Marvel Creates New Hearing-Impaired Superhero For One Disabled Boy

Marvel is known for creating some of our favorite superheroes, but one recent story makes them a superhero in their own right.

According to the Huffington Post, Anthony Smith, a 4-year-old hearing-impaired boy from New Hampshire, didn’t want to wear his Blue Ear hearing aids because they weren’t worn by superheroes.

Looking for some sort of help, Anthony’s mother, Christina D’Allesandro emailed Marvel Comics to see if there were any superheroes who had hearing issues.

Editors at the company immediately sent Anthony an image of a 1984 comic book cover featuring Hawkeye, a superhero whose hearing was temporarily destroyed by a sonic arrow, wearing a small hearing device in his ear.  But that wasn’t enough.

While Marvel editor Bill Rosemann said that they wanted to “give [Anthony] a concrete example,” D’Allesandro’s letter made its way around the Marvel office, inspiring at least two artists to create superheroes based on Anthony.

Soon, production artist Manny Mederos began working on a sketch of a character named The Blue Ear.  In the middle of the process, Mederos had a revelation: Why not have the superhero be a young kid himself, so he could grow up and work alongside Hawkeye and The Avengers one day?

The result were two brand new original pictures featuring The Blue Ear—one being as an adult listening for people in distress on the roof of a building, and the other as a child next to Hawkeye.

And now, D’Allesandro says Anthony has been showing the pictures to all his friends, and wears his blue ear without much complaint.

And what does the dream team who made the pictures think of their noble deed?  Rosemann simply stated, “With great power, comes great responsibility.”

Now those are heroes, if there ever were any…

For more information, check out this video interview with Anthony and his mother on the local WCVB station.