She-Hulk: Attorney at Law

[This is ridiculously late for a review, but let’s go with it anyway. After all, Disney are still promoting the show.]

Created by Jessica Gao, starring Tatiana Maslany.

A friend of mine observed that She-Hulk: Attorney at Law looked like a Hulk series, only done as if it were Ally McBeal. To which the only possible response is yes, that’s what She-Hulk comics have been for the past two decades. And yes, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is essentially a sitcom. But what’s wrong with that? Not everything in the MCU has to be grim.

One of the delights of this latest Marvel/Disney+ series is that creator Jessica Gao pulls together threads from so much of the backstory of the character. Yes, we have her carrying out legal actions pertaining to the superhuman, as she does in all her comics these days. Support characters Mallory Book, Pug Pugliese and Holden Holloway all come from the Dan Slott stories. But there are plenty of nods towards the John Byrne run, with Jennifer Walters often breaking the fourth wall and speaking directly to the audience about the developments in the show. This comes out fully in the ninth episode, which has an extended sequence where Jen breaks through the channel selection. This parallels a sequence in Byrne’s run in which She-Hulk breaks out of the panels and runs across the page.

Even the original early 1980s run is drawn upon in the Los Angeles setting (though the Marvel Cinematic Universe has always been less New York-centric than the comics). Fortunately, given how poor that run is, little else survives from this. The names of Jen’s parents are the same, but little else is retained in their characterisation; for instance, Elaine, her mother, is not dead, and Morris, her father (played by Mark Linn-Baker, no longer the bright young thing he was in My Favorite Year), does not appear to be an ex-cop. The cause of Jen’s acquiring Hulk powers is not hugely plausible, but more so than that originally seen in 1980.

And perhaps the original comics series is nodded towards in one other aspect. The original She-Hulk’s villains were among some of Marvel’s worst (Man-Elephant, anyone?), and it is certainly true that this TV series brings in a number of the less spectacular characters of the Marvel Universe, such as El Águila, Man-Bull, or Mr Immortal.

At the centre of all of this is a winning performance by Tataina Maslany as Jen Walters, in her most prominent role since her remarkable turn in Orphan Black. Her Jen Walters a very different performance from that, but still excellent. Unsurprisingly, the MCU She-Hulk spends as much time in her Jen Walters persona as she does as She-Hulk, since real actors want their faces to be seen, but at least she doesn’t angst about being She-Hulk in the way the character used to in the original run.

This is also a series that makes a lot of use of guest stars. Obviously Mark Ruffalo turns up, both as Bruce Banner and voicing the Hulk, We also get Benedict Wong as Wong, who seems to be in almost everything at the moment, and Charlie Cox returns as Daredevil. But best of all is the return of Tim Roth as Emil Blonsky, from The Incredible Hulk, the MCU movie no-one likes to talk about. Roth delivers Blonsky with tongue firmly in cheek, haikus being issued left and right; one suspects he always wanted to play the role with this level of humour, but was prevented from doing so.

Of course, some people deeply objected to She-Hulk—the bros. The ire of those who think that only men should be the subject of superhero movies was already raised in the first episode, when Jen tells Bruce she’s better at controlling her anger because, as a woman in the modern world, she has to be. This can only have been multiplied in the final episode when, essentially, the bros are made the villains. So there are a lot of internet articles that will tell you how awful She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is.

Ignore them. The series is not perfect; the CGI for She-Hulk herself looks a bit ropey at times. But overall, this is well worth your attention, if only for the pastiche of the opening titles of the 1970s Incredible Hulk TV show at the beginning of episode 9, and the rather splendid titles that close out every episode. And it’s constantly funny; there are great gags here. She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is fun, funny, and I hope we see Maslany back in the future.