, instead of just living with her disability or getting herself a bionic body, had some tools and toys that would give her different abilities than most people have, in some ways limited but in some ways better?

I'm sort of thinking of a Batman-style hero/ine who only gained superpowers after a disabling injury or illness, due to some super technology that was meant to help compensate for the disability.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't want the jet engine placed exactly there, anyways...

That was my mother's reaction to Rocket Man...

And I notice that they make no mention of what kind of fuel is required.

It amuses me greatly that they make a specific point of highlighting the windsock... and no mention of a windshield.

I was originally planning on posting about the politics of Disabled!heroes, and what my ideal character/rolemodel superhero in that catagory would be like, but I caught this email first, and that trumped everything else...

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

That was sort of the spirit of my question last night on AIM

Yeah, I'm sorry we failed to connect on that... did you get my answer?

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

I did, but that's why I'm asking the question again threefold instead of twofold. :) I thought my question was too simple anyways.

From an outside perspective, I think it would just be boring to have the prosthetics/super-tech/whatever make everything go 'back to normal'. In real life, if it were me and the technology could do that, I'd probably want it. In fiction, we can make up reasons why the technology can't do that, and write a more interesting story.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

In real life, if it were me and the technology could do that, I'd probably want it

Now, see, that's an aspect to be considered in creating the character: for those for whom a disability is a loss of ability (and wasn't Barbara Gordon originally an acrobat?), that's probably realistic, based on real-world reaction to trauma.

For someone like me (or Geordie LaForge) -- someone who is born with a disability -- having a disability is "normal," and there can be sense of resentment about the rest of the world wanting make us fit into someone else's model of normality before we're seen as "fit" to be in the public eye as something to aspire to.

...Yeah... looks like I have a whole, independant entry's worth of thoughts on that (complete with extra links, and all). So I'll post it after I've had my Raspberry!cocoa drink...

[indefatigable42.livejournal.com]

The lines get blurry when you're talking about superheroes.

Bruce Wayne was a normal and healthy (at least physically) human being. He made himself into a superhero by using gadgetry to give himself abilities he was not born with.

I wonder if the rest of the Justice League thinks of Batman as a disabled superhero? After all, they were born with their abilities, and he has to use 'crutches', so to speak.

The scenario I've been trying to put into words, and failing continuously (or maybe just failing to make you think it's interesting) would be a human being born with disabilities who uses gadgetry to become superhuman. If she's never been able to walk, she might not think of walking as a normal thing. But she's an engineer, and she wants to fly instead...

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

Most fans, as far as I can tell, don't object to Batgirl/Barbara Gordon/Oracle being paralysed and/or in a wheelchair, they object to the way it was done as motivation for the guys in the Bat family and their villains. ::is not Bat fan::

She could easily regain her former functionality within established DC canon if the writers wanted her to do so. ::shrugs::

[gordon-r-d.livejournal.com]

I recalled a superhero that almost fit your description, Wiz Kid from X-Terminators an X-Men mini-series. He wasn't born disabled, but lost the use of his legs at a very young afge in a car crash. His powers were technoforming, which meant he could manipulate machinery and technology and rebuild it into other things, including a flying car I seem to recall. He only appeared in a few comics so they didn't really explore anything like your proposed scenario and the only time he's mentioned recently was as one of the thousands of depowered mutants after M-Day.

I've a feeling I've read something else like your scenario, but any hero with disabilities I can recall right now (Oracle, Supernaut, Professor X) weren't born with them.

[gordon-r-d.livejournal.com]

Yeah, in comic universe terms, Babs could easily get a hovering chair (like Professor X had in X-Men for some time) or something, as her computer systems contain alien technology from what I remember (Rann and Thanagan stuff at least) but I get the feeling she choses not to.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

I'm not a Bat fan, either (I prefer the more psychologically complex characters in the MarvelVerse)... I was just objecting to Batgirl's inclusion on a list of women heroes who have lost their status as heros -- dropped out of the muster roll of Do-gooders as if she were dead...

Anyway, I'm writing a seperate entry, now, on what I think a strong Disabled(sic)!Hero would look like...

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Well, you know, the more complex the tech, the more troublesome are the bugs... ;-)

Anyway, back to writing the entry I mentioned above...

[spiralsheep.livejournal.com]

I was just objecting to Batgirl's inclusion on a list of women heroes who have lost their status as heros -- dropped out of the muster roll of Do-gooders as if she were dead...

Except that's not, as I understand it, the point of Gail's list. The point she was making was that all those characters, including Batgirl/Barbara Gordon, were used as motivation for male characters regardless of the effect on the female characters. When Alan Moore wrote Killing Joke he wasn't writing a "disabled" heroine, he was writing a female victim. Which is a different point to yours.

I look forward to your post. :-)

[pedanther]

If you click on the photo above, and scroll down the product description, there's a bit saying "No, actually, we're just kidding. You didn't think this was real, did you?"

I don't know if that was there all along, or if it's been added since Ann read it because they've been getting expressions of interest.

[pedanther]

What spiralsheep said.

Also: When Batgirl was disabled, she was dropped out of the muster roll of heroes. At the time, it was assumed that that was that - by the people making the comics, not just by the people reading them. It was only later that another writer came along, decided it wasn't good enough, and wrote a storyline about how she got back on her (metaphorical!) feet.

[pedanther]

Have you read Anne McCaffrey's book The Ship Who Sang? That's "super technology that was meant to help compensate for the disability", right there. Probably not quite what you meant, though.

[alryssa.livejournal.com]

Honestly, the kind of wheelchair Barbara's given in the comics depends entirely on the savvy of the artist drawing it at any one time. I've seen her in the standard-issue hospital fare (*snort*) and I've seen her in the more streamlined, almost racing-quality types, with slanted wheels.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm glad she got an upgrade. Someone as up on current tech and gadgetry as she is would certainly trade up to a shiny!chair if she could... At the time the New Mobility review was written, she was still stuck with the standard hospital fare.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure it was added since I made this original posting...

Though I did wonder whether it was a joke, solely because of the windsock...

[alryssa.livejournal.com]

That's the thing, though. It's not consistent. In one issue she might be in her spiffy one, and another she'll be back in the old standard-issue straight-from-the-hospital manual one. It's annoying.

[capriuni.livejournal.com]

Well, I've still got my old models stored in my garage...

But yeah. You'd think her wheelchair would be on some sort of official artists' guide register, or something... like other stuff, like the details of her costume.

And I think the technical term is "cambered wheels" -- invented by guys who wanted to play wheelchair basketball...

[daibhid-c.livejournal.com]

Eventually he got his eyes replaced and ditched the prosthetic, but there was an outcry from fans who didn't want to see him become 'normal'.

ICBW, but I was under the impression Movies-Geordi has just had the VISOR minaturised and implanted. I'm sure I recall there being a mechanical appearance to his eyes.

[pedanther]

You're not wrong.

I was going to say something to that effect earlier, but it occurred to me that, on the other hand, the mechanical appearance was only visible in close-ups (saved on effects costs that way), so there's still the issue that the change made him look normal. Geordi-with-the-VISOR was obviously different from other people, so just by being in there with everybody else he sent a message about what people with differences can aspire to and achieve; Geordi-with-the-Eyes lacks the obvious difference, so the message loses potency.

(Not meaning to imply that Geordi is only important as the vehicle for a Message, of course.)