Disabled cosplayer inspires

Cosplayer Kevin Walker attends various conventions throughout the year. Photos submitted

By Tom Victoria

Kevin Walker is a superhero with a disability. The British cosplayer inspires others by depicting various characters in a wheelchair.

“One of the biggest things that I enjoy about it is going out and seeing people and seeing how they react to Spider-Man in a wheelchair,” he said. “If I had seen that as a kid, that would have been on another level. It's not just other people with disabilities that find it cool, but fully grown adults and able-bodied kids seeing what I’m doing. I'd like to think that it is kind of an inspiration. I'd like to think that it actually does help people.”

Kevin, 20, of Bournemouth in England portrays superheroes such as Nightwing and Dr. Strange in addition to the wallcrawler.

“I have a variety of characters that I cosplay,” he said. “And I'll sometimes do versions of the character as you'd see them in the movies and versions where it's my depiction of that character.”

Kevin doesn’t restrict himself to appearing in person.

“What I do with cosplay is both online and in person,” he said. “So online, I'll do a lot of comedy skits and come up with funny little scenarios in my head of what these characters would react to in certain situations. Or there'll be an audio that I find, but with photo shoots.” 

Kevin dressed as the Marvel sorcerer Dr. Strange, who was created in the 1960s.

Kevin utilizes his limited mobility beyond what people without disabilities do, including maneuvers on a pole.

“It always gets quite an interesting reaction from a bunch of random people seeing a guy in a wheelchair suddenly climbing up a pole, going upside down and spinning,” he said. “I do my own completely different style to everyone else just because of my disability. Some of my friends at the club that I pole dance at are really graceful, and they focus a lot on making everything flow together and trying to keep the balance and make it look pretty. And then you have some other people that will try and be kind of chaotic with it. And what they'll do is they'll focus on the strength of the move and try and get as much spin on the pole or try and get into the craziest position that they can. And then I just kind of try and do a mix of both because I have enough strength to do everything. I then have to focus on the grips and the balance. I've recently started to learn how to use my legs on the pole. So one that I've started to do is the Superman, where you grip with your inner thigh and then kind of lean out. But for a lot of able-bodied people, that's a lot easier to do because they can grip their legs a lot more. So I have to try and think of a way to twist myself to make it so I have a bit more strength and kind of trying to adapt both styles.”

Kevin can get around without a wheelchair for brief spells.

“I can move my legs,” he said. “I can support my weight. It's not for very long compared to most people. The wheelchair is more of a balance for me because my legs are constantly in spasm. It's very difficult to move my legs, and that also means that I struggle with finding my balance. My feet are constantly at a bit of angle, which means that I'm constantly having to balance on my tiptoes. I've got less surface area to stand on and walk on, which creates its own set of challenges. I do have some amount of strength, but compared to most people, it's not a lot of usable strength.”

Kevin’s disability is tied to his spinal cord.

“The reason why my legs are like that is because they're constantly in spasm, which is where they're constantly trying to fight each other wanting to both be straight out and contracted in all at the same time,” he said. “Which then makes it difficult when I want to move my legs.”

Kevin was born without an issue, but a problem arose when he was young.

“It was just after my first birthday,” he said. “A random blood clot. I don't really know what caused the blood clot.”

Kevin attends as many conventions as he can.

“I've always been a big fan of them,” he said. “I've been to a couple before being a creator. But since becoming one, I've applied to as many as I can where I've not got stuff going on, and I feel like I can actually go. And then go to all of the ones that I can get a creator pass for. Local ones I'll pay for. It's always nice to catch up on friends. If I went through a period where I couldn't go as a creator, then I still probably end up just buying tickets. But any that are local enough that it's not going to be like another country that I'm having to travel to and any that I've been to and had really good experiences at are ones that I try and prioritize.”

Kevin does more than just suit up as Spidey, the former Robin or the Master of the Mystic Arts.

