She-Hulk smashes fourth walls, bad endings and toxic fanboys in its first season’s finale
By: Sarah Grishpul
SheHulk in the Marvel comics (Graphic by Sama Nemat Allah using imagery from @Gwendal via Flickr)
Warning! The next paragraphs contain spoilers for the finale of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. Proceed with caution.
Alright, I guess I’ll be the first to say it: The She-Hulk finale was actually pretty good.
In fact, I didn’t hate the show at all. I thought it was quite witty and a fun, fresh new take on superhero stories.
Wow, shocking. A person online who doesn’t hate the new Marvel show? Now that’s something you don’t hear every day, as the show currently sits at a 35 per cent audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is the latest in a stream of Marvel-produced television that stars Canadian Emmy-Award-Winner Tatiana Maslany as the talented lawyer Jennifer Walters. After accidentally becoming exposed to radioactive blood from her cousin Bruce Banner, a.k.a. the Hulk, Walters has become a Hulk herself. Determined to continue living her normal life, she is left to face the conflicts of not only being a superhero but a female superhero and perhaps even scarier, a woman in the workplace.
So, why exactly are people so upset over She-Hulk’s existence? Well, for years, the superhero genre has been largely dominated by men and targeted to an audience of male viewers. We didn’t get a female-led Marvel movie until 2019's Captain Marvel. Even then, Brie Larson’s Carol Danvers was met with instant online backlash, with fanboys complaining about her arrogance and stony expression.
What puzzled me at the time was how Marvel fans could complain about Carol Danvers’ impassivity when characters like Bucky Barnes were idolized for their emotionless, stone-cold expressions. She-Hulk answers this perfectly through its depiction of the weaponization of female rage.
Early on in the pilot episode, Walters explains to her cousin Bruce why she’s able to control her Hulk form, saying, “I’m great at controlling my anger … I do it pretty much every day. If I don’t, I’ll get called ‘emotional,’ or ‘difficult,’ or I might just literally get murdered. So I’m an expert at controlling my anger because I do it infinitely more than you.”
As someone who has navigated a society built on punishing femininity, I could feel myself nodding along with Walters during this scene. Women are often taught at a young age to repress their anger, as it will make them appear unlikeable, emotional and irrational. Whereas with men, their rage is revered, often seen as powerful and assertive, especially in a professional setting. Female rage is often vilified in society as the blame more often falls on our shoulders. This becomes inherently amplified when we find ourselves at the margins of other fault lines in society. Black, Indigenous, racialized, and queer females have no choice but to police themselves lest the world does it instead.
During the last two episodes, Walters’ sex tape is leaked during an awards ceremony, causing her to “Hulk out” and destroy the venue. Instead of going after the perpetrators, the authorities arrest Walters and denounce her as an unstable, irrational superhuman. She is punished severely for simply being angry and discredited in the eyes of the public — after going through something incredibly traumatizing and degrading.
Moments like these are why I enjoyed the show so much. It’s refreshing to see something so relatable on screen, even if I may be a young university student and She-Hulk is a giant, green superhuman.
The show itself wraps up in a way that is true to Walters’ character. In the season finale, it is revealed that Todd, a creep Walters met on a Tinder date, was behind the leak in an attempt to destroy She-Hulk’s reputation. In teaming up with an online group of men who also despised the idea of another female superhero, these internet trolls mirrored the show's real-life haters with an almost unnerving accuracy. After stealing and infusing himself with Walters’ blood, Todd evolves into a Hulk and fans are ready to see the two duke it out in a classic Marvel fight sequence.
Only, that’s not what happens at all.
Instead of “Hulking out” and going up against a villain in the typical superhero fashion we’ve come to expect from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), Walters breaks the fourth wall (literally) by smashing out of her show into the Disney+ dashboard. Infiltrating Marvel Studios, Walters takes her issues with the plot to the one in charge, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige. Or rather, an AI robot named K.E.V.I.N. (Knowledge Enhanced Visual Interconnectivity Nexus). Walters refuses to abide by the classic Marvel formula and instead rewrites her narrative the only way a lawyer knows best. She argues that because it is her show, she should get a say in how her own story should end.
The entire sequence was cheeky and charming, bringing a smile to my face as Walters was able to save the day — not through brawn, but brain. In her closing argument, much like a lawyer, she proclaims that the MCU has become derivative due to the fact they all end the same way, with big spectacles and flashy fight scenes.
“It distracts from the story which is that my life fell apart right when I was learning to be both Jen and She-Hulk. Those are my stakes, K.E.V.I.N.”
Walters convinces the omnipotent K.E.V.I.N. to get rid of Todd’s Hulk powers, proclaiming that the real villain wasn’t the powers, but his toxic masculinity.
By breaking out of the stale superhero finale trope, She-Hulk opens the door for future MCU projects to experiment outside the recycled storylines fans have begun to grow tired of.
Overall, do I believe She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is a good show? Hell yeah.
Does it deserve all the hate it’s been receiving for its entire run time? Hell no.
We need more shows like this that present the world from a female perspective. Women should be allowed to occupy strong, powerful roles both in fiction and in real life. To pull a quote from The Incredibles’ Elastigirl, another one of my favourite female superheroes: “Girls, come on. Leave the saving of the world to the men? I don’t think so.”