Neurodivergent (Headcanon) Alley: Kamala Khan (Ms. Marvel)

*Kamala-related spoilers.*

As I said with my post on Peter Parker, to some extent this characterization could just be chalked up to the portrayal of a teenage superhero trying to juggle everything they have to deal with; it’s tough having to make life-or-death decisions when your brain isn’t fully developed yet. And that’s fair. But on the other hand, Kamala Khan just radiates ADHD.

At the start of her series, Kamala is such a “daydreamer” that she’s sent to the school counselor for a let’s-get-serious-about-your-future talk. It’s hard for her to focus on her schoolwork, or on what she’s supposed to do at home, or on her driving test, because she’s wildly imaginative. When it comes to something she really loves—namely, superheroes—she can hyperfocus almost indefinitely. Captain Marvel is her biggest love, and she’ll run out of wall space long before her well of fanart runs dry. But she also maintains a YouTube channel, consumes whatever Avengers-related news she can find, and obsesses over finding the perfect finishing touch for her Captain Marvel cosplay. I love how the show makes her thoughts visible at times, drawing her flights of fancy in the air around her.

When it comes to neurodivergent coding, there’s an important distinction between Kamala and MCU Peter: we meet her before she becomes a superhero, and these traits are already firmly in place. She doesn’t seem easily distracted and flaky because she’s hiding a double life. Rather, she’s already having a hard time regulating her focus and easily gets lost in her imagination, and when the superpowers kick in, that just makes it even harder.

(Side note: Not that I don’t think Peter is ADHD, of course. I’m just pointing out how their introductions play out differently.)

Naturally, Kamala is thrilled when the bangle activates her powers—to quote Rebecca Bunch, I think it’s fair to say she feels “like glitter is exploding inside [her].” But being a superhero is a lot of work, and it takes her a while to find her footing. She bungles one of her earliest saves, rescuing a boy from falling out the window of the mosque but accidentally dropping him before they reach the ground. Her attempts to stay on top of both superheroics and her home life are tricky, and she gets in trouble more than once because she doesn’t turn up when she says she will.

Kamala frequently thinks she can handle everything and then scrambles when that doesn’t turn out to be the case. A great early example of this is her ambitious, multi-pronged plan to sneak out to AvengerCon. She has details galore and has worked out how everything is supposed to go, timing each phase down to the minute (which is important, since they have a bus to catch.) But she underestimates how long basically everything will take—hello, ADHD time blindness!—she overlooks important factors, and she and Bruno’s trip to the con is far more touch-and-go than she anticipates.

All that said, Kamala’s creativity remains a force to be reckoned with, especially as she learns to pair it with her work as a hero. She makes mistakes and is hard on herself for them, but she’s also pretty indomitable and keeps popping back up, figuring out new ways to make it work. She has an incredibly caring heart, loves to explore, and wants nothing more than to do well and help people.

Other Doctor Lives: DuckTales: Season 3, Episode 3 – “Double-0-Duck in You Only Crash Twice!” (2020)

DuckTales is a show that enjoys genre play from time to time—as evidenced by last week’s dive into four-camera sitcoms—and this episode has lots of fun messing around with James Bond-style spy hijinks. While it’s mostly a feature for Launchpad and Dewey, Scrooge and Webby get in on the action in an entertaining subplot.

Dewey is obsessed with a fancy new VR game at Funso’s Fun Zone, a slick spy romp. He’s determined to beat it, but his partner, Launchpad, keeps tripping them up. However, the duo gets more than they bargained for when they encounter a real heavy within the game, unaware that the stakes have suddenly changed. All the while, Webby tries to introduce Scrooge to Funso’s charms.

There’s plenty of fun to be had in the spy-genre spoofing here, both within the game and with the real-world villains. Like, of course the enemy agent has designed an Intelli-Ray that dramatically increases or decreases its targets intelligence, aiming to thwart Scrooge by making him “dumber than the dummies.” We also get talk of evil lairs, goofy code words, and a climactic boat chase. And we get an extra dollop of amusement from the fact that Dewey and Launchpad think all of this is just part of the game. “Oh man, do you know what this means?” Dewey asks Launchpad when they wake up in a prison cell. In unison, they exclaim, “We made it to the next level!”

