Martyrs and Monsters of the Avengers: Christianity and Disability in the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Abstract

This paper examines the visual vocabulary of Marvel’s Avengers movies through a study of characters with acquired impairments. When an impairment exhibits the characters’ commitment to justice, they are martyr-heroes; when their origins “deform” their bodies, they are monsters in need of redemption. Putting these stereotypes in conversation with Christianity offers a heuristic to interrogate the meanings conveyed by these characters’ bodies. Using a theological and disability-informed perspective, I argue that Marvel’s uncritical adoption of tropes about physical impairment perpetuates a tradition of ableism that is undergirded by the Christian theological imagination.

Keywords:

• church history
• disability
• disability studies
• moral theology
• physical
• disability

Notes

1 This paper loosely adopts the social model of disability, which differentiates between disability and impairment. I use the language of impairment when talking about the physical realities of the characters’ bodies. Disability, in contrast, refers to the social and cultural consequences of the impairment (e.g. inaccessibility, dehumanization, or exclusion).

2 Thor’s eyepatch is short-lived; he receives a new eye in Avengers: Infinity War. The new eye is blue, whereas Thor’s eyes were originally green, so the visual reminder of his sacrifice remains – albeit in an even more attractive package.

3 Compare the depictions of Bucky and Nebula to the visual vocabulary used for James “Rhodey” Rhodes (War Machine), played by Don Cheadle. After the paralysis he acquires in Captain America: Civil War, the character never faces lasting consequences of his injury. Instead, when he returns to the screen at the end of the movie, he is able to walk in the same way he could before his paralysis thanks to physical therapy and cybernetics fashioned for him by Tony Stark. Because the movies do not want the audiences to superimpose moral judgment on Rhodey’s impairment, they visually erase it.

4 4. For a recent analysis of Jesus' scars as identifiers in the resurrection, see Moss, 2019, pp. 22–40.

5 Note that “human” refers to the capacity for repentance and the creation in God’s image. Technically, Nebula is not a human by species within the Avengers, but her personhood is equal at least to Bucky’s.