History Main / DisabilitySuperpower

* Many wheelchair-bound people have PsychicPowers or their [[SuperWheelchair wheelchair]] is a CoolCar[=/=]PoweredArmor hybrid. The uber-example is Charles Xavier a.k.a. Professor X from ''ComicBook/XMen'', a man contained in a wheelchair who is also one of the most powerful telepaths in the whole Franchise/MarvelUniverse.
* During the series ''ComicBook/FiftyTwo'', ComicBook/AdamStrange lost his eyes in a freak teleportatiby accident However, he quickly compensated by connecting his ship's sensor array to his visual cortex, allowing him sight as long as he was piloting.

* ComicBook/{{Daredevil}}, from the Franchise/MarvelUniverse, was hit in the face by a [[RadiationInducedSuperpowers radioactive canister]] and went blind. His other senses [[SuperSenses became super-powerful]], and he acquired a "radar sense" that let him "see" objects, much like echolocation. (Creator/FrankMiller's influential run took him closer to this trope, partially explaining the radar sense as a CharlesAtlasSuperpower resulting from training with his enhanced senses.) He can also read normal books by feeling the ink because his touch is so sensitive.

* The Creator/DCComics villain Count Vertigo has Ménière's disease that constantly disorients him and confuses his senses, and that requires him to wear a device that sets his senses right, but is specifically made so that he can project that confusion onto others.
* Similarly, [[UsefulNotes/TheGoldenAgeOfComicBooks Golden Ager]] Dr. Mid-Nite from Franchise/TheDCU was blinded by a grenade. However, when he took the bandages off in total darkness, he could see perfectly.
** [[ComicBook/FantasticFour The Mole Man's]] low light vision works the same way, after he was nearly blinded by a shining cavern of diamonds. He wears special dark glasses to get by in daylight.
* Cliff Steele, in the ''ComicBook/DoomPatrol'' comics, gains his powers from the fact that he's [[BrainInAJar just a brain]] [[WeCanRebuildHim installed in a robot body]]. Later versions of ''Doom Patrol'' played up this "super disability" concept and included Crazy Jane, whose 64 [[SplitPersonality multiple personalities]] [[SuperpowerLottery each have a unique superpower]], and Dorothy, whose [[YourMindMakesItReal overactive imagination]] conjures up creatures from her subconscious. Averted by the Doom Patrol's Chief, who is paralyzed from the waist down. And that's it. The entire Comicbook/DoomPatrol is made up of people whose powers don't make up for their disabilities at all.
** Well, there is Beast Boy, who got his {{animorphism}} powers from a disease that also made him immune to all other diseases; but that's a fairly recent development.
* Mindf**k from ''ComicBook/{{Empowered}}'' also is a BlindSeer. [[spoiler: Mind████'s brother tried to invoke this intentionally, when he did things described simply as horrifying to his sibling. More specifically, he cut out her eyes and tongue, so she has to piggyback on another person's senses to see and taste things.]]
* Pied Piper, [[HeelFaceTurn an enemy and later friend]] of ''ComicBook/TheFlash''. He was born deaf, but his rich family had a scientist (Dr. Will Magnus, the same guy who made the ComicBook/MetalMen) implant a cybernetic hearing aid in his head. It worked a little ''too'' well, as his hearing became so sensitive that he was able to design sonic weapons that could control the minds and actions of others, but won't affect him.

* When introduced in ''ComicBook/GenerationX'', the mutant Chamber had actually lost his entire lower jaw and part of his chest as a result of his powers' explosive manifestation. However, the same powers seem to remove his need to eat or breathe, and he can "talk" telepathically.

