If you think Marvel’s unleashing a lot of content this year, just you wait. We’ll be closing out 2021 with the highly anticipated webby-epic Spider-Man: No Way Home on December 17th, which will catapult us into the multiverse and surely lead to madness. The calendar then gets a bit of breather until May (hopefully enough time to process all of Spidey’s shenanigans), which kicks off a slate of content that reunites us with familiar faces and ushers in some bold new characters. Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, directed by Sam Raimi, who also helmed the Tobey Maguire-led Spider-Man trilogy, is the first Marvel title of 2022. It’ll be followed by Thor: Love and Thunder which features Natalie Portman as the new wielder of Mjollnir, and then the bittersweet Black Panther sequel Black Panther: Wakanda Forever set for November 2022.
But if you don’t feel like leaving your couch to enjoy some heroes and villains, don’t worry. Three television series are set to premiere on Disney+ in 2022 and will introduce a slew of new characters into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Ms. Marvel features young actress Iman Vellani as the titular teenage hero, Oscar Isaac and Ethan Hawke will bring us into a dark and gritty world in Moon Knight, and Orphan Black star Tatiana Maslany is ready to serve us a heaping helping of justice in She-Hulk. That’s right, the MCU is about to get a lot greener.
Adapted for the small screen by Jessica Gao, this 10-episode series will tell the origin story of Jennifer Walters (Maslany), a lawyer who specializes in superhuman legal cases and is able to morph into a big, strong, green superhero similar to that of her cousin and Avenger Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) who we know as the Incredible Hulk. Ruffalo will reprise his Hulk role in the series, likely as a mentor figure for Jennifer as she figures out and hones her powers. Additionally, Tim Roth is set to return as the villain the Abomination, which he played alongside Edward Norton’s Hulk in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk and very briefly in the recent Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. The Good Place star Jameela Jamil was also cast as the supervillain Titania. And in somewhat surprising news, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige confirmed that She-Hulk will be a legal comedy, and, just as she does in the comics, will break the fourth wall.
Let’s get to know the Sensational She-Hulk. Who is this green attorney and what other heroes has she worked with? And what anti-hero did she take on as her client?
Who Is Jennifer Walters?
Move over, Bruce, your cousin’s in town. She-Hulk has, until now, been cast aside and lost in the shadow of Hulk. But comic book readers know exactly how powerful and important this character is in the Marvel world. Created by Stan Lee and John Buscema, She-Hulk first appeared in The Savage She-Hulk #1 in 1980, with a cover reminiscent of that of The Incredible Hulk #1 in 1962. In both instances, the Hulked-out version of themselves looms behind their naive alter-egos.
In classic superhero fashion, Jennifer gets her powers from an accident. Well, sort of. In her debut storyline “The She-Hulk Lives,” Bruce Banner is on the run from authorities and ends up in Los Angeles. For Bruce, Jennifer is really the last person he can trust and open to, and he decides to take a chance and visit her at work, where she is now a successful lawyer. They haven’t seen each other since they were children, and Jennifer isn’t even familiar with his new identity as the Hulk. During their meeting, however, their comfortable rapport immediately resurfaces as if no time has passed, with Jennifer calling him by the nickname she gave him, “Doc.” It’s then that Bruce tells her about how he became the Hulk and is unable to control his rage transformations.
Jennifer is determined to help Bruce with his greeny-meany condition, but he is afraid that would just put her life at risk. As a criminal lawyer, she deals with crime, illegality, and tangible threats on a basis, and explains that danger is simply part of her life now. In fact, her current case is quite messy. She’s representing Lou Monkton, a small-time criminal accused of killing crime boss Nick Trask’s bodyguard. Nick is the reason for Jennifer’s mother Elaine’s death, and is the rival of Jennifer’s father, Los Angeles Sheriff William Morris Walters. Unbeknownst to Jennifer, Nick sent two thugs to kill her, and they were watching Jennifer in her office parking lot as she explained the case to Bruce. While the thugs follow them to Jennifer’s house, Bruce tries to convince her that she needs to be extra safe, because if Nick actually killed his bodyguard, she was probably next. And sure enough, she was.
As she exits her car, the thugs shoot her in the back and she begins to lose a lot of blood. Fortunately, the shot was not fatal, and Bruce, though fueled with emotion, manages to contain his anger enough to not break out into the Hulk. He fights off the thugs and (casually) breaks into an empty doctor’s office and, using his blood, gives her a blood transfusion. Because the blood that courses through his veins is soaked with gamma radiation, it has a chemical reaction inside Jennifer. Thanks to Bruce’s quick-thinking, she survives and makes it to the hospital. Bad news for Bruce, however, because he’s now a suspect in her shooting. Another target on his back, he flees the city. (At least he’s getting his steps in.)
In the hospital, Jennifer regrets not taking Bruce’s warnings seriously, and notices her bones feel…different. She’s then approached by three strange men who claim to be doctors that are ready to give her medicine. Jennifer isn’t buying it, and it turns out it’s really Trask’s men hoping to knock her out with chloroform. A sudden surge of adrenaline transforms her into what the men dub a sort of “She-Hulk,” and she successfully fights off the men in her new green and muscular state. They even admit that it was Trask who hired them to kill her. She concludes that it was Bruce’s blood that did this to her, but rather than being ashamed or frightened of her newfound strength and abilities, she embraces her new identity. And unlike Bruce, she retains her personality and smarts when she transforms into her monstrous state.
Since her debut in 1980, She-Hulk has gotten involved in several team-ups, complex storylines, and overall character evolutions. She’s battled Thanos, the Abomination, become a quasi-member of the Fantastic Four, (going as far as filling in for The Thing), and joined the Avengers. She’s a reliable hero that’s often called on by a number of her eclectic peers. Even as her ordinary alter-ego Jennifer Walters, she represented Morbius, the Living Vampire in court when he was accused of murder (like, a lot of murder). During her various comic book arcs, she’s been romantically involved with Starfox (Thanos’ brother), J. Jonah Jameson’s son John (known as The Man-Wolf), Luke Cage, and Wyatt Wingfoot (Johnny Storm’s roommate).
In the 60-issue run of The Sensational She-Hulk starting in 1989, John Byrne introduced a lighter, more self-aware version of the character that broke the fourth wall (just as Deadpool would do in the not-too-distant future) and calls out Byrne, the writer and artist, for putting her in difficult situations. Given the fact that the She-Hulk series is set to be a comedy and the teaser hints at her talking directly to the audience, the TV series will likely resemble Byrne’s Sensational run.
She-Hulk smashes into Disney+ in 2022.