Jen Walters is one of my absolute favorite comic characters, so I’ve been waiting for She-Hulk: Attorney at Law to drop on Disney+ since the moment it was announced. And…it does not disappoint.
Episode one hits all the right beats and is chock full of Easter eggs. The show starts with a Savage She-Hulk reference and leads to Jen (Tatiana Maslany, Orphan Black) breaking the fourth wall — a thing the character has been doing since before a certain Deathstroke knock-off made his first appearance in New Mutants – and giving us a flashback to her origin.
Her origin differs slightly from the comics, but the basic premise is still the same – Jen winds up with some of her cousin Bruce Banner’s blood and becomes a Hulk in a scene reminiscent of the old The Incredible Hulk TV series. Most of the episode deals with Bruce trying to teach Jen how to control the beast inside her, while Jen insists it’s not really that necessary. Unlike Bruce, her Hulk isn’t a separate identity; and she doesn’t need help controlling her anger and fear because that’s just the default state for most women. But Shulkie just wants to live her life as a damn good lawyer and not as a hero while Bruce insists that with great power comes great responsibility. And post-flashback, Jen is forced to make that decision.
Using her fourth wall-breaking ability is a great way to do Jen’s origin, so we can get on with what looks to be a fun series that is likely going to set up a major storyline in the future (or it could just be Marvel trolling us…again). The credits are set up as a series of courtroom sketches, one of which is an homage to the iconic Muscle Beach poster by Joe Jusko.
Most importantly, however, episode one answers a question that the Internet has been debating for nearly a decade: was Captain America a virgin? And the answer is absolutely worth watching for.
4.25/5 Whiskeys
-Destiny Edwards