Every once in a while the gaming and comics community does something really amazing. The comic community gives out free comic books at the beginning of May each year. Penny Arcade helps thousands of children by making their lives more comfortable. And so on. Sometimes, though, the project isn’t so big. Sometimes it just helps one child.
In a recent news story, a young boy with a hearing disability didn’t want to wear his hearing aid (he called it his “blue ear”) because none of the superheroes wore them. This made interacting and learning very difficult for him, and his mother didn’t know what to do. Knowing that he loved superheroes, she wrote to the editors at Marvel with the hopes that they could provide her with some assistance.
Boy, did they ever.
First, they sent him some images of Hawkeye back in the the 80s, from a time when he lost his hearing and required a hearing aid of his own. The team then created a new superhero called Blue Ear, a hero that uses his special hearing device to detect trouble. They sent the boy a full-color cover image of Blue Ear using his special hearing device.
Here is a great video on the story.
Games, comics, and other forms of entertainment have the power to motivate us to do the right thing. They can give us hope. The guys over at Marvel are real life heroes for what they did, and they deserve our thanks.
Great work, guys.