“She-Hulk” smashes its way into fans hearts

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Marvel Studios delivers another masterpiece with “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.”

Adeline Gruen, Co-Editor-in-Chief

Since “Iron Man” was released in 2008, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) has grown immensely. In the past 14 years, the MCU has released 37 titles and plans to release even more. The newest TV show added to the growing list of MCU content on Disney+ is “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.”

After a car crash that causes some of Bruce “The Hulk” Banner’s (Mark Ruffalo) blood to go into his cousin’s,  Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany), veins, Walters turns into a female version of the Hulk. At first Walters resents this new power, especially the fact that she is called She-Hulk. However, she starts to appear as her superhero persona more in her everyday life and grows to embrace it. Unfortunately, Walters has created enemies by turning into She-Hulk. Titania (Jameela Jamil), the first supervillain Walters battles against, tries to take her down at every turn while the trolls on the Inteligencia website try to belittle her.

While MCU shows are very well known for their comedic brilliance, this show brings it to a whole new level. Nikki Ramos (Ginger Gonzaga) and Pug (Josh Segara) are the perfect comedic duo as they try to help Walters adjust to her new superhero life. Between finding Walters her own superbeing tailor, to delivering hilarious one-liners, these two just add so much to the show.

Another element of “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law” that helped it achieve comedic brilliance is all the times the fourth wall was broken. Back when the original comics came out, one of the main things that made She-Hulk stand out was the tendency of her character to smash through the fourth wall. Throughout the show Walters addresses the audience many times, usually making a statement about either how she thinks the show should go or delivering a witty one-liner.

Throughout the series, many MCU characters have special guest appearances. Walters even comments on this during one of her fourth wall breaks, saying that they will become less frequent as the show goes on. However, the guest appearances just become more frequent. Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth), aka the Abomination, is one of the first guest appearances on the show. Later on, Blonsky becomes a regular as Walters represents him as his lawyer. Another guest star on the show is Wong (Benedict Wong), who recently became Sorcerer Supreme after the snap in “Avengers: Infinity War.” While he first appears to give Blonsky an alibi, he later brings his own case in front of Walters. Later on, after one of Walters’ clients sues a high-end superbeing clothes tailor, she faces off against Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox), aka Daredevil, a lawyer from Hell’s Kitchen in the MCU. 

Despite all these MCU guest appearances making a lot of press around the show, perhaps the biggest guest appearance came from outside the realm of Marvel Studios. During one of Walters’ cases, she represents a man who has been catfished by a fairy pretending to be the famous artist Megan Thee Stallion. At the end of this episode, Stallion and Walters are seen twerking in Walters office to one of Stallion’s songs, “Body.” While this scene was a bit controversial because She-Hulk is one of the first MCU superheroes to let loose on screen, I thought it added a whole new layer to Walters. Viewers were able to see Walters as more of a person, rather than a super serious superhero.

Even though “She-Hulk” had a lot of elements that made it one of the best MCU shows, it also had a couple disappointments. The special effects used to make Walters green Hulk persona looked very cheap. She-Hulk in the comics was depicted as very muscly yet more human than the Hulk. However, in the TV show, She-Hulk looks more like a human. The only differences between She-Hulk and Walters is hair texture, height and green skin. When they created this version, they completely took away the “Hulkness.” Another part where the studio faltered was the last episode. Right when they were about to show the final battle scene, pause the show, and enter in a fourth wall break. While they most likely did this to play into the fact that Walters is one of the only Marvel characters who does fourth wall breaks, it interrupts the flow of the story. This break takes away from the intensity of the scene and when it finally ends, the rest of the episode just feels rushed and out of place. 

A second season has not yet been announced for “She-Hulk: Attorney at Law;” however, the head writer of the show Jessica Gao has said that while it was written as a single season, she included some seeds in case the show is given more seasons.

While the ending was a bit of a flop, the actors and witty one-liners strewn throughout the show made it one of the funniest the MCU has ever made.

Contact Adeline Gruen at [email protected]