Location: The Burnett Honors College Room 130

In the early 1960s, when Marvel Comics was born, Marvel writer/editor Stan Lee, working with various artists and other collaborators, created an array of still-popular superheroes. Many of these superheroes, in fact, are characters in the phenomenally successful films, including The Avengers, that keep coming from Marvel Studios.

Overwhelmingly, these superheroes have disabilities along with their special powers. Iron Man has a weak heart. Daredevil is blind. The leader of the X-Men is confined to a wheelchair. And so on.

Although there has been little emphasis placed on this clear pattern, the characters' disabilities may be an important reason that their stories speak to so many people. It also seems likely that these disabled superheroes have helped to make many people more sensitive to the often-heroic struggles of the disabled and more aware of how much they can accomplish, whatever their disabilities. There is also a subtle message in the stories of these characters that a disability and a special power are sometimes two sides of the same coin.

The proposed lecture would explore these and related issues, as well as how the history of comics books gave rise to superheroes with disabilities. The lecture would use both PowerPoint and clips from recent films.

Jay Boyar, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer and the author of Films to Go, has written extensively on film and is a former writer and editor for Marvel Comics. He teaches film analysis and writing at UCF and Rollins College.

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