“With all of my cosplays, I try and come up with either a little gadget or a skill that I can learn to go alongside them,” he said. “So with Spider-Man, I've got some web shooters with little magnets on the end. And with Nightwing, I got escrima sticks so I can strike poses and pretend to fight people and kind of act along with that. And then Doctor Strange, I learned card tricks. Got a wallet that sets itself on fire. I also got a holographic hand projector that shows his magical fieriness.”

Kevin prefers a popular fashion statement among superheroes even if it becomes a tad cumbersome.

“Everyone's cooler with a cape,” he said. “Capes are just so fun. Although they are sometimes a challenge with the wheelchair. If the wind isn't blowing in the right direction, then I kind of have to sit on it. Otherwise, it will get caught up in the wheels.”

Kevin has the strength to pull some maneuvers such as hanging off the side of a wall.

Kevin’s love of superheroes began with Peter Parker’s alter ego.

“So Spider-Man I've always been a fan of,” he said. “I only started to get into cosplay after all the movies and stuff have been popular. I've always had a knowledge of characters and always had an appreciation for them. The movies boosted it. And then for Doctor Strange, he appeared in the Avengers cartoons and the Spider-Man cartoons. So I got a bit of knowledge about him. Nightwing I have always liked. I used to watch the animated DC movies and he was in quite a few of them. That's how I got into him. And then ‘Titans.’” 

Kevin said comic book characters sometimes are given disabilities that are too easily overcome.

“That's something that I've always found interesting with disabled characters in comics is the big ones, like Daredevil, their disability isn't really a thing for them,” he said. “Daredevil, he's blind, but he can still tell exactly where you are, what you look like and all of this information about you just from his powers. Do we count that person as a disabled character? Professor X is kind of an awkward one because he doesn't really go out into the action much, so it's hard to say whether or not his disability would be an issue. But there's a Spider-Man variant — I can't remember what universe it is called — Sun-Spider, who's in a wheelchair, and they've got this cool wheelchair that's sticky. I think that's quite an interesting take on a character where, yes, they're disabled. It is definitely a step in the right direction where the disability is being incorporated into the story rather than one or two lines.”

Kevin didn’t have the benefit of a radioactive spider to grant him the physical strength to do what he does.

“I don't explicitly work out,” he said. “I don't go to the gym or anything, but I go out on regular pushes, walks. Obviously, the pole fitness has boosted it a lot. I used to do wheelchair racing, but I feel like a lot of my strength just comes from going out regularly. I also do quite a lot of press-ups. I don't have a specific workout routine or anything. It just kind of happens as I go.”

Kevin has put out videos for quite a while.

“I used to make occasional videos for a while just as a kid,” he said. “And then I think it was 2019, 2020. I set myself challenges making daily videos for a year in honor of the YouTube channel Unus Annus. And at the end of the year, I'd delete all the videos just like they did because I thought I was being clever and continuing the legacy, but I was just stealing ideas. I was pulling the most comic book thing ever. But during that time, I posted a random TikTok. I think it's pinned on my page. Six million views of me doing a trend at the time, and my wheelchair disappears from underneath me in an edit, and then I fall on the floor. And it did really well. And from there, I started to do it full-time. So my dream job has always been a content creator, but I never thought I could get there because it's always like one of those fantasy dream things. But then after that, I did realize that it is possible. So throughout all my college time, I was still making videos, still making regular content, and kind of trying to progress. Yeah, it's kind of been since then that I've been doing it.”

Watching YouTube led Kevin to start his own channel.

“The thing that made me want to be a content creator was obviously a lot of the YouTubers that I watched growing up,” he said. “The biggest one is Jack Septiceye. Seeing the stuff that he did and how he was able to help people just by making videos at home was really a big impact on me. And also getting to see all of the amazing things that he has been able to do because of content creation: has been on a couple of trips to Japan for various reasons, being invited to these big shows and early events and met incredible people like Tom Holland all just because he has made videos. And I'd like to be able to get to a stage where I'm able to have that same impact on people from just doing what I do.”

Kevin said losing his full mobility early on in life helped prevent him from developing a negative attitude.