* His abilities don't come from being unable to see, but it's worth mentioning Rot Lop Fan, a ComicBook/GreenLantern from a species that never evolved sight at all (and thus no conception of color or light... or lanterns, for that matter). His Green Lantern Oath goes:

* ''ComicBook/{{Hawkeye}}'': Ever since an incident with a villain using sound-based mind control and one of his own ultrasonic arrowheads, Hawkeye needs a hearing aid. This doesn't come up often, but occasionally it protects him against the subtler sonic attacks as a plot point. (Perhaps less plausibly, once he's also shown unmasking an android as such by, apparently, turning his hearing aid all the way up and ''hearing'' the imposter's internal mechanisms.)
** The reason it doesn't turn up anymore is that his hearing was restored after ComicBook/HeroesReborn.

* The original ComicBook/IronMan armor was, in a sense, a glorified pacemaker, designed to counteract a potentially fatal heart injury. As long as you're going to be wearing a humanoid life support capsule, it might as well be [[SuperPoweredRobotMeterMaids superhumanly strong and armed to the teeth]], right?

* ''ComicBook/KickAss'''s high pain threshold is due to nerve damage.
* Bruce Wayne/Batman in ''ComicBook/KingdomCome''. By the time of ''ComicBook/KingdomCome,'' Bruce has taken so many beatings that his body has essentially said "so long" and given up, and he needs an exoskeleton to be able to ''stand up''. Of course, it wasn't a ''huge'' step to cover the exoskeleton in armor and add enough gadgets to go full Iron Man.

* Shroud. Blind, but with mystic vision.
* Nävis, heroine of the French comic ''ComicBook/{{Sillage}}'' (a.k.a. ''Wake'') is one of the few sentient beings in the universe with no telepathic abilities. The upside is that her mind can't be read or controlled, which makes her a valuable agent.
* Bunnie Rabbot from ''ComicBook/SonicTheHedgehogArchieComics'' has this in a reverse perspective. She isn't seen anywhere without the roboticized and weaponized limbs that, according to the setting, [[CursedWithAwesome cause her to not be "flesh and blood"]]. She gets so used to having super power she ends up totally helpless when she is accidentally "healed" by [[EvilSorcerer Naugus]].
* A ''ComicBook/{{Superman}}'' comic story revolved around a skeptical blind girl who did not believe in Superman's abilities and dismissed all his demonstrations of them as tricks. At one point he showed off his super-hearing by reciting the conversation going on in the next room. This didn't impress her, because she herself was able to hear it; Superman noted that blind people often develop an acute sense of hearing, and surmised that the girl had done so without being aware of it.
* ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'': Cyborg had all his limbs and half his face burned off in a lab accident, and [[WeCanRebuildHim replaced]] with aesthetically unpleasing yet superhuman prosthetics.

* In ''ComicBook/{{Vampirella}}'', Conrad van Helsing is blind but has a psychic vision that can warn him about evil and his hearing is good enough for him to aim a gun with.
* The character Mr. Sensitive/the Orphan from the ''ComicBook/XForce'' and ''ComicBook/XStatix'' comics had an interesting variation on this: ''all'' of his senses were enhanced, to the degree that he had to wear a special suit to block out most of what he felt, or else he'd go nuts from the sensory overload; he can't even take a normal shower and has to use a specially made misting nozzle. He could hear people's heartbeats through walls, but even a light breeze on his exposed skin could cause him incredible pain. At one point, his powers were even used against him: a villain (who knew about his powers) tortured him simply by making a shallow cut on his skin with a Swiss army knife. The pain from this relatively minor wound almost caused him to black out.

