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The Marvel Cinematic Universe spent more than a decade as a boys’ club, but that’s changing now. Captain Marvel, Wandavision and Black Widow have proven that fans flock to see their favorite ladies’ stories on screen. Now, She-Hulk is ready to join the MCU in 2022 when her self-titled Disney + series premieres. Here’s everything you need to know about She-Hulk and her upcoming show before she joins the MCU.
Why did Marvel create a gender-swapped Hulk?
It’s easy to forget that prior to Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man in 2008, cartoon characters spent years without live-action adaptations. When Agents of SHIELD premiered in 2013, Marvel’s last popular TV show was The Incredible Hulk, which aired in 1982. She-Hulk owes her existence to this cheesy TV frenzy.
According to Rotten Tomatoes, Marvel only designed She-Hulk to keep a gender-swapped Hulk IP out of the hands of others. The Incredible Hulk producer Kenneth Johnson was also behind The Six Million Dollar Man and its women-centric spin-off The Bionic Woman.
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She-Hulk made her debut in February 1980 under her own title The Savage She-Hulk. One of the last comic characters Stan Lee helped create has been in print almost continuously since then. The Savage She-Hulk ran 25 issues and ended in March 1982.
In the 1980s, readers saw Shulkie join the Avengers, fight in the Secret Wars, and replace the thing in the Fantastic Four. Her second appearance, The Sensational She-Hulk, was “the longest running female solo series in Marvel history”, according to Bitch. Two other She-Hulk solo series were released after the new millennium, but none were as popular as The Sensational She-Hulk.
So who is She-Hulk?
She-Hulk is Jennifer Walters’ green alter ego. Jennifer is a successful defense attorney and comes from a family well rooted in the criminal justice system. her father, William Walters, is the LA County Sheriff.
William is known for being overprotective of his daughter, but for good reason. His work brings him into conflict with crime boss Nicholas Trask, who tried to murder William when Jennifer was 17. Tragically, the attack instead killed Jennifer’s mother, Elaine Banner Walters.
How did She-Hulk get her powers?
Years after killing Elaine, Trask wanted to eliminate Jennifer. Severely wounded by Trask’s thugs, Jennifer needed a blood transfusion to survive. Fortunately, her cousin, Dr. Bruce Banner, she at the time and was a perfect fit. His blood saved her life, but it also passed on a milder version of his recently acquired gamma powers.
She-Hulk vs. The Hulk: How Are They Different?
Similar to Bruce, Jennifer’s transformations depend, at least initially, on her emotional state. But once she gets her powers under control, Jennifer can transform herself into She-Hulk at will, just thinking angry Peter Pan-style thoughts.
The ease with which Jennifer transforms could be due to another difference between her Hulkly experience and Bruce’s. Jennifer is in no pain when she becomes She-Hulk. Where the Hulk’s metamorphoses are excruciating, Shulkie’s metamorphoses are pleasant … really pleasant.
That, in turn, could be the reason Jennifer feels more comfortable in her hulked-out form than Bruce in his. As with Bruce’s Professor Hulk personality in Avengers: Endgame, Jennifer’s intact remains intact when she becomes She-Hulk.
Despite these differences, many of Jennifer’s gamma-rayed powers are almost identical to those of her cousin’s. She-Hulk has the same accelerated healing factor as the Hulk, which makes them virtually invincible. Her super strength and agility give her incredible jumping skills, reflexes and endurance. Shulkie also shares Hulk’s opposition to telepathy, making her a formidable opponent for the Legion and Apocalypse.
Is Jennifer Walters the only She-Hulk?
She-Hulk’s coat, like that of many other Marvel heroes, has not been reserved for just one person over the years. Likewise, Jennifer Walters wasn’t just She-Hulk.
In the late Aughts, Marvel introduced Lyra: the Hulk’s daughter from an alternate timeline. Unlike most gamma-irradiated heroes and villains, Lyra – whose mother conceived her with Hulk’s DNA – actually gets weaker the angrier she gets.
