Thread by @bikenesmith

crippled crusaders: disability representation in the superhero genre by cassandra nicol is a central inspiration to my reading of charles xavier's disability (as is the text itself).
is he ever "re-abled”, or is his disability a chronic illness that dramatically waxes + wanes? 🧵

(this is a repost of a past thread posted on the account i used while this account was suspended, but w/ some important additions! so if you think you've read some of this before, you might've lol)

the dominant, most objective[?] read is that charles becomes abled, is disabled, + becomes abled again ad nauseam. yet this narrative trend has also licensed a reading where charles’ disability is, functionally, a chronic illness that flares due to outward stimuli.

whether charles’ paraplegia is due to physical injury or a brain/astral issue isn’t clear, having been complicated over the years by the many ways the text chooses to able + re-disable him. in any case, his paraplegia began after his spine was crushed by a giant rock.

what makes the most sense to me is leaning *into* that ambiguity. its both — either mental or physical injury/ailment can cause him disablement. the back + forth of charles’ paraplegia signifies he’s uniquely in danger of that specific symptom — paraplegia/spine issues.

like injury or damage to the spine, injury or damage to the brain can lead to quadriplegia or paraplegia. the brain + the spine, the central nervous system, they’re basically extensions of each other, and are some of the most important parts of your body.

from this one can extrapolate that charles has a particularly “weak” spine, and it’s likely to give out if he experiences intense physical OR psionic injury. and as an x-man, he risks that quite often.

before i go further, here's a list of all of charles xavier's ablements + disablements & how they happened. 😭 yes that's an ELEVEN POINT LIST. let me know if i missed anything. re: resurrections i counted both his x-force + inferno resurrections as one item.

the strongest evidence for charles’ disability as psychic/neurological AND physical chronic illness exists in his story beats post-brood saga, during which his body is destroyed and his soul is transferred into an abled clone-body made from his tissue samples.

however, charles finds that he is not able to walk/walk consistently, despite the fact that there is nothing "wrong" with this new body. in these panels (and in the ones in the coming tweets), charles + lilandra discuss the mental/neurological element of his disability at length.

charles goes through an arduous physical therapy process trying to circumvent the mental barrier, which causes him excruciating pain, and experiences sharp fluctuations in ambulatory ability.
it’s basically outright said that his disability is not just in his body, but his brain

(interestingly, soon after, his health is a central subject once again, after he survives a violent hate crime & hides the injury + resulting health issues. those health issues are then exacerbated by another severe injury at the hands of the strucker twins. thus headmaster mags)

i also think the “ease” with which charles moves from ability one state to another that nicol mentions is important to this.

to be clear: we have seen charles agonize over his disability, and especially *losing* his ability. it’s undeniable that it impacts him emotionally —

but charles doesn’t go through the intense “grieving” process many newly disabled ppl do — the kind he went through himself while recovering from his first spinal injury (see uncanny x-men 309).
as nicol points out (duplicate image hosts the alt text that wouldn't fit the 1st):

ofc, this is in part bc charles had already been paraplegic for years, but it can also be read as him just being *ready* for it. seeing it as an eventuality, a familiar state that he will return to throughout his life. a chronic disability that exists whether or not he can walk.

so what does this mean in the krakoan age, the most recent and recognizable instance of charles' "abling"?

we've already been shown that a newly grown physical body doesn't necessarily mean that it does not come without his disability.

is the disability a “symptom” of charles' telepathy?
is it imprinted in his mind/soul/whatever you want to call what cerebro catalogues, or the form charles takes when transferring into new bodies?
is a krakoan-made body uniquely "stronger" than past ones? (R-LDS notwithstanding)

through all of krakoa era, there’s never been any mention of what charles feels about making his bodies ambulatory.
the closest thing we have is the knowledge that he brought his own wheelchairs with him to krakoa (which somewhat supports a "chronic illness" reading, at least).

the fact that charles brought his wheelchairs with him to krakoa.....in a paradise allegedly free of death or sickness he still prepares for his needs to change, as if its an immutable part of him that could resist miracle drugs + literal resurrection.

(but isn't it SO classic x-men bullshit that we only get that insight in the backdrop of an ableist plot where a villain is punished + humiliated.....by being dis-abled? lmfao.

in duggan's marauders, disability is considered a punishment worse than death.)

via xuân’s resurrection, we know that its possible to have your physical disability preserved when you’re resurrected. so it must have been an active choice of charles' to be resurrected into an abled body.

personally, i find charles' choice to be resurrected in an abled body to be in-character. he's done it before, he frequently mourns his ability to walk, & has always enjoyed running + abled sports.

the lack of discussion or attention to this choice is the problem.

imo the best outcome for charles, an iconic disabled character w/ a long complex history w/ his disability, is to canonize this complexity by revisiting these story beats and reframing his disability as an intrinsic part of him that he experiences whether he is ambulatory or not.

understanding charles xavier's disability as a chronic disability that simply has changing presentations + support needs is a far more compelling idea than continuing with this on-off-switch thing that only serves to trivialize + erase disability

some last points:
1. beyond charles' issues, telepathy can by itself already be seen as a disability as it causes issues that are similar to those neurological disorders (migraines, fatigue, fainting, pain, visions/hallucinations, etc).

2. the serum plotline in xmdofp (2014) is clowned on for not making sense but i guess this lowkey works as an argument that it does??? charles' physical disability being connected to his telepathy has precedent. "well in the comics — ☝️🤓"

ok end of thread. if you want to read cassandra nicol's paper check it out here!

(if you don't have access to it through a library or institution, dm me for a pdf!)proquest.com/docview/192594…

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