* In ''ComicBook/XMen'', ComicBook/{{Cyclops}} must always wear a special visor or pair of glasses to contain his [[{{Eyebeams}} optic blasts]]. When these devices are removed, he keeps his eyes shut, rendering him blind. Due to an important instance of this, he has since learned how to fight blind by using his hearing to pinpoint opponents and simply always scrutinizing his surroundings to know the lay of the land. One side story shows that he also counts his steps and memorizes which way he turns so that he can retrace his path and find his eyewear.
** Even with the visor/glasses, he's still colorblind, only able to see in shades of red. It's possible he shouldn't be able to pilot an aircraft such as the Blackbird, but there are custom control panels that have indicators based on number of lights, rather than color. Presumably, the Blackbird has one of them.
** Bonus points for the reason he can't control his optic blasts: at a young age he was in an accident and suffered severe head trauma, but fortunately there wasn't any damage to any "important" parts of the brain. This was ''before'' he developed the ability to obliterate everything in sight... Sadly, this actually plausible explanation (a rare sight in comic books) has been [[{{Retcon}} re-explained]] or [[{{Retgone}} outright removed]] several times, with many writers defaulting to "he just can't control it because that's how it is."

* The Literature/WhateleyUniverse is loaded with examples and subversions among the mutants at Whateley Academy:

* Similarily people who have undergone eye lens surgery due to cataract, having their lenses replaced by artificial ones can see a part of the ultraviolet wavelength, since [[https://weekly-geekly.imtqy.com/articles/138218/index.html human retina is able to percieve it but the natural lens filters it while the artificial doesn't]]. During UsefulNotes/WorldWarII the OSA recruited some elderly people with this disabilty to recieve morse messages from their spies using ultraviolet lamps. Nobody else could see them.

* Ever since an incident with a villain using sound-based mind control and one of his own ultrasonic arrowheads, ComicBook/{{Hawkeye}} from ''ComicBook/TheAvengers'' needs a hearing aid. This doesn't come up often, but occasionally it protects him against the subtler sonic attacks as a plot point. (Perhaps less plausibly, once he's also shown unmasking an android as such by, apparently, turning his hearing aid all the way up and ''hearing'' the imposter's internal mechanisms.)

* The Oracle class in ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'' includes this in its game mechanics. All oracles are cursed in some mildly disabling way, but gain extra abilities related to the area of their curse - for instance, oracles with clouded vision lose the ability to see more than sixty feet away but gain the ability to see in the dark and sense invisible creatures.

** Matt gets in serious trouble when he encounters an assassin who had the same powerset as him [[spoiler:sans blindness.]]
** Mark Waid's run on the character played around with the limitations of his "vision." While his sense can allow him to perceive shapes around him, it's still nearly impossible for him to perceive color or other visual details (for instance, someone holding up a tablet with the image of the Jester's public identity, he can make out the shape of the tablet, but can't see what's on the screen.) In another issue, while pursuing the Mole Man into Subterrania, he moves through what he perceives to be an empty tunnel. The first panel shows his surroundings through the eyes of his radar sense. The next panel shows what his surroundings as normal where the bumpy-looking walls are actually hundreds of gigantic creatures remaining perfectly still, watching Matt pass.[[note]]This seems to ignore that Matt's previously been shown to have acute enough hearing that he can detect living beings just by their heartbeats.[[/note]] Thankfully none of them attacked him. He also has had trouble fighting undead opponents, as their body temperatures are typically low enough that he can't sense their body heat and they lack a heartbeat for him to hear.
* Daredevil's FemmeFatale ex-girlfriend (he's had quite a few of those) Echo is deaf but possesses perfect photographic memory (whether or not she's a mutant has never been made clear). She has gone on to be an effective entertainer and member of the Avengers. Her condition is played more realistically than DD, however. She relies entirely on visual cues and is at a disadvantage if she can't see her opponent. She also has trouble speaking to heroes like ComicBook/IronMan or ComicBook/SpiderMan, whose costumes cover their mouths, making their lips unreadable.

* ''ComicBook/RobinSeries'': King Snake frequently used his blindness as an asset, ambushing people in the dark, knocking out sources of light, and using disorienting flashes or other visual stimuli. Interestingly, he becomes ''less'' dangerous in one instance where his sight is restored by a Lazarus Pit. Robin fights him and is surprised that he's holding his own before he realizes that King Snake was ''so'' used to fighting blind that suddenly ''having'' sight was a distraction that he couldn't compensate for. King Snake [[StatusQuoIsGod ends up blind again]] by the end of the issue.

