To say I am pleased with the pilot of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is to put it quite mildly. This is one of the most solid, if not the MOST solid, series opener that the MCU has ever produced. The audience not only gets a Marvel origin story but also an excellent feel for who Jen Walters is as a character. One thing that I knew from the trailer that they would change up is She-Hulk’s origin story. I touched a bit on her comic origins in my She-Hulk comics piece last week.
Here are my thoughts on the changes made for the MCU.
Jen Walters’ Comic Origins
In the first issue of The Savage She-Hulk, Jen Walters is shot by operatives of the crime boss, Nicholas Trask. Fortunately for Jen, her cousin Bruce Banner was there with her, with the intent of telling her about his Hulk transformation. Jen was bleeding out, so Bruce did the only thing he could — give her a transfusion of his own blood. This decision would permanently alter Jen Walters’ life, turning her into the Savage She-Hulk!
That’s quite the origin story, True Believers. And could it have been adapted as is for the MCU? Sure. But I, for one, am glad they changed it to a car accident. Here’s why.
Shootouts Are Violent
And that’s definitely not to say that car wrecks aren’t or can’t be violent. But let’s face it. The United States has a horrific gun violence problem. The last thing we need is one more shoot-out on TV, especially on a show that’s likely to have a viewing audience spanning school-age kids and teens to adults. So, am I glad we don’t have to see one more shoot-out on TV? Absolutely. That’s a bit of realism that I’m quite happy to see omitted from this series.
Flipping the Script…and the Car
I doubt that most people have experienced crashing their cars into a Sakaar spaceship. I would hazard a guess that most people have experienced a car accident or at least been close to someone who has. With that in mind, swapping the shoot-out for a car accident accomplishes a couple of things in the context of the She-Hulk origin story.
First, it replaces an extremely violent event with one that is still violent and scary, but milder. Personally, I have never experienced a car accident where the car flipped, but I know people who have. They can attest to how scary it is. Jen Walters and Bruce Banner are experiencing something that the audience has likely experienced themselves. The car accident quite literally puts the viewer in the driver’s seat. The audience is experiencing vicariously, or maybe even remembering, the fear of a car accident — without leaning into the gratuitous violence of a shoot-out.
Second, changing the shoot-out to an accident actually does something that’s a Marvel trope and really a classic superhero trope: “Protagonist is accidentally exposed to ________ and becomes a superhero!” In this case, it’s not a radioactive spider, space radiation, etc.; it’s gamma-irradiated blood! I actually really like the feel of Jen Walters becoming a superhero, not out of desperate circumstances, but out of an accident. I think this will add a bit of whimsy to the story, especially since this is in the category of “legal comedy.” Guest host Robert Turnbull on my own Marvel show, Podcast-616, elaborated a little more on this idea in our coverage of episode 1×01, “A Normal Amount of Rage.” Give it a listen for a more thorough explanation.
Final Thoughts
Overall, I’m quite happy with how they’ve chosen to handle the origin story for Jen Walters. It makes it a bit more succinct, makes it a bit less violent and gives it a classic superhero origin story feel. What do you think about these changes? Does the car accident/accidental blood contamination work for you? Leave me a comment, and let’s talk She-Hulk.
Stay tuned to Fangirlish, where Julia Mercado and I will be giving you the most comprehensive She-Hulk coverage available anywhere on the web with our Marvel team-up of MCU and comics fan knowledge.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law airs on Thursdays on Disney+.
