The 4-year-old New Hampshire boy didn’t want to use his hearing aid, telling his mom that superheroes don’t wear them.

Leave it to some real-life heroes at Marvel Comics to create a hearing-aid-wearing superhero in honor of little Anthony Smith. The child was born with a genetic disorder that left him without a functioning right ear and significant hearing loss in the other.

The creation of the new character began when Smith's mother wrote to Marvel recently after her son told her he didn't want to wear his blue hearing aid to school.

"Basically, one day he woke up and I said, 'OK, time to put in your hearing aid,' and said, 'Let's put in blue ear.' We've always called it that," Christina D'Allesandro told WMUR-TV. "And he said, 'No, superheroes don't wear blue ears.'"

The email from Anthony's mother "got me thinking what could we do to show that superheroes do wear hearing aids," said Bill Rosemann, a Marvel editor, who has a 3-year-old son.

"Maybe we can create a superhero that will make him feel good about wearing his hearing aid," Rosemann told The Daily News.The 4-year-old New Hampshire boy didn’t want to use his hearing aid, telling his mom that superheroes don’t wear them.

Rosemann first sent the mom a comic book cover of Hawkeye, a member of the Avengers who lost his hearing. But Rosemann didn't stop there.

He also forwarded D'Allesandro's email to some of Marvel's artists, who pitched in to create Blue Ear, a superhero whose distinctive listening device gives him supersonic hearing.

The hearing device lets him hear "an ant hiccup on the other side of the country," Nelson Ribeiro, Blue Ear’s co-creator, told CBS News HealthPop.

 

"The Blue Ear, along with the other superheroes of Inter-C.O.M., who are all special needs children, have banded together to use their newfound powers to fight crime and teach the world that no matter who you are, everyone has a hero inside of them," Ribeiro added.

"Thanks to my listening device, I hear someone in trouble," Blue Ear exclaims in one panel in response to an otherwise inaudible cry for help.

 

Marvel later sent Smith another sketch showing Hawkeye and Blue Ear together.

 

Though Marvel has no plans to feature Blue Ear in other comics, the company's gesture already has achieved the important goal that started it all.

 

Anthony, of Salem, N.H., told Fox 25 News in Boston last week that he's gung ho to wear his hearing aid "to fight bad guys and help people."