* There are three general categories of real-life disability "superpowers". The first category consists of people who lack some ability, and as a result, hone some other ability either to make up for it or simply because they have nothing better to do. These sorts of abilities are [[CharlesAtlasSuperpower accessible to everyone who spends enough time working at it]]. The second category is a physical defect which in some ways can be an advantage, such as gigantism giving the advantage of extreme height in some sports (despite the health problems it causes), or not "wasting" blood on things you don't need (like legs in pilots; without legs, blood has less space to rush into during high-g maneuvers; a similar principle is used in flight suit design to prevent blood from rushing out of the head). The third category is when something artificial actually provides some advantages over the natural version (for example, some runners get a small advantage from artificial legs that can be modified specifically for running, some wheelchair users can go further distances given navigable territory than pedestrians on foot before tiring, and men without natural external sex organs who find that prostheses and toys actually provide ''more'' pleasure for lovers/flexibility and variation.)

Can be a specific form of CursedWithAwesome. Relates to GoodProstheticEvilProsthetic and UselessWithoutPowers. Compare with the more mundane InspirationallyDisadvantaged. Those with BlindfoldedVision {{invoke|dTrope}} this trope.

* ''Literature/{[Everland}}'': Mole is a twelve year old Lost Boy who is blind but has a sense of smell so keen he's practically a bloodhound.

[[/folder]]

-->'''Witch Queen:''' A sudden mutation kept mana from dwelling in you. You're merely defective. But because of that, you are able to wield that sword. You aren't special. Not in the slightest. But that's exactly what makes you special.

* ''Manga/BlackClover'': Probably the one good thing Asta can make out of his lack of magic is the fact that he completely lacks a magical signature. As a result, if the opponent can't see or hear him, his attacks are practically invisible to any wizard unaware of this. This is exploited in the battle against the leader of Hell Lotus. It's later revealed that his AntiMagic weapons drain mana upon contact, making it extremely dangerous for anyone else to wield them. And then it's revealed that [[spoiler:because Asta was born without magic, he is a perfect vessel for anti-magic, a.k.a. the demon blood that is the source of all his abilities.]]

Blindness seems to be a popular one for this. Indeed, the entire trope seems to be based around the idea that blind people's other senses [[SuperSenses become more acute]] to compensate. [[TruthInTelevision This does happen]] in real life but to a far weaker degree than the trope, simply because blind people get more exercise with paying close attention to their other senses, and the brain is capable of re-purposing unused spaces in the sensory and motor cortices. Some studies have indicated that people born deaf have better peripheral vision, as well. In Greek mythology Tiresias is an old blind man, but also an oracle, so he can see different things.

* ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventureStardustCrusaders'': The assassin N'Doul is blind, but he has mastered his hearing ability and developed a stand that can accurately dispatch his target for a long range. He turns out to be a very effective magical sniper of sorts.

* Many wheelchair-bound people have PsychicPowers or their [[SuperWheelchair wheelchair]] is a CoolCar[=/=]PoweredArmor hybrid. The uber-example is Charles Xavier aka Professor X, a man contained in a wheelchair who is also one of the most powerful telepaths in the whole Franchise/MarvelUniverse.

* In an episode of ''Series/{{Angel}}'', "Blind Date", Angel comes up against one of the most skilled human assassins he has encountered, and she happens to be blind. She blinded herself, then learned to see outside the spectrum of normal human sight -- effectively seeing the move you make before you make it. However, he can actually move faster than her, and ultimately overcomes her by moving in lightning-fast spurts; if he doesn't move, she can't see him, because vampires don't breathe or have a heartbeat.

* ''Series/TheBoys2019''. Deconstructed when Homelander is introduced to a proposed recruit to his superhero team: Blindspot, whose blindness is compensated for by his super-hearing. In one of his [[KickTheDog nastier moments]], Homelander casually asks, "What happens if I do this?" and slams his hands over Blindspot's ears, reducing him to a helpless screaming mess on the floor.

