Written by Jen LaFortune
It’s March and the latest word from the “Powers That Be” at Marvel is that the new She-Hulk television show will start filming in the next few weeks. The show won’t drop until sometime in 2022, but that leaves plenty of time to take a look at some of the ways She-Hulk has been portrayed in the comics, and to think about what version of the character we’ll see, as there have been several.
The basic background of the character goes like this: Jennifer Walters is a mild-mannered attorney with a cousin named Bruce Banner. Bruce is a doctor, and is also The Hulk. When Bruce goes to visit Jennifer, her work catches up with her in the form of an assassination attempt from local gangsters, and the only way to save her life is for Bruce to give her a blood transfusion on the spot. She thus becomes the She-Hulk.
“The Savage She-Hulk”
She-Hulk’s first appearance was in 1980 in the title The Savage She-Hulk. She was the creation of Stan Lee and John Buscema, both of whom contributed to her debut issue. Issues two through twenty-five were