Where are all the Deaf superheroes?

Both the DCU and the Marvel Universes have quite a lot of superheroes/villains/supporting cast members who are disabled, but fuck all that are Deaf.  Or deaf.  Or hard of hearing.  I'm not picky. 

Peter David put a couple of lipreaders in his Supergirl and Young Justice comics and Green Arrow/Black Canary had that villain last year that was deafened by Dinah, but that's it.  Where are the rest?  We've got Babs in her wheelchair, Chunk, Professor Xavier, Daredevil, Dr Midnight, Speedy/Red Arrow, Tony Stark, Dr Niles Caulder, Captain Marvel Junior, Osiris, Crazy Jane.  I'm sure there's more, that's just what a quick google search turned up.

Where the Deaf heroes?  I'll tell you where there's one - Echo, from the Daredevil comics.  That's it.  I should be able to name more.

Echo first turned up in Parts of a Hole (soon to be reviewed over at New readers...) and I was stunned when the story actually constant reference to her lack of hearing.  Her abilities aren't linked to her Deafness, unlike Daredevil's abilities and so I felt like I did when I read Venus Envy - it's a regular superhero book about a woman who happens to be Deaf.

The book isn't about her Deafhood, but because she is Deaf she experiences life different to a hearing person, and so the story show that.  On the whole it does this well, and it also explores Daredevil's blindness well.  There's a great scene where they are in the cinema and Echo is describing the action on screen and Daredevil is describing the dialogue when the actors are off screen.

But.  (You knew there was a but coming didn't you?)  It isn't quite good enough.  The problem with having just one Deaf hero is that she becomes representative of all Deaf people and the mistakes that are made are amplified and picked upon over and over.

For example, Echo can mimic any physical action she sees.  This makes her an ace fighter.  Luckily for her she's also quite bright and so can work out how to put the moves together in order to win a fight or choreograph a dance show.  I imagine that being able to mimic physical actions must have made it easier for her to learn the handshapes and movements needed for American Sign Language (ASL).

But, this ability is used in book to explain why her speech is not slurred.  Because she can copy mouth patterns I suppose... Wait.  Just back up there one moment, what?  Most speech isn't formed on the lips.  Lip reading is hard, very hard.  If it was easy to lip read everybody we wouldn't need trained lipspeakers.  How on earth is Echo meant to see and mimic the movements of the tongue and the throat in order to produce clear speech?

Ignoring all that, the in text reasoning seems to assume that no Deaf people have clear speech.   Well, quite frankly that's bollocks.  The level of speech will depend on things like when the person lost their hearing and what speech therapy they've had.  Ooh it makes me angry when people get basic stuff wrong.

What else, oh yes, how she learnt ASL.  Apparently her father taught it to her using Native American folk stories, and possibly shadow puppets.  Well I'd be really interested to know where he learnt it and how she developed her knowledge of the language.  Because we see nothing of this in the book, she doesn't sign once.  I don't think I've met a signer who never signs when they speak.  When a sign language is your first language you tend to use it alongside your spoken language.  You just do.

Echo somehow manages to lipread people in the dark and never makes a mistake when she is lipreading.  The former is impossible and the latter is highly unlikely.  But, I guess if you had a book full of communication errors it would get a bit dull and prevent the flow of the story.  For the same reason we don't tend to see protagonists going to the toilet.  So I'll forgive them the perfect lipreading.  The rest isn't really forgivable, it's just ignorant.

This is such a shame because it's clear that the writer has done his research - there is so much stuff in the book that is Deaf aware.  It becomes an odd half and half mix.  I'm very keen to read more about her and I just hope that other issue build upon the solid base that this book gave, but improved the rookie errors.

And I want more Deaf, deaf and hard of hearing heroes.  Please.

Incidentally, Echo's sign name would either be the sign for Echo, a handprint across the face (she wears this when she performs), or possibly dancer.  Daredevil's sign name would be the devil horns on his costume.  Matt Murdock (Daredevil's civilian identity) would be lawyer I reckon.  His partner Foggy Nelson's sign name would be Fog.

Superhero sign names

Continuing on from my previous post, I give you more ideas of what sign names I would give the various superheroes.  I've also now edited the previous post to give pictures of each hero.  Makes more sense that way.