* In the ''Series/{{Farscape}}'' episode "Crackers Don't Matter", the Moya crew are exposed to a type of light that's driving them insane. Crichton is less affected because, as a human, he has weaker eyesight than the others.

-->'''Ted''': (''extremely embarrassed'') Right, well, I suppose your other senses make up for it. I hear that with blind people their other senses become more alert, heh heh, so to speak, I suppose you can smell things from ten miles away and hear things before they happen, heh heheh.
-->'''Blind Priest''': No.
-->'''Ted''': No sixth sense of any kind? Or I suppose in your case it would be a ''fifth'' sense, seeing as you've only got the four. Unless you've got another one missing that I don't know about? How's your sense of touch? (''begins slapping at the man's arms and shoulder and laughing'')
-->'''Blind Priest''': Could you go away now please?
* River Tam from ''Series/{{Firefly}}'' (and its follow-up movie, ''Serenity'') winds up with eerie PsychicPowers -- mind-reading abilities that apparently extend from emotions to actual thoughts (both of which were shown surprisingly clearly in the episode "Objects in Space") -- and some surprising WaifFu abilities, which combined with her "extraordinary grace" (ostensibly from [[DanceBattler years of studying dance]]), essentially turn her into a [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot psychic ninja ballerina]]. At one point she picks up a gun as if it's a toy, closes her eyes, fires three shots, and kills three bad guys. All of which would be awful nice, if they didn't almost all seem to result from brutal experiments that ''cut out a chunk of her brain'' (leaving her unable to filter her own emotions) and left her [[AxCrazy psychotic]].

** [[DefiedTrope Defied]] when Counselor Troi loses her empathic powers. She attempts to leave Starfleet on the grounds that she is now disabled. Picard tries to convince her otherwise, invoking this trope. Troi answers that there is no scientific evidence that losing one sense strengthens others and that the myth was likely created by non-disabled people in order to make themselves feel more comfortable around the disabled.

* ''Film/EverythingEverywhereAllAtOnce'': In one of the alternate universes, Evelyn was blinded at an early age and ended up becoming an opera singer, which not only made her more aware of her surroundings but also enabled her to hold her breath for longer. While these are not superpowers by themselves, the main-universe Evelyn [[AllYourPowersCombined combines these powers]] with kung-fu and juggling skills from her other counterparts (taken from universes where she is a martial arts film star and a sign walker, respectively), and effectively turns into a superpowered fighter.

** [[Comicbook/FantasticFour The Mole Man's]] low light vision works the same way, after he was nearly blinded by a shining cavern of diamonds. He wears special dark glasses to get by in daylight.
* Cliff Steele, in the ''Comicbook/DoomPatrol'' comics, gains his powers from the fact that he's [[BrainInAJar just a brain]] [[WeCanRebuildHim installed in a robot body]]. Later versions of ''Doom Patrol'' played up this "super disability" concept and included Crazy Jane, whose 64 [[SplitPersonality multiple personalities]] [[SuperpowerLottery each have a unique superpower]], and Dorothy, whose [[YourMindMakesItReal overactive imagination]] conjures up creatures from her subconscious. Averted by the Doom Patrol's Chief, who is paralyzed from the waist down. And that's it. The entire Comicbook/DoomPatrol is made up of people whose powers don't make up for their disabilities at all.

* Mindf**k from ''Comicbook/{{Empowered}}'' also is a BlindSeer. [[spoiler: Mind████'s brother tried to invoke this intentionally, when he did things described simply as horrifying to his sibling. More specifically, he cut out her eyes and tongue, so she has to piggyback on another person's senses to see and taste things.]]

