*Premise spoilers.*
The latest Marvel series just wrapped up, and while, for me, it’s a mixed bag, I ultimately come down on the side of liking it. For my money, it has a rocky start but ramps up in the last third of the season, leaving me excited for any future She-Hulk implications in the MCU.
Jennifer Walters is out with her cousin, one Bruce Banner, when they get into an accident and she inadvertently gets his blood into her system. Instantly, Jen develops Hulk powers, but despite Bruce’s eagerness to teach her how to control them and train her to be a superhero, Jen wants no part in that life. She’s fortunate in that, from the jump, her Hulk doesn’t have a separate personality, so she’s not worried about losing control, and she just wants to get back to being a lawyer in L.A. Inevitably, her secret comes out sooner rather than later, and Jen is thrust into the public eye with a moniker she didn’t ask for, a preoccupation with her powers over herself, and bitter trolls who are resentful that she didn’t “earn” her power.
WandaVision spent most of its runtime playing on sitcom tropes of different eras, but She-Hulk is the first MCU series to outright brand itself as a sitcom. And to be honest, that can be shaky at times. There’s definitely funny stuff—I’d say the series strikes just the right balance with Jen’s fourth-wall breaking—but it often feels a little too self-consciously Marvel Does Comedy!!!, which comes off forced rather than genuine. Which is weird, because the MCU has always been funny. But with this show, some of the whacky superhuman law shenanigans feel more like the four-camera sitcom fantasy on Scrubs than an actual sitcom.
Which is unfortunate, because I like a lot of other stuff going on in the show. Jen herself is fun and relatable as an intelligent woman who’s exasperated by all the crap she’s forced to deal with after her powers throw her into the limelight, from struggling to find work attire for her seven-foot tall She-Hulk body to winding up in a one-side grudge with a superpowered influencer who decides they’re nemeses. Much has been made about the many cameos, and the series even lampshades the fact that they sometimes seem to overshadow Jen in her own show. Most of them, though, are quite entertaining, especially the return of Emily Blonsky from The Incredible Hulk and, of course, Matt Murdock. And I do like that this is a series more about Jen’s regular life instead of an outright superhero show. I enjoying seeing Jen trying to navigate app dating with two different bodies, dealing with annoying issues at work, and facing the repercussions of going out as She-Hulk (who can’t get drunk) and waking up as Jen (who then has to deal with the hangover.)
Tatiana Maslany is great, albeit tiny, as Jen/She-Hulk. I’m a little conflicted, because she’s always terrific and I of course want to see her on my TV screen, but I do think casting more towards the She-Hulk body and doing Captain America: The First Avenger-style work to create Jen would’ve put less pressure on the CGI that isn’t fully up to the task of continually showing She-Hulk interact with non-CGI characters. I enjoy seeing Renée Elise Goldsberry (Angelica!) as another lawyer at Jen’s firm, The Good Place’s Jameela Jamil is fun but underused as She-Hulk’s self-appointed arch enemy Titania, and while I don’t recognize Ginger Gonzaga, she’s delightful as Jen’s paralegal/best friend Nikki. And again, the MCU cameos are fun, from Mark Ruffalo to Tim Roth to Benedict Wong to Charlie Cox (who, as I’ve said before, remains excellent as Matt Murdock but is also part of the MCU’s “able-bodied actors playing disabled characters” gang.)
Warnings
Comic book violence, language (including sexist insults,) sexual content, drinking, thematic elements (including misogyny and harassment,) and able-bodied actors playing disabled characters.
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