this post was submitted on 09 Oct 2025
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Are there any non-villains with these supernatural "disabilities", or are the Batman comics ableist, as well?
Edit: No, I don't accept Oracle as a redeeming character for ableism.
Umm, why not?
Because of the way the story exploits both the "damsel in distress" trope of Barbara Gordon (afaik, even Alan Moore is uncomfortable of that exploitation by now) and the weird "disability gives you superpowers angle.
I'll admit, I don't read actual comics, so I'm only familiar with it from some of the times it's been adapted for screen. But apart from the fridging-esque nature of how she becomes disabled, but I'm not sure how she's used as a damsel in distress once she becomes Oracle.
Does it? I thought Oracle was just very competent and intelligent, what you'd expect of a Bat-family member who can't be physically involved.
Yeah, "damsel in distress" is not really the right term. Rather the whole shtick of (brutally) harming women in order for the stakes to be raised for the male protagonists is just... a bit icky.
Yeah, I'm not going to disagree with you about how she became Oracle being highly problematic. But that, to me, is an entirely separate conversation from whether Oracle herself is good disabled representation, which is what I thought this conversation was about.
Yeah, I still think that the whole notion of mentally ill criminals reeks of the worldview of which Batman was born. But I don't think that the inclusion of disabled characters is just a token effort of the comics by now.
The Thing has entered the chat.
Daredevil is blind. Stan Lee felt weird about the character, but learned that blind people actually liked him.
Dr. Mid-Nite was visually impaired.
Echo is deaf.
Rose and The Thorn are 'split personalities.'
Box from Alpha Flight was wheelchair bound.
Darkman [one movie] was hideously deformed, as was The Unknown Soldier.
Curiously, Deadpool was also deformed and traumatized brutally by a mutant trafficking / enslavement ring, but he takes it remarkably well. Fourth and fifth wall awareness certainly helps.
IRL, DP would probably be using his mercking to stay one step ahead of suicidal ideation; if he's not on task, he suffers a psychotic break.
I was talking about Batman from the viewpoint of someone who can't overstate enough how little they care about the extended universes of comics.
Most people who like Batman media don't really care about The Thing, Boxman, Mid-Tier and the Stiffler. /j
There's Batgirl who was non-verbal and is now semi-verbal, Batman was paralyzed himself for a good while and was replaced by Azrael, who one could argue had some sort of schizophrenia as a result of his brainwashing from his order.
Batman has mad PTSD and probably a personality disorder tbh.
Ok, maybe it's not exactly ableist.
But I'm still not ready to pretend that the whole premise Batman wasn't originally based on relied on some quite... let's say authoritarian worldview about a mentally ill, criminal underclass who don't know their proper place in the world.
You are allowed to enjoy old, a bit fucked up things. But let's not pretend they aren't a bit fucked up.