She’s here and she’s taking names.

We have been introduced officially to Jennifer Walters, Bruce Banner’s charismatic, fun-loving, sarcastic cousin. As a character, I can firmly say we adore her already and she has both of us sitting here waiting for the next episode of She-Hulk. Don’t get me wrong, we look forward to all Marvel shows, but when you have a character like Jen, you just always want more of that fun energy. We didn’t get a ton of footage in this first episode that we hadn’t already been exposed to in the trailer, so I think this also really adds to that want for the next episode. Before I get into what we did see in this episode, make sure you listen to the latest podcast episode to get all the raw content and reactions from She-Hulk episode 1. You can do so by clicking the button below to find your listening platform of choice or listening live right now by hitting play on the link!

Let’s get right into the episode by first saying how much I really enjoyed the break from the usual formula. We have gotten a ton of origin stories in Phase 4 and in the form of shows, along with four shows that were based on previously loved characters. I would say almost all of them followed the same sort of formula for the first episode and I loved that She-Hulk broke from that and instead showed a current Jen talking to us, then the flashback, and finally finished once again in the present. I think this helped to not feel that slow start to the show, which sometimes happens when we are watching origins (I think a great example of this was Ms. Marvel). It also means we won’t need to really sit through much of her figuring out her abilities since the show itself confirmed that it has been months since Jen first transformed into She-Hulk. Essentially, we got a summarised origin and will instead just get relatively normal superhero content, which is exciting.

I did already slightly say it but I love the fourth wall breaking in this show. It is very much in the spirit of Deadpool, but in the way that I’m sitting here feeling like I’m one of Jen’s besties. I feel like she’s here being like ‘let me catch you up on my crazy life since the last time I saw you’ and I’m sitting here like ‘go off’. All this being said, the style in which this is being done leads me to think it isn’t the same impact that Wanda breaking the fourth wall in MoM was, which is that we should possibly be concerned. This doesn’t mean that Jen’s fourth wall breaking doesn’t mean something chaotic is in our future, considering everything we learned about the Watcher and have witnessed in Phase 4 so far. I am intrigued to see whether this will continue when Jen finds herself with other Avengers and I also would love to know how she suddenly realized we were all here. She’s almost too self-aware, calling out the fact she’s in a show and that we are all sitting there watching her. It poses the question that if she can become aware of us as the audience, who else can?

Let’s briefly get into Bruce and Smart Hulk, since I know he was a really important topic in the predictions. I want to first say I think he will have a very small role moving forward in this show. Much of the footage we saw in the trailers was from their time together in Mexico, so I think it might be safe to say Bruce won’t be too big of a character after this first episode. This makes a lot of sense, as the episode is set up the way it is with the timing being a little different, as I brought up before. We got some confirmation about his arm and apparently about the fact that Hulk attracts alien spaceships as well. We also got some background about what he was up to during the time between Infinity War and Endgame and honestly it made me really upset that we don’t get more Bruce. I think him and his trauma are so glossed over in all the films that seeing him now and how he talks about his time as an Avenger is sort of just upsetting. I hope that maybe Jen might act as a positive outlet for him moving forward, especially now that Tony, Nat, and Steve aren’t around.

So speaking of Steve and taking the tiniest detour, I have to ask: is he still alive? Everytime he was referenced, it was in present tense, so a part of me does have to cling onto some hope that Steve may be just hanging out somewhere. We haven’t yet gotten full confirmation of his death, so I think we have to assume he lives. But Jen was really out here asking all the important questions and I have a lot of respect for the knowledge that she was able to pull from Bruce about Steve because it was top tier.

Prior to getting to the final little bit of this blog post, I also want to talk about Jen’s extremely important dialogue that I’m not sure I even need to give context to. Naturally, as two women in this fandom and who have a platform it’s something we won’t gloss over just as Marvel didn’t, for one of the first times. I think I speak for Taylor and I both when I say we were shocked they actually went there and showed the binary between Bruce being Hulk and Jen being a Hulk. And I think it is extremely important to be sharing that messaging because as someone who has been here awhile, we didn’t really see a lot of that in the earlier phases. As a woman, we didn’t even see many heroes for a long time who were also women and have shared their struggles. I’m glad that these conversations are happening and that they feel so real and I look forward to the future we move into as these conversations continue. I know not everyone feels that Marvel is the place for it and they have also been sharing their thoughts, and I will just say regardless people are talking about gender differences online because of this show and I think either way that is also a really huge win.

Lastly, I want to wrap up talking about Titiana. So she felt totally anti-climactic in her 5 seconds on the screen and this immediatly made me assume she no longer is the main villain. Taylor and I 100% explain this better in the full podcast episode, but since Titiana gets her powers in the comics from Dr. Doom, we’re thinking he might be at play here in this show. It would definitely be a worthwhile villain and would be a great way to start the rumbles of the Fantastic Four. In the comics, She-Hulk actually at one point is a member of the Fantastic Four and honestly we all know the MCU is not going to once again make another origin for those characters. Introducing Doom here would set the stage for the Fantastic Four film and make that pill easier to swallow by the time Secret Wars comes around. Since Doom has some dealings in the business world, I also wonder if his company is the company being discussed in the court case we saw at the end of the episode and Titiana was sent to disrupt it. This is just a little food for thought before we enter episode two of She-Hulk in two days and hopefully get maybe some more answers about Titiana.

As I said from the very start of this blog post, we are loving Jennifer Walters and are already here for more of her. We hope every single one of you enjoyed the first episode as well and are along for the journey with us. A quick reminder that our episodes are coming our Thursday rather than Wednesday during the She-Hulk era to give us enough time to record and edit everything for you. This also means you can expect the blog to come out a day later as well, but we are hoping this will only be a temporary change. Our September newsletter is going to be coming out next week, so if you aren’t signed up for that you can click here and subscribe! As always, stay up to date with the show episodes and with our podcast episodes as well, as Marvel just blew your mind, so let’s talk about it.

Image: “She-Hulk Episode 1”, Rachel Paige, Marvel