Regarding Guy Gardner, I've now decided that Guy's sign name should be linked to his lapels, as that is a very distinctive jacket he's wearing.  I do believe no other GL has a uniform quite like it.

How about Power Girl?

It would be the shape of the boob window.  No question.

As for her civilian name, a pun on Starr seems easy, so the sign for star then, whilst you lipspeak her first name.

As for the Wonder family.  Take Wonder Woman:

Before I said you'd just sign Wonder+Woman.  But to make it an actual sign name, you could trace the W shape on your chest and lipspeak either Diana, Wondy, or Wonder Woman.

For Donna Troy:

Again, easy.  Do the sign for sparkle all over your torso and lipspeak Donna.

For Wonder Girl (Cassie) I think it would very much depend on her outfit.  For an early version of her costume:

Whether she's wearing her blond hair short or she's wearing a wig, the goggles are a mainstay.  So let's make the sign for goggles (either on her forehead or her eyes), and lipspeak Wonder Girl or Cassie.

That's all for today's lessons, I'll be back in a few weeks with more!

Superhero sign names - as part of Learn to Sign week

As it's Learn to Sign week I thought now would be a good time for a post combining comics and signing.  Here we go.

In British Sign Language we have something called sign names.  They are basically nick names and are a short hand way to refer to someone, as an alternative to fingerspelling their name.  One of my friends likes cake, so her sign name is the sign for cake with the lip pattern of her name.  My sign name is the sign for reading, (flat open palms with fingers together, palms face up, fingers slightly overlapping and move the hands round in one circular motion), with the lip pattern of my name, because I read all day, every day.  One of my old teachers name was based on his hairstyle, so it;s been a pony tail or a mohawk with his name.  You get the idea.

So I got to thinking what would the sign names of the superheroes be?  Signingtime, an American site has a forum which asks this very question.  That is however the only site I can find that deals with this issue.  If anyone knows of any others, please let me know in the comments.

In the UK, the sign for superhero in general is your right arm stuck out in a fist, a la flying.  That also works for Superman, and Supergirl would be the main sign + girl. I expect that Batman is Bat plus Man.  Buffy the vampire slayer is 'B+vampirefangs+a staking action'.  I expect Wonder Woman has her own sign.


As I don't know any Deaf comics fans I cannot ask them what signs they use, so I will speculate.  Sign names are never official anyway, they are given by those who know you, or you give one to yourself.  I will approach this from the point of view of what will those people who know and love the heros, e.g. friends and family, use.

Let us start with Bart Allen.

We cannot simply give him the multichannel sign of speeding-off-into-the-distance, because that could be used for all speedsters.  We shouldn't really use Impulse or Kid Flash as that's his actual code name.  I suppose the general public could trace the lightening logo on their chest, to mean Flash, and Kid Flash could be Flash+kid, but that isn't distinctive enough to mean Bart.  I would be tempted to go with his big feet or his hair.  No one else in the DCU has feet and hair quite like him, and I don't think he would be offended by it.  You could sign big-feet-racing-forward and provide the lip pattern for Bart.  I think that's fairly apt.

How about Speedy (Mia)?

Well, you can't simply sign speedy, or fast, because in all honesty that is far more likely to be associated with the Flash type heroes in the DCU.  Speedy's hero thing is her arrow shooting, but I find the sign for bow and arrow rather unwieldy, so would prefer not to use it.  I also would prefer to choose something that would be distinct from RoySpeedy, so it needs to be feminised or be something completely different.  Considering Mia's cocky personality I think I will go with the sign for Cheeky.  I'm sure Ollie would agree.


Black Canary.

 For her public name, I'd go with black+canary.  Black is a thumbs up hand shape swiped along your cheek from near your ear to off your face by your mouth.  Canary is a local sign in Norfolk, our football team is nicknamed the Canaries (these birds have a long association with the city, due to the influx of Dutch traders in earlier centuries).  As such, both Canary and Norwich are the same - the bird sign over your left breast where the football logo is on a shirt.
As for her private name, for 80s hero Dinah we could trace the headband shape+name.  For florist Dinah we could do flower+name.  For a joke we could do computer+name.  Although that might be best for Barbara.  As a really boring sign we could do blonde+name, or martial arts+name.

Guy gets the bowl haircut sign, no question and no matter how long he's had a new style for.  Batman has his own special sign for Guy though -  falling over (as in being knocked out)+name.

The possibilities are endless!