Editor's Note: The following contains spoilers for Episodes 1-7 of She-Hulk.This week's episode of She-Hulk introduces Jen (Tatiana Maslaney) to a different side of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that has yet to be seen. In this episode Jen meets some jobbers, a wrestling term used to describe wrestlers who show up just to lose and make someone else look more powerful. While stemming from wrestling, it's an apt term for a lot of comic book goons as well. Particularly in the Marvel Universe, where most heroes and villains or based out of New York City, bigger bads have a lot of cross-contamination when hiring goons. These are the types of characters who rarely show up in movies where there's only time for our heroes to battle the main villains, but She-Hulk has been offering some insight into what these villains' lives are like after they've been defeated.
After being ghosted by Josh (Trevor Salter), Jen finds herself called back into work to investigate Emil Blonsky (Tim Roth) at his ranch due to his Abomination inhibitor going off. Blonsky seems like he's up to something when giving his excuse that it was just a malfunction from hitting an electric fence and that he hasn't hulked out into Abomination again. But the questionable nature of his excuse is quickly shoved aside by showing how much progress Blonsky has made. At his ranch, he has formed a type of rehabilitation center for recovering villains. While trying to find cell reception on the ranch, Jen joins one of Blonsky's group therapy sessions. While in the session, all the recovering villains are supportive of her embracing being Jen instead of bending to the social expectations of being She-Hulk. It's really wholesome and will make you wish that all supervillain groups were just some kind of prolonged therapy program. Blonsky's other patients are all jobbers who have yet to appear in the MCU prior, but clearly have some kind of history. In the comics, everyone in that sharing circle has a deep history with some of our favorite Marvel heroes.
Man-Bull
Man-Bull (Nathan Hurd) is a science experiment gone wrong. Formerly known as William Taurens, Man-Bull was at one point an employee of the Daredevil villain MK-9, an evil android from an alternate timeline. MK-9 hired people like Taurens to kidnap others and force them to be test subjects for his evil experiments. But when Daredevil puts a stop to that, MK-9 forces Taurens to be the unfortunate subject, which turns him into the bull-man we see so lovingly portrayed in She-Hulk. After a few more failed fights with Daredevil, he eventually underwent another experiment to make his bull form more savage and beast-like. But, given that Man-Bull is just some schmuck, Hulk very easily beat him and that form never made a return.
What really separates Man-Bull from the other characters at Blonsky's retreat is that he does seem to have some common sense and want to better himself. When Man-Bull eventually gets sent to jail in The Raft, the prison for superpowered people seen in Captain America: Civil War, he stays there and serves his time. During the comic event Avengers vs. X-Men, Man-Bull actually helped Rogue contain a prison riot at the raft. Thanks to Man-Bull's help, they were able to prevent the escape of his other inmates. No wonder why he's the type of villain that would actively seek out therapy to be a better person.
El Águila
Not to be confused with The Matador, a similarly themed costumed crusader known to associate with Man-Bull in the comics, El Águila (Joseph Castillo-Midyett) is actually a mutant. With the powers of bio-electricity, El Águila prefers to keep his mutation on a need-to-know basis. He started off as a hero who stopped petty crimes in his neighborhood in New York City, being a kind of local Robin Hood who redistributed wealth back to the poor. However, this did make him a vigilante, and working outside the law often got him in trouble with the cops.
It also led to him sometimes working with, and sometimes antagonizing, the Heroes for Hire: Luke Cage and Iron Fist. Given that his goals are so pure, he eventually becomes friends with the two of them. Besides the Heroes for Hire, he also would sometimes get in fights with Hawkeye. But, that was never much of a fight thanks to Hawkeye's training by Swordsman, another swashbuckling sword villain who recently appeared in the Hawkeye series played by Tony Dalton.
The Wrecker
The Wrecking Crew are a team of construction-themed bad guys who stole some magical construction equipment from Asgard. The Wrecker (Nick Gomez) is their leader and specifically got his magic powers after being mistaken as Loki and given magic by another Asgardian. Using a magic crowbar, Wrecker and his demolition team have tangled with the best of the Marvel superhero teams. In She-Hulk, we previously saw the crew attack Jen and try to steal her blood, but in the comics their beef is much meatier.
Predictably, the Wrecking Crew didn't really have any chance in a fight with godly characters like Thor, so they quickly shifted their mission statement to instead fight the Defenders. But heavy hitters like Doctor Strange and Hulk are Defenders, so that didn't exactly work out for them either. They have been recruited to fight Captain America, the Fantastic 4, Iron Fist, Namor, and Wolverine. He even fought Spider-Man during the original Secret Wars.
The most interesting thing about The Wrecker and his crew is that they have been reliable members of the Masters of Evil, the Marvel version of DC's Legion of Doom. While aligned with the Masters of Evil, under the command of Baron Zemo, they didn't just fight the Avengers but also targeted the Thunderbolts.
Saracen
Introduced by Blonsky as being someone who thinks they are a vampire, Saracen (Terrence Clowe) is actually one of the oldest vampires in the history of the Marvel universe. This fact sort of makes him seem more important than he actually is, which is also alluded to by no one taking his vampirism seriously. In the books, Saracen was just another vampire for Blade to fight. He first appeared in Issue #1 of 1999's Blade: Vampire Hunter, a run about Blade working with a secret vampire hunting division of SHIELD.
Besides being a vampire that Blade has fought before, there isn't much notable about him. However, this is the second time vampires have been mentioned directly in the MCU after a name-drop in an episode of Loki. Between these two references and Mahershala Ali doing a voice cameo in Eternals, the MCU really wants to remind everyone that Blade is coming soon, even if it lost its director.
Porcupine
Like a lot of Marvel baddies, Porcupine (Jordan Aaron Ford) was just a bank robber with an animal themed costume and weapons. While that is the origin story of at least half of Spider-Man's rogues' gallery, Porcupine was actually stopped by the original Ant-Man and the Wasp, Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne. After that defeat, he became a regular jobber for other villains. In a moment of grand pettiness, Doctor Doom hired him to sabotage the wedding of Reed Richards and Sue Storm. Batroc the Leaper hired him to fight Captain America. Justin Hammer hired him to fight Iron Man. He joined a mob in DC and fought the X-Men, which led to him being arrested. An alien named Nebulon got him to fight the Defenders. In Secret Wars, he joined other villains to fight Moon Knight. He's the type of character who has gotten around and fought most of Marvel's Earth-based heroes but was never good enough to actually win any fights. Hopefully, Blonsky's therapy in She-Hulk will give him some newfound self-confidence.
Is the MCU Rebooting the Defenders?
The biggest takeaway from all of these characters appearing in this episode is that they are all connected to heroes that are scheduled to be soft-rebooted or entering the MCU in the next few phases. Particularly the old Netflix shows, which started being soft-rebooted into the MCU last year when Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio made their return as Daredevil and Kingpin. Only time will tell if these wild wackadoos will cross paths with the grittier Defenders line-up. Hopefully a definitive answer will be given on this when Daredevil joins She-Hulk before the season wraps up.