“I feel like a lot of the reason why I'm not like that is because I was so young when I got my disability,” he said. “Obviously, I don't really have that much to miss because I don't remember much before then. I'll see people walk in or whatever and yeah, they're walking, but I'm wheeling. There's very few things that I can't do because of my disability. There's always an adaption or a different version or something better that I can do because of my disability. I can't do running, but I can do wheelchair racing. And in my opinion, that's so much fun. And I've been able to do things because of my disability. So the reason why I got into the wheelchair racing was because I got spotted trampolining and he saw that I had really high arm strength and thought, hey, you could be good for our team. And I've done various things with charities that specialize in disability. So I've been on multi-activity courses and I've become a wheelchair skills trainer and all of these different things because of my disability. And I don't feel like much has been taken away.”

Kevin stressed the impact of possessing the right frame of mind in learning to do far more than just get around in a wheelchair.  

“It depends on the mindset a lot,” he said. “I have taught my friends wheelies. A lot of people will be very scared and they'll fall out once and be like, no, that's it, I'm not doing it anymore. But then you do also get some people that’ll almost see it as a bit of a challenge to try and get that skill. A lot of people have broken legs and I've taken a chance to teach them just because they've got nothing else to do at the time. So we'll see what you can learn. I've seen some catch-22. There are people who do some crazy stunts, but then it's a lot easier to get injured. So I've seen a lot of broken bones with a lot of people online. Something that I was taught when doing the wheelchair skills trainer course, because I'd already learned all of the skills that I'd be teaching other people. I was kind of just learning how to teach them rather than how to do them. And one of the first things that we're taught is how to teach people to fall because it's probably going to happen. I fall out of my chair all the time from doing dumb stuff that I probably shouldn't be doing. But as long as you know what it's going to feel like to fall and know how to deal with a fall, you should be fine. It's very rare that there is an issue.”

Kevin dressed as Nightwing, whose alter ego Dick Grayson was the first Robin.

Kevin takes advantage of every opportunity that presents itself.

“The racing was with a club,” he said. “I had gone to this multi-activity course and was trampolining myself with my arms, got picked up and from there just used one of their racing wheelchairs with a coach and a couple of other people that were on a team. So we kind of taught each other with the wheelchair skills. All of that was just self-taught from situations coming up in life and then me having to come up with a way to solve them. The only thing that I was taught was a different way to go downstairs because the current way that I did it wasn't the most efficient. It's a way that we do teach, but I was taught an alternative way of doing it.”

Doing tricks while doing wheelies is the most challenging thing for Kevin to do in a wheelchair.

“I'd say for me, the hardest thing to do is a trick that I learned where I'll go relatively fast, get into a wheelie, and then in the wheelie, spin backwards and then go backwards from that,” he said. “A wheelie has no use other than showing off and having fun. But it's quite a challenge to do.”

Kevin is popular among young and old alike.

“My hometown has kind of dubbed me as their Spider-Man,” he said. “I go out and cosplay so often and meet everyone and say hi and show off my web shooters to people. Someone that's seen me three or four times as Spider-Man will be like, hey, you're Spider-Man, aren't you? And I'll kind of go along with it and be like, got to keep it secret. So kind of being that landmark of the town, I suppose is kind of fun. Whenever there's a big event, I'll try and at least attend a couple of days in cosplay or change my character each day or have fun with that.”

Kevin never gets tired of seeing a little kid’s reaction to his cosplay.

“There's obviously quite a few touching moments that have happened,” he said. “Some of my favorites are when they're like, how are you the real Spider-Man when you're in a wheelchair? And then I'll show off a little gimmick that I've got and they'll be like, oh, that's so cool, you must be real. And as a kid, even if they're able-bodied and I had seen a Spider-Man shoot this thing from his wrist, I'd be like, oh my God, how my child mind has been blown. So kind of getting to do that for other people has been quite a big thing for me.”

Kevin seizes the opportunity to impact others.

