Chaos, swans, and sexy sheriffs in the latest issue of Tini Howard’s Knights of X. @askmeaboutmyoctopustheory gives their take on all the Otherworld Shenanigans!
AMBIT #1 (OF 5) CHRIS CLAREMONT (W) • SID KOTIAN (A) • Cover by WHILCE PORTACIO VARIANT COVER BY INHYUK LEE All-NEW ADVENTURES OF THE LEGENDARY THIEF BY CO-CREATOR CHRIS CLAREMONT! You think you know all there is to know about Remy LeBeau, the Ragin’ Cajun, the mutant known as GAMBIT — but legendary X-scribe Chris Claremont has an ace up his sleeve with this new series! Before he joined the X-MEN, Gambit encountered a mysterious girl named ‘RO — the mutant STORM regressed to her child self by the nefarious NANNY — and the two went up against the forces of the SHADOW KING! Now, revealed for the first time, Gambit finds his path to becoming the heroic X-Man millions of fans call their favorite! Joined by rising star artist Sid Kotian, Chris weaves a story of action, intrigue and revenge that made Gambit the mutant he is and forged his relationship with Storm. You’ll get a charge out of this one, mon ami!
I think it’s important to note that neither comics nor MCU got it right.
Comics have not historically treated disability or deafness correctly in most issue or publication. Echo is an iconic Deaf character but still is verbal and magically lipreads. One of her super powers, actually. MCU did better by her by casting Deaf actress who uses ASL only.
Matt Fraction portrayed Clint’s deafness much better. Relying on old memories of ASL which come back the more he uses it, dealing with grief of hearing loss but ultimately remembering he’s still Hawkeye. Struggle to lipread. Visible bright purple Stark HAs. Whole panels of ASL only, with no text. I loved every panel.
MCU failed in portraying ASL on the screen very well. Clint’s signing is so poor, ASL not framed to be understood so captions were still necessary even if viewer is fluent, Clint’s hearing loss confusing because he seem to have no residual hearing in a Broadway musical with HA off, (which are LOUD) but only wears one HA, and with that HA seems to have perfect hearing <–does not add up.
But, this is most important: both the comics and MCU give some version of deaf!Clint. It means that in some universe, in some incarnation, deaf!Clint is canon.
We’re all reaching for things: Queer rep, disability rep, deaf rep, gender rep, PoC rep. They don’t always deliver, but fandom takes over and does.
I’m not a fan of Jeremy Renner. He’s not someone I want representing Deaf Clint. But the fact that the MCU finally gave us something means it’s another world I can play in for my fanfic.
And honestly, it might be scraps, but I’ll take it.
