Revisiting She-Hulk: Attorney at Law

Family can be complicated, but when you’re related to a guy who can literally become a natural force of destruction, “complicated” is an understatement. In this case, Jennifer Walters—who is a lawyer and also the cousin of Bruce Banner—finds her own life turned upside down while the pair go on an innocent car trip. Out of nowhere, a Sakaaran spacecraft shoots at their car, and they crash, and in the confusion, Bruce’s blood leaks into Jen’s exposed wounds. The resulting transfusion lets Jen turn into her own Hulk form without any harmful side effects. However, this means she now has to balance her personal life with her now monstrous one.

Pro/Con #1: She-Hulk

This definitely wasn’t the show I expected, and maybe that’s partly why I hate this show (more on that later). I expected the kind of show that’d be typical of anything superhero-related: someone gains or discovers their own superpowers, goes on a hero arc, and becomes a fully fledged hero by the end. Instead, this show mainly falls into a slice-of-life/comedy area, but it still establishes an interesting arc (of sorts) for Jen. For instance, I always love a good origin story, so watching her get her transfusion was very interesting. Sure, it wasn’t the same blood transfusion Bruce voluntarily gave her in comics (where a crime boss shot her for revenge against her sheriff dad), but it was still somewhat comic-book accurate in my eyes. It was also nice to see Bruce train Jen to use her new powers and what triggers them, and also see their family dynamic as a bonus. It’s also interesting to see how Jen can control her Hulk form so quickly, with no alter ego on top of that. Regardless, I still somewhat enjoyed seeing what Jen’s life was now like after her transfusion: getting involved in all kinds of cases, struggling with her dating life, and even making new friends (which ironically includes the former villain, Abomination). 

However, watching all of this unfold over nine episodes was very difficult to sit through. First of all, I really don’t appreciate how Jen downplayed Bruce’s trauma, especially to his face. In one scene, when Bruce tries to guide Jen through meditation, she gets fed up with Bruce’s helpful efforts and vents that she’s great at controlling her anger. She says that she’s had to deal with men catcalling her or explaining her own job to her, risking the chance of losing her job or even getting killed for speaking up, and in her own words, finishes by saying she controls her anger “infinitely more than him.” Hearing that feels like a huge slap in the face, considering all that Bruce has been through: being hunted by the U.S. government for years, almost killing himself, dealing with years of fear and rejection, being stranded on an alien planet for two years, and then getting manhandled by Thanos, all before the Blip. But instead, it feels like Jen makes her problems way bigger than Bruce’s, and even uses them as solid evidence that she can control the insurmountable power she now has. The worst part of this encounter isn’t that she rejected the help of someone who’s been through this, but that she doesn’t even learn anything from it. Sure, she grows more confident in her newfound identity, but she still never fully accepts her role as She-Hulk or what it means to be a hero. Instead, she goes off to do her own thing on each silly misadventure, engages in a few fights, but still insists on doing things her way. 

Pro/Con #2: The Cameos

Seeing Charlie Cox as Daredevil in any show or movie automatically makes it better. The funniest and most ironic part of that statement, though, is that I hadn’t even seen the Daredevil show before watching She-Hulk. All I had to go on were the general public’s stellar reviews of the character and his show, as well as the amazing scene from “No Way Home” where he catches a brick with his enhanced senses. Regardless, watching Matt Murdock in this show helped me understand what all the fuss was about. For instance, in the next-to-last episode, Jen is called to represent a superhero client who suffered from supposedly malfunctioning rocket boosters, manufactured by She-Hulk’s own costume designer. However, that same designer was represented by none other than Matt Murdock himself. Everything about that first debut was flawlessly timed: the judge asking where the designer’s counsel was, the doors swinging open on cue, and the camera panning in from a wide angle to zoom in on Matt, all portraying how important this character is. But if that wasn’t enough, we also get to see this man in action! Even if Jen is nowhere near as strong or formidable as her cousin, the very fact that Matt was able to keep up with Jen during their fight is an impressive feat on its own. And after they make up and go to rescue the designer, it’s always fun to watch a superhero team-up (even though Matt did all the work while Jen tried in vain to talk the bad guy down with legal advice). As a final (weird) point, I originally liked the romance between Jen and Matt (especially after watching the Daredevil show, simply because I wanted Matt to find happiness). 

