Comic Realizations
We are comic readers in this house. Unfortunately, we are not hardcore, but we have very close friends and family that are. So we can participate in conversations about the comic version of an idea compared to the movie or animated versions of the same characters.
Lately, we have introduced Gabriel to X-Men. For those who are unfamiliar: X-Men is about a society suspiciously like ours where people are born with amazing abilities like the ability to spontaneously heal or control weather. X-Men have been out forever – way before the show Heroes. The main message of X-Men seems to be that society is terrified of what is different and will do everything it can to eliminate that which it can not control.
I used to think this view of society’s bias was cynical. Thinking outside the box and being different was something I was always proud of. Having a child that experiences physical and developmental disabilities, however, has shown me that society has a way to go on integrating and making everywhere accessible.
At the same time, I am wondering how I will respond when we start reading comics to Hannah. Maybe she’ll ask why she didn’t get the mutation that lets her walk through walls rather than the one that makes her have to manually map connections between her right and left brain. We’ll explore it together, and I think we’ll find a new superhero in the making.
--Mom