* His abilities don't come from being unable to see, but it's worth mentioning Rot Lop Fan, a Comicbook/GreenLantern from a species that never evolved sight at all (and thus no conception of color or light... or lanterns, for that matter). His Green Lantern Oath goes:

* Ever since an incident with a villain using sound-based mind control and one of his own ultrasonic arrowheads, ComicBook/{{Hawkeye}} from ''Comicbook/TheAvengers'' needs a hearing aid. This doesn't come up often, but occasionally it protects him against the subtler sonic attacks as a plot point. (Perhaps less plausibly, once he's also shown unmasking an android as such by, apparently, turning his hearing aid all the way up and ''hearing'' the imposter's internal mechanisms.)

* In ''Comicbook/XMen'', ComicBook/{{Cyclops}} must always wear a special visor or pair of glasses to contain his [[{{Eyebeams}} optic blasts]]. When these devices are removed, he keeps his eyes shut, rendering him blind. Due to an important instance of this, he has since learned how to fight blind by using his hearing to pinpoint opponents and simply always scrutinizing his surroundings to know the lay of the land. One side story shows that he also counts his steps and memorizes which way he turns so that he can retrace his path and find his eyewear.

* Comically subverted in the "Blind Kung-Fu Master" {{sketch|Comedy}}es from ''Series/{{MADtv}}''. The title character of the sketch is blind, but his years of martial arts training do ''absolutely nothing'' to compensate. HilarityEnsues.

* The Oracle class in ''Tabletopgame/{{Pathfinder}}'' includes this in its game mechanics. All oracles are cursed in some mildly disabling way, but gain extra abilities related to the area of their curse - for instance, oracles with clouded vision lose the ability to see more than sixty feet away but gain the ability to see in the dark and sense invisible creatures.

* Koishi Komeiji from the ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' series ended up sealing away her ability to read minds due to the fear it inspired in other people. This left her with the ability to read and manipulate people's subconscious, a much more powerful ability that places her as the extra stage boss, compared to her stage 4 boss sister.

** Subverted however with the Impossible family, a parody of the Comicbook/FantasticFour. Other than the Reed Richards {{expy}}, they got the sucky aspects of the Four's superpowers without any of the benefits. Sally has to concentrate at all times or else her skin (and only her skin) will turn invisible, Cody bursts into flames whenever he is exposed to oxygen (and feels the same way any of us would if we were on fire), and Ned is a walking callus.

* During the series ''ComicBook/FiftyTwo'', ComicBook/AdamStrange lost his eyes in a freak teleportation accident. However, he quickly compensated by connecting his ship's sensor array to his visual cortex, allowing him sight as long as he was piloting.

* In ''Webcomic/{{Spinnerette}}'', [[spoiler: Mecha Maid is [[http://www.spinnyverse.com/2010/11/05/11052010 completely paralysed]] due to ALS. To get around this, she built and uses a robotic suit that amplifies her nerves and allows for her to move normally, but only for use as a superhero. It is revealed later that she uses parts of her suit while in civilian clothing because even breathing is becoming increasingly difficult for her.]]

* WeCanRebuildHim: An injured person is saved from death by converting them into a cyborg.

* In ''Film/HouseOfFlyingDaggers '', the blind Mei is capable of insane and technically physically impossible combat feats despite her disability. [[spoiler:Except... not really. It's all a ruse -- she's impersonating the old revolutionary leader's blind daughter, who doesn't know martial arts -- and she actually ''can'' see.]]

* A ''Franchise/{{Superman}}'' comic story revolved around a skeptical blind girl who did not believe in Superman's abilities and dismissed all his demonstrations of them as tricks. At one point he showed off his super-hearing by reciting the conversation going on in the next room. This didn't impress her, because she herself was able to hear it; Superman noted that blind people often develop an acute sense of hearing, and surmised that the girl had done so without being aware of it.

* The Quasi-Dead from ''Film/TheChroniclesOfRiddick'' take this trope to its logical conclusion. As the name suggests, they are practically dead. This near-death state, however, gives them amazing psychic powers.