However, Daredevil was the only good cameo here. The rest of the cameos—reappearing supervillains, first-time debuters, and even celebrities—were completely wasted. For example, consider the Wrecking Crew. Thor’s iconic rogues gallery of Wrecker, Thunderball, Bulldozer, and Piledriver finally debuts in an episode where they all jump She-Hulk with stolen Asgardian construction tools, in a vain attempt to steal a sample of her blood. Later on, she runs into Wrecker again at Abomination’s spiritual retreat and, ironically, helps her move on from being ghosted. Now, I admittedly haven’t read a lot of Marvel comics, and everything I know about this group of villains comes from watching animated Marvel shows. Still, those animated shows really make me think the Wrecking Crew were wasted in this one. I mean, they barely show up; they have no backstory or real reason they even jumped Jen; they carry weaker versions of their signature weapons, and one of them actually does a 180 and helps She-Hulk with relationship problems? At this point, what is even happening here? The confusion doesn’t stop there, though, because earlier in the show, they drop in Megan Thee Stallion out of nowhere. But unlike other surprise celebrity cameos like David Hasselhoff in GOTG 2, which actually served a purpose (both for comedy and demonstrating Ego’s power/angry rants), all she does is twerk with She-Hulk. Maybe they thought it would be funny, but it’s honestly more cringe because, again, all she does is twerk for no reason and the moment isn’t even brought up again. Yet neither of these cameos/debuts is more disappointing than Abomination himself. Back in 2008, Emil Blonsky had one goal in mind: defeating the Hulk. He was more obsessed with beating him than Ross was, so he allowed multiple serums to be injected into him, turned into a monster, and trashed Harlem just to get to this guy. But when we see him again all these years later, he’s essentially a hippie with no intention of fighting, builds his own spiritual retreat, and doesn’t even think about Bruce for much of the show. Now, I always love seeing a redemption arc for a villain, and I am genuinely happy that Blonsky became a better man. However, given everything I’ve seen in the Hulk movie back then, I find it very hard to believe Blonsky had this massive change even with years of reflection. I would’ve believed it more if they released additional on-screen appearances between that movie and this show over the years, showing us his steadily growing character arc and what made him decide to be better. Instead, we get a disappointing shadow of his former self with little to no development. 

Pro/Con #3: The Story

I would argue one strength this show possessed was giving us a whole new perspective on what it means to be a superhero. What I mean is that we see enough of a hero charging into battle and saving the day, but rarely do we see what life is like for them “off the clock.” Sure, we’ve seen snippets of characters like Peter Parker or even Thor going about their normal lives, but I feel like the movies don’t linger enough on this aspect. She-Hulk, on the other hand, focuses more on her personal life than her superhero one. While they do make sure to add in some action and good fight sequences, we get to see Jen in her day-to-day job, taking in all kinds of clients and arguing in courtrooms like a true lawyer. Plus, we get to see her struggle with even trivial, simple things like finding a date. It’s kinda sad that she only really started getting matches as She-Hulk rather than Jennifer Walters, but at least she found someone who truly loves her (Matt, of course). Heck, we even witness a bit of her personal struggles, like how she was hesitant about the Blonsky case. She knew what Blonsky did back in 2008 and was clearly bothered, even angry, about what he put Bruce through. I also love seeing her loyalty to Bruce in that she doesn’t wanna help someone who hurt him, and she even calls Bruce to make sure it’s okay with him before helping Blonsky. And it was nice to see Jen finally come around to trust Blonsky more, even going to his retreat and taking his advice. Overall, it was an interesting new perspective in this story, which I can appreciate that much, at least. 

However, if I’m being completely honest, it’s nowhere near enough to redeem this sloppy mess of a plot for me. First of all, I have no idea what the plot even is to begin with. Yes, I understand that Jen is mainly trying to find herself as a hero while managing her personal life, but there isn’t really anything else. Like, why does this story matter? What does it contribute to the overall narrative of the Multiverse Saga? In short, nothing.“Daredevil: Born Again” remotely mentioned Matt’s previous relationship with She-Hulk, and subsequent MCU content never brings up Hulk’s son. Speaking of which, they give us absolutely no explanation for why Bruce went to Sakaar, what he did during his time there, or what happened that led to having this kid (much less who he had this kid with). Again, “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” doesn’t refer to this, and I even forgot this plotline even happened while watching this movie in theaters. The worst part, however, is how the show ended. Now, I’m a firm believer and fan of the Hero’s Journey. I may not like seeing my heroes struggle or suffer hardship, but that’s why—after going through these struggles and arcs—the victory and reward feel earned. But She-Hulk completely threw that idea in the trash and did her own thing: when the ending got too confusing and overwhelming, she literally broke out of Disney+, went to Marvel Studios, and talked to an AI that supposedly manages all MCU content. After finding the AI—K.E.V.I.N.—she talks to it for a bit and basically convinces it to change her ending to how she wants it, and suddenly she gets her happily ever after. Like, where’s the struggle? Where’s the hard-earned lesson? Heck, even Deadpool never broke the fourth wall to this extent. I recently watched that movie, and despite Wade looking at the camera and talking about Fox, even he didn’t try to change reality and fix his own story. He went through the worst things imaginable, faced insecurity about his new looks, and everything still turned out fine for him later. She-Hulk could’ve easily done the same thing and swallowed the hard pill, but instead, she just changed her story simply because she didn’t like it. 

Conclusion

I’m gonna be honest here. Finding pros for this show was insanely hard. Even when I tried to think positively and find its better qualities, it still didn’t feel completely honest. I even wanna argue that Matt Murdock alone is worth sitting through this crap, but it still isn’t. That’s because this show is insanely sloppy and forgettable to the point where even the MCU tries to pretend it never happened. In fact, I would be genuinely surprised if She-Hulk actually reappears in “Avengers: Doomsday.”