Imagine a Superman AU where humans found kryptonite, and/or learned how to synthesize it in a lab… during the same time Superman was growing up in Smallville.
Imagine that, in this timeline, the material turned out to be totally harmless to humans, and useful for all sorts of technological purposes. It ends up getting used in practically everything humans produce on this planet.
Instead of asbestos, buildings are fireproofed with kryptonite foam. Kryptonite fibers are woven into fast-fashion. When incandescent bulbs filled with krypton went out of style, the fluorescent bulbs that replaced them were made with damn kryptonite.
So, Superman grows up severely disabled, instead of superpowered.
When he enters a classroom, the lights weaken his eyesight. The walls around him make him exhausted and foggy-brained. The clothes he’s wearing give him a rash. He can barely get through grade school, let alone college, let alone journalism school.
Maybe the problems get less severe depending on where he is. Maybe out in the fields at his family farm, wearing his mom’s handmade clothes, he actually manages to retain some of the powers that come with being from another planet.
Not to the degree he’d have them in a world without all that kryptonite, of course. But more noticeable, the farther he is from it.
Maybe his parents even notice that he has these unusual skills; that he can do things they’ve never seen another kid do. But only sometimes. And never anyplace where it can be much use, beyond making him a strong worker on the farm (as long as the tractor doesn’t get near him, or the combine, or the fertilizers, or the pesticides, or…)
…and maybe his family and neighbors even figure out what it is that’s causing the problem! But good luck convincing the schools, the potential workplaces, the infrastructure that manufactures everything the poor kid will ever need in life– that they’re poisoning him, with this common material that’s been extensively studied and no human in history has ever shown any negative reaction to.
He lives out his whole life that way. Lucky to have a supportive community that recognizes his needs, does what they can to accommodate his challenges and make the most of the skills he has.
But he never leaves Smallville. He never works for the Daily Planet. He never fights a supervillain. No one outside his small town ever knows he’s anything special.
“Superpower as a metaphor for disability” has… a lot of issues. I’d say a valid criticism is that it can lead disabled people to expect their disability to come with talents that make up for the challenges, and to feel worthless if that never happens.
But when people argue against it on “trivializing the challenges” grounds… that’s not so much an argument against the central idea, as it is an unfortunate side effect of the way nearly every superhero narrative trivializes the hero’s “weakness.”
In any of the “canon” versions of the story, Superman became a superhero because he was lucky enough not to live on an Earth full of kryptonite. This was the only reason he was ever seen as having “skills that made up for the disability.” And even there, the weakness to kryptonite was still a disability– equivalent to other super-rare allergies that occur among humans. Luckily an allergen that didn’t often show up in his life. But devastating when it did, and those who didn’t understand wouldn’t take it seriously.
And again, this is a somewhat dangerous metaphor– because portraying a power that does, in any circumstances, outweigh the disability, runs the risk of being interpreted as “every disabled person can have that experience in the right circumstances.”
It runs the risk of being interpreted as “disabilities are only disabilities because of how society is structured.”
Which, of course, is an oversimplified extrapolation of a complex truth: that changes in society could make life better for almost every disabled person.
Sometimes to the point of being able to do the same things as everyone else. Sometimes even more. Sometimes bringing out and maximizing unique individual talents, directly related to the disabled experience.
But not for everyone. Not in every case.
There will always still be people who, even with all possible accommodations, are still disabled in comparison to the population in general. And not all of them will ever develop some fancy savant skill– let alone one that’s powerful enough to somehow cancel out all the hardship they’ve faced.
Which of course doesn’t change the fact that it’s still worth making the effort, to improve as many lives as possible.
Because even in standard superhero narratives, even the most superpowered heroes want to do that. To help people. To protect the powerless. To make life better, even for those who will always be weaker than average.
As a kid growing up disabled– the kind of kid who did have unusual skills, and supportive family who nurtured those skills while they fought for accommodations– for me, the superhero metaphor was one of many things that helped me feel my life was worth it. I was among the lucky ones who found that analogy helpful instead of discouraging. And I feel there were times when I really needed it.
But the idea of needing such a thing? That is a tragic consequence of living in a world that continually demands you justify your existence by being useful… and justify every one of your hardships by finding something you gained from it that made it worthwhile.
I want a world that moves beyond that.
Someday.