Deaf characters are often marginalised in literature. Echo the deaf superhero is coming to the rescue as the creators of comics strive for realism in their portrayal of deaf characters.
"With any form of portrayal including the deaf in comics, we tend to see things very much from a hearing person's point of view," said Paul Dakin, a GP trainer from North London who studies deaf characters in literature, at a recent conference on comics and medicine. "Most of the people who write or who are artists are hearing, and as a result, traditionally there have been other reasons to portray deaf people. So, for example, they are plot devices; they are catalysts; they are means of reflecting particular aspects or features of a hearing character; they move the plot along, but they're not developed in their own right."
In Hergé's Tintin, for example, Professor Calculus is hard of hearing. His disability is used as a comic device to introduce trivial and amusing misunderstandings into the story, rather than explored in its own right. Similarly, Hope Hibbert, a deaf girl who first appeared in The Sensational Spider-Man, issue 18, uses her ability to read lips from security camera footage to give Spider-Man the information he needs to save the day.
"However, over the last 20 years an increasing number of deaf characters have started to emerge within mainstream comics," said Dakin. "That's given rise to the emergence of Echo. She is a major deaf character in the Marvel canon."
Echo (aka Maya Lopez) is a superhero like no other. First appearing in Daredevil issue 9 in 1999, she is a rare deaf character with a complex emotional back story. Born deaf to a Cheyenne father and a Hispanic mother, she has the power to perfectly imitate anything she sees, including a rival's fighting style.
"The character was going to debut as an antagonist in the story, but also as a love interest for Daredevil," Echo's creator and artist David Mack told me by email. "With Daredevil being blind, and constantly piecing his world together via his other senses, I felt he would be able to relate to Maya (aka Echo) who was deaf and grew up visually piecing the information of her world together to make sense of the mysterious audible world that she was not a part of."
As research for the character, Mack read autobiographies of people who grew up deaf. "That was an incredible insight to me," he said. "I read a book where a boy was told that the rain makes a noise, and that lightning has an audible counterpart in thunder. So then he wondered what sound the sunshine made ... This kind of first person perspective really let me think from a different point of view."
Echo uses both American Sign Language (ASL) and a Native American system developed for communication between tribes speaking different languages. The sign systems appear throughout the comic, both when Echo is signing and as background art.
Though Echo provides perhaps the most complete example of sign language in comics, it is not the first. On the front cover of DC's Supergirl, issue 65, characters sign the comic's title. Spider-Man himself uses ASL in Sensational Spider-Man, issue 31 (and every time he shoots webs he signs "I love you"; his hand position blending the signs for I, L and Y in ASL).
Some aspects of Echo's character are arguably not representative of the deaf community. "Often the assumption is made that most deaf people can read lips well, whereas in fact most of them can't," said Dakin.
"Lip-reading grew organically out of the character and the skills she developed based on her childhood," said Mack. "Maya grew up deciphering details from visual cues. She learned to make sense of body language, facial expressions, lip movements, piano playing, in such detail that she developed a pattern recognition in which she can decipher the pattern in just about anything visual."
She was a "walking Rosetta Stone", said Mack, able to decipher and repeat any movement as a physical language skill. "Aside from being able to physically absorb a system of complex movement such as dance or martial arts, she'd be a great code-breaker or glyph decipherer."
Tyron Woolfe, deputy director for children and youth at the National Deaf Children's Society, pointed out that no deaf character can represent the entire deaf community: "It is difficult to realistically encompass the whole spectrum of deafness in a story as it varies widely in terms of levels of deafness and communication methods."
But, he added, "For some deaf kids, having deafness as the central theme is inspiring."
On her influential blog Deaf Characters in Adolescent Literature, Sharon Pajka-West of Gaudaullet University for the deaf in Washington DC, writes: "I don't think I need to go on and on about [Echo] ... because I always do and you know I love this character."
Mack said that when he wrote the characters Echo (who is deaf) and Daredevil (who is blind), he wanted to focus on what they could do rather than what society sees as their disability. "They are able to take that perceived deficit and turn it into a unique point of view that can become their asset."
"With the right support, deaf children can do anything any other child can do," said Woolfe. "Deaf children and young people can achieve at school, play musical instruments, write poetry or play football. We would like to see more of this creativity and determination in deaf characters, and more deaf characters portrayed in mainstream literature, with deafness not being the leading theme."
He said the National Deaf Children's Society would also like to see how deaf characters overcome their deafness, rather than have negative storylines in relation to deafness. "It is important that this overcoming is not taken to mean being cured, but is equated with managing one's deafness," he added.
Outside the deaf community, on the standard comic blog sites, Echo has had a very good reception, said Dakin. "Hearing readers are very supportive of Echo; they really like her."
Look out for Echo in Daredevil comics (volume 2, issues 51-55) and her own upcoming series, both published by Marvel Comics.
And you'll be seeing more of Echo in the near future. "I've been asked to write another Echo series and I'd love to," said Mack.
Cian O'Luanaigh is a graphic artist and science writer based in London. He has a masters in science communication from Imperial College London