Called “She-Hulk” as a child, Lyra traveled back in time to battle Jennifer over the course of a few comics, including her four-part solo miniseries All-New Savage She-Hulk. Lyra and Jennifer later teamed up to defeat a common enemy: Red She-Hulk.
Red She-Hulk – AKA She-Rulk – is one of the many transformations of Bruce Banner’s main squeeze, Elizabeth “Betty” Ross. After the abomination killed Betty, MODOK revived her as a gamma-powered Red She-Hulk thanks to her father’s influence: US General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross – AKA Red Hulk.
As the Red She-Hulk, Betty faced Lyra and Jennifer as well as Bruce and Red Hulk. Unlike Jennifer, Betty struggles to control her transformed self. She has sought several cures for her condition, but so far all have failed.
A brand new version of She-Rulk will appear in an upcoming issue of Avengers. Kidnapped and forced into the infamous Red Room, Jennifer becomes the Winter Hulk – a Soviet-facing version of Red She-Hulk, complete with Black Widow training and stamina levels – in Avengers # 48, which will be released in September 2021.
Who are She-Hulk’s enemies?
In her work with the Avengers, A-Force, and Fantastic Four, Shulkie encounters many of Marvel’s greatest villains. Unlike many Marvel heroes, however, she doesn’t have a huge stable of arch enemies to call her own. Aside from Nicholas Trask and She-Rulk mentioned above, there is one major villain who keeps coming back to fight She-Hulk.
Introduced in the original Secret Wars story, Mary MacPherran was a shy little girl, very much like Jennifer. After the Beyonders tore their Denver suburb out of space and time, Mary and her best friend Marsha Rosenberg received superpowers from Doctor Doom. As Doom buddies Titania and Volcana, Mary and Marsha fought numerous Avengers, including She-Hulk and Spider-Man.
Although Volcana would be at eye level with Shulkie after her return to Earth, it is Titania who repeatedly antagonizes her.
Who will play She-Hulk on the Disney + series?
Marvel has won Orphan Black star Tatiana Maslany to play She-Hulk on Disney +. The 35-year-old Canadian actor will play Jennifer Walters in both her average human and fully grown forms.
The series also stars Jameela Jamil (The Good Place) as Titania and Tim Roth (Lie to Me) as Hulk’s archenemy Abomination. Roth first played Abomination in the 2008 Hulk film and will repeat the role in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which hits theaters on September 3, 2021.
Mark Ruffalo will repeat his role as Bruce Banner for the Disney + series.
What should fans expect from the show?
In December 2020, Emmy reported that She-Hulk would be “a half-hour legal comedy” that “stays true”. [Sensational She-Hulk] Comics by writer and artist John Byrne. ”This loss of name gave Shulkie fans hope for some meta-textual awareness in She-Hulk on Disney +. Two years before Deadpool made its action comedy debut, Jennifer was already known for breaking the fourth wall, much to the confusion of her comic book colleagues.
Will She-Hulk appear in the Marvel films?
Here all signs point to yes. The new Disney + series features both the Hulk and the Abomination, bringing Jennifer close to MCU big-screen releases. Outside of the She Hulk TV series, Phase 4 comes with the restart of Fantastic Four, which could make way for everyone’s favorite green lawyer.
The Fantastic Four movie and the recent Multiverse reveal could mean Marvel’s Secret Wars is coming to the MCU. The original Secret Wars run set the stage for She-Hulk to meet Titania. The Avengers, X-Men, Spider-Man and Spider-Woman and the Fantastic Four fought in this crossover event against the Enchantress, Kang the Conqueror, Venom and Doctor Doom, among others.
Even if Secret Wars doesn’t take place in the MCU, Marvel fans can look forward to another big crossover event. Disney +’s upcoming Secret Invasion series takes its inspiration from the comic book story of the same name, the three editions of She-Hulk vol. 2. Marvel Studios has the series under wraps for now, but if the showrunners stick with the source material, we’ll likely see Jennifer Walters battling the Skrulls very soon.
