Turning Green with Envy: Marvel’s She-Hulk and the Struggles of Neurodivergency

Cathryn Duran
4 min readAug 20, 2022

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SPOILERS AHEAD FOR EPISODE ONE OF SHE-HULK: ATTORNEY AT LAW

To no surprise, the pilot of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law dropped this last Thursday to resoundingly positive reviews. Tatiana Maslany gives an endearing and captivating performance as Jennifer Walters and her titular alter-ego, She-Hulk. The dynamic between her character and Mark Ruffalo’s Bruce Banner is hilarious, and they have one of the best familial bonds in the MCU to date. It also seems that the show will be delving into changing identities and how these characters will interact with their newfound labels. On the one hand, Jennifer will be experiencing what it means to be a Hulk in a society crawling with antagonists when she wants her simple lawyer life. On the other, Bruce could be dealing with the identity crisis that comes with a late diagnosis of neurodivergence and mental disorders.

Following a car accident when a Sakarran spaceship runs both Jennifer and Bruce off the road, Bruce’s blood gets into her system, and, due to similar genetics, she can become a Hulk being like her cousin. When Jennifer “hulks out” in front of Bruce for the first time, we learn that, unlike Bruce, she has complete control of her Hulk state. She’s practically herself still, just in the body of a green giant with super strength. Bruce is surprised and mentions that he constantly felt like he was fighting for control with his Hulk, describing it as “another man at the wheel” in his head. This moment might finally be an acknowledgment of Bruce’s canonical struggles with dissociative identity disorder, or DID, from the comics.

Similar to how Moonknight’s Marc Spector alters Steven Grant and Jack Lockley are from his DID, comic Bruce Banner’s disorder manifests into multiple personalities. The classic Hulk is one of his main alters, a personification of the frustrated and easily angered inner child, the product of a childhood robbed by an abusive household. Given that Marvel audiences are now familiar with DID through Moonknight, now would be the perfect opportunity to introduce Bruce’s similar struggles.

While it’s debated which mental disorders fall under the umbrella of neurodivergence, I believe Bruce’s struggles with the Hulk juxtaposed with the success Jennifer has in the same situation is an excellent metaphor for trying to function in a society that isn’t built anything beyond the typical mental state. There’s always a frustration ingrained in neurodivergence, an inherent anger and annoyance because everything comes easily to the neurotypical. We can see this in several instances in the show.

Upon realizing that Jennifer is entirely herself in Hulk form, Bruce proceeds to rip out ten years worth of research on the troubled dynamic between himself and Hulk and the process of finally joining them together. While this plays off as a joke, a “well, I guess we don’t need this anymore” moment, it’s hard to ignore Bruce’s annoyance about the situation. Why is it that it took a decade to accomplish what took his cousin only a night to do?

In the following training montage, Bruce shows Jennifer the strength she is capable of as Hulk, urging her not to get frustrated if things don’t come immediately to her. Yet, Jennifer proves she is not only competent but better than Bruce. While this moment can be read as a sibling-esque rivalry and of a man underestimating the abilities of his female counterpart, it is impossible to ignore the underlying discussion of how neurodivergent people function in society versus neurotypicals. Bruce, who represents neurodivergence in this regard, talks Jennifer through the exercises and emphasizes how long it took him to reach this point. Yet, in mere moments, Jennifer excels in these tasks with little to no effort. Similarly, it may take someone with ADHD several weeks to complete a task that took a neurotypical person only a few hours.

Even Bruce’s frustration with Jennifer reads as a neurodivergent struggle; he expresses anger that even though they are both super-strong gamma-beasts, everything comes easily to her with so little experience. With neurodivergence, it is easy to get flustered and annoyed with a society built for neurotypical people. So Bruce pushes her off a cliff when he cannot deal with her smugness much longer — a moment of familial teasing and infuriation at the neurotypical ego.

From my personal experience, I received my diagnosis of anxiety and depression very late in life — almost a year ago, surprisingly, despite struggling for most of my life. While it was reassuring to have a name for my struggles, there was also this anger that no one else noticed what I was going through or didn’t seem to care enough to get help sooner. I held a deep resentment for how long it took to start functioning like an ordinary person, a journey I’m still on. If Marvel plans to introduce Bruce’s DID so late into his character introduction to the franchise, I would not be surprised to see a version of Banner struggling with the complex emotions of a late diagnosis.

Once again, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law landed this week with a solid introduction to the character and storyline. I genuinely hope the writers did decide to delve further into the topics of mental illness, neurodivergence, and complex feelings that come with adult diagnoses.

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