SAN DIEGO — If you look closely at some of the most popular comic book and collectible characters featured at Comic-Con International in San Diego, you notice some unexpected similarities. "X-Men's" Professor Charles Xavier uses a wheelchair. "Daredevil's" Matt Murdock is blind. "Iron Man's" Tony Stark doesn't have a healthy heart.
But it's not just the superheroes who are living with disabilities. All around the San Diego Convention Center are scores of others whose bodies are not fully functional, and many of them are navigating Comic-Con's cavernous exhibit halls in wheelchairs.
"You can be someone you are not in real life," said Virginia Baker, a 62-year-old fan of the World of Warcraft online video game and manga (Japanese comic books). Because of severe knee problems, the San Diego resident has used a wheelchair for more than seven years and was attending Comic-Con for the third time. "You can feel like you can be one of them -- you have legs! -- and you can become a warrior," she said of the appeal of fantasy gaming.
While the annual convention celebrating comics, movies, toys and games doesn't break down how many of its visitors have disabilities, it's obvious to any casual observer that the disabled -- most noticeably, people with mobility problems -- make up a significant portion of Comic-Con's 125,000 guests.
A wing of the 6,500-seat Hall H (where Hollywood movie previews are shown) is reserved for hundreds of fans using wheelchairs. The convention provides volunteers to wait in line for people who aren't able to stand for long periods of time, and a disabled services department provides personal assistance (it will store medicine in convention floor refrigerators, for one thing) and rental wheelchairs to dozens of visitors needing them.
The disabled are so much a part of the Comic-Con fabric that some of the convention's security officers use wheelchairs and Comic-Con staff have been heard yelling at other attendees using wheelchairs to slow down like everybody else trying to get to a presentation.
"I wish everybody had services like they do here," said 28-year-old Melissa Eckardt of San Diego, who uses a wheelchair because of muscular dystrophy and is attending Comic-Con for the 15th time. "They know what to expect and what they need to do, and it only gets better year after year."
