Christina D’Allesandro, mother of five year old Anthony Smith, found herself desperate to try and help her son and get him to wear his hearing aid. Anthony didn’t believe he should wear if because “superheros don’t wear hearing aids.” Anthony is fully deaf in one ear, and is partially deaf in the other. Not sure what to do, Christina went on Marvel Comics’ website, looking to reach out to someone, asking if they had any hearing impaired heroes. But the answer she got from Marvel was more than she ever expected, when they reached out to here a few weeks later, and made Anthony’s dreams become a reality. They turned Anthony into a superhero, named The Blue Ear, and made him an honorary Avenger.

Two Marvel artists, Manny Mederos and Nelson Ribeiro, both created two separate comic covers featuring Anthony as his new superhero alter ego, one featuring a young version of Blue Ear with Hakweye, and another featuring an older version of Blue Ear, now as a full fledged superhero. According to Christina, when Anthony first saw the cover, he exclaimed “‘Oh my God, it’s me!” The artists gave Blue Ear an ear power, which gives him the power to hear the pin drop on the other side of the state, which he uses to hear when people are in need of help when they’re in trouble.