Oh yeah, and Jay Mantoukas plays the menacing yet clueless henchman Steelbeak, basically doing his Jay Mantoukas shtick throughout. It’s fun, especially watching him play off Beck Bennett’s Launchpad. There’s a terrific scene where they face off at a high-stakes poker table, and each counters with a different card game at every turn; I love how dramatically they intone, “Go fish,” and “Old maid,” at one another.

Scrooge doesn’t see the point in VR spy games—when Dewey asks, “Haven’t you ever wanted to plug into a thrilling high-stakes adventure?”, he simply gestures to himself with an exhibit A expression. But Webby tries to keep him occupied in the arcade so Dewey and Launchpad can play one last round. Unsurprisingly, Scrooge isn’t impressed by Whack-a-Mole. “I pay for the privilege of doing someone else’s yardwork?” he says. “Pass!”

But naturally, it’s only a matter of time before Webby finds something that does hookhim, and David Tennant hilariously plays Scrooge getting Way Too into It. As he quickly gets addicted to the instant gratification of a prospector-themed skee-ball game, he gives spectacularly serious delivery on lines like, “Step aside, Webigail. These side-winding claim jumpers won’t stop me from striking it ticket-rich!” And when the prospect of earning, and subsequently hoarding, tickets comes into play? I think we all know how Scrooge is gonna react to that one!

Rustin (2023, PG-13)

This film only snagged one Oscar nomination, for its leading man, but it’s a well-made movie that shines a light on an important figure from history who’s rarely been given his due. While it follows fairly standard biopic fare, Bayard Rustin is someone who deserves all that.

Bayard Rustin is a dedicated figure in the Civil Rights movement, but he’s one that the larger movement doesn’t always know what to do with. His political leanings and rumors about his sexuality have boxed him out of a leadership position by Martin Luther King Jr.’s side, on the grounds that he’s too controversial and will “distract” from the cause. But Bayard still wants to fight for his people’s liberation, and he comes up with a showstopping way to do just that: a march on Washington.

Because the typical Black History Month lessons in the U.S. pretty much cover slavery and the Civil Rights movement, with a possible side jaunt to George Washington Carver or Langston Hughes, Americans can have a false sense of assuming we’re well-versed on this period of history. But despite learning the same lessons year after year, there’s so much about the Civil Rights movement that doesn’t get taught. I can’t remember if I ever heard about Bayard Rustin in school, but if I did, it just would’ve been hearing his name in an “and then the rest”-style list. I didn’t learn anything meaningful about him until I read John Lewis’s graphic memoir March.

All of which is to say, this biopic is incredibly welcome. The film itself doesn’t break the mold, but it tells its story well and clearly, highlighting this man who was unsung even in his own time. It’s really interesting to watch the details of the March on Washington come together, including the external pushback it got. We don’t see enough depictions of the friction within the different civil rights groups, so I appreciate it here—these folks were all fighting for the same vital, righteous goal, but they had different ideas about how to accomplish that, and because they were humans and not saints, they sometimes let those differences get in the way of the larger ideals.

Most of all, though, I like learning about Bayard Rustin himself: the way he led, the feathers he ruffled, and how he circumvented his obstacles. Not only was he gay in an era when that was illegal, he was gay in a movement with preachers in prominent leadership positions. The film shows the ways he didn’t fit the “acceptable” mold of a Civil Rights leader while also demonstrating how he was instrumental to the fight.

Colman Domingo is excellent in the title role. As Bayard, he brings an infectious energy and passion to the screen, and his performance brims with honesty. I’m glad he got a Best Leading Actor nomination, even if the rest of the film didn’t get any Oscars attention. The movie also features appearances from Chris Rock, a strong Glynn Turman as A. Philip Randolph, CCH Pounder, Audra McDonald, the always-solid Jeffrey Wright, and Da’Vine Joy Randolph.

Warnings

Strong thematic elements, violence, sexual content, language (including the N-word,) and drinking/smoking/drug use.