“I'd say being an inspiration to people is one of the parts to it, but just being able to make a positive difference, I'd say, is my big goal for this.” he said. “If I can have someone that's having a bad day, make them laugh, or I can get big enough that I start doing these big charity streams, or end up doing these big things that end up helping someone in the smallest or biggest ways, I think that's what I look for whenever there's an opportunity.”

Kevin tries to avoid getting burned out on content creation.

“I give myself breaks,” he said. “I used to be on this really big thing of posting two TikTok videos a day, Instagram posts every day, depending on what page I was on, and weekly YouTube videos. And trying to fit in stuff around that was not healthy. I did struggle with that, but then I took a bit of a break and I re-evaluated how I can keep going, and that is to allow myself to have breaks. I treat myself to going out and seeing my friends whenever they're not at work, or I'll say, no, I'm not going to stream or record anything today or edit. I'm just going to have a day to myself doing what I want to do. I'll go out for a walk. And if I do happen to see something, then awesome, there's this opportunity for content. Conventions, I just really enjoy. I don't feel like I'll ever get a burnout from going to cons. They're so fun. I get to meet so many cool people and I may leave early for being tired or spending a lot of time there that day, but it's always such a fun experience to go. I don't think I'll ever need a break from them.”

Kevin sits on a ledge as the character Invincible, whose comic book led to an animated series.

Kevin said people shouldn’t let others’ behavior prevent them from getting out in public.

“Something that you do have to accept is that you're not going to get along with everyone,” he said. “Back in secondary school, I used to get bullied relentlessly and I just accepted, hey, these aren't people that I'm going to get along with. I'm going to have to interact with them, but I'm going to have to get through that eventually. We did end up on kind of a neutral ground where we're not friends. I wouldn't consider them friends, but we don't have that level of resentment towards each other anymore. And as for meeting people that I don't know, obviously there is always a risk that they're going to turn out to be this evil person that you don't like or don't get along with or have arguments with. But you won't know that until you have met them and spoken to them and given them that small amount of your time. There's nothing that will ever stop you from saying, ‘I've spoken to you for five minutes. I don't like you. I'm going to leave.’ But there's nothing that stops you from doing that. So why not give them that benefit of the doubt to at least try? Try and see if you can either come to a middle ground if you do start off on the wrong foot. See if there are other interests that you share in common or see if there is a way to work around it. Or some people do have that kind of friendship where they don't share the same beliefs, but they enjoy talking about their beliefs with each other. They find it interesting to hear what other people have to say. One of my friends in school was a Christian and was one of my favorite people to talk to about the deeper things in life, because even though I'm not religious, it was still nice to hear what his advice would be or what he would think about whatever situation I was in. And I'd also do the same. If he was having a day where he was doubting his religion, I would also be there to kind of give him my point of view and be like, yeah, I don't believe in that, but that shouldn't mean that you can't.”

Kevin offered advice to those wanting to try cosplay.

“Find the character you like and just do it,” he said. “It doesn't have to be like a big, crazy cosplay. My first Spider-Man cosplay was a Covid Spider-Man mask with a red-and-black hoodie with a spider logo added onto it and whatever trousers I was wearing that day. And that's kind of what led me into wanting to get into full cosplay is I saw what it was like to see myself as a variant of that character or the civilian outfit of that character and find that enjoyment from it. Not everyone will find the same enjoyment from cosplay as everyone else. So whenever I'm a character, I really like trying to match my personality to that character for other people and my benefit. But then other people wear a cosplay just because they like the outfit. They like that style of clothing. They find the suit comfortable. They find it comfortable to see themselves as that character. And something else that I noticed was when I got into cosplay and got my first actual Spider-Man suit, I felt so much more confident in myself, seeing myself as this character that I look up to and being able to kind of say to myself, hey, this is who you are for the minute. Enjoy it.”

Kevin’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@khakilife3

Kevin’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/khakimicrobe/

Kevin’s TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@khakimicrobe

Complete list of Kevin’s social media: https://linktr.ee/khakimicrobe