This is the first week in two months that we don't have an episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at law. And that means that the time has come to take stock of a series that, for better or worse, has marked the path of the MCU from now on. With a very specific premise: Marvel is NOT the Avengers.
She-Hulk has polarized critics like it has possibly never seen before. You either love it or hate it. I am in the first team. I have really enjoyed the misadventures of Jennifer Walters, her cameos and the style of the series. So she deserves this little tribute in review mode.
Marvel, willing to risk
Marvel is using its series for Disney Plus to risk. Sometimes with more success than others, sometimes with a more continuous spirit than others. But what seems clear is that Marvel has decided that it is not simply an Avengers movie production company, but rather that it is embracing the spirit of the publisher and the original comics. And I explain.
The Marvel Universe (the physical one, that of the comics) is full of characters, stories, that sometimes are intertwined and sometimes not, that follow a story or are serial. Each character (or each writer) imprints his personality on the comic, the story and the protagonist. After all, Marvel is a publisher (it has published comic adaptations of classics like Pride and Prejudice, for example) and it sells stories. It wouldn't be very successful if it just sold the same story over and over, would it?
Well, it gives me the feeling that (little by little, because making series is more expensive than publishing comics) that is the path that Marvel is marking with its MCU. We already saw it with Moon Knight, a series that is not connected to anything in the MCU and that does not advance that collective plot. We also experienced it with the Hawkeye series, which seemed like a Christmas adventure in which only the appearance of characters could be linked to the movies. Ms. Marvel also tells us a story of her own, and although we know that she will appear in The Marvels movie, the series does not depend on the MCU to function.
She-Hulk, comedy before action
The biggest jump, however, has been made by Marvel with She-Hulk. Because it is no longer a series of superheroes like all the ones I mentioned above, but rather Marvel has decided to make a sitcom. Like Friends, She-Hulk shows us the daily life of a lawyer who has to live with her She-Hulk powers, solving a different case in each chapter and living the life of a normal girl, with a normal girl problem: parents worried, appointments that go wrong, burdensome co-workers...
In She-Hulk the superheroic part is not the most important. It is present, of course, because it is part of the character and the story, but her director is more interested in showing us characters, situations, and a B-side of superhero situations that we are not used to seeing. And it is precisely this that has earned the series the most criticism: viewers who expected a Loki, a Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and have found a series of lawyers without further ado.
Give us more, please
To be honest? It seems to me a necessary proposal in the Marvel Universe. Not only is the proposal "new", with She-Hulk constantly breaking the fourth wall, claiming the leading role of his own series in the face of cameos and giving us one of the most epic and fun endings in the MCU. It is that Marvel needs to get out of the dynamic of prefabricated movies, which have given it so much success, and enrich its universe. And the path marked by She-Hulk is the correct one.
Make no mistake: She-Hulk connects to the MCU movies, a lot of them, in fact. She brings us new characters, new series, and forms a great point of union. She brings us closer to the reality of a world populated by superheroes. But she does it with her own language, and that makes her essential for us to consider that the MCU is complete.
What comes next?
Wakanda Forever is released on November 11, the sequel to Black Panther that will pit the African kingdom of Wakanda against the aquatic Talokan, whose king is Namor. And, except for a Guardians of the Galaxy Christmas special, we'll have to wait until 2023 for news in the MCU.
Of course, there will be many: Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantummania, What if, Secret invasion, Guardians of the Galaxy vol.3, The Marvels, Echo, Loki season 2, Ironheart, Agatha: Coven of Chaos... Why not talk about the “Spiderverse” movies: Kraven the Hunter, Madame Webb and Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse.
I bet you can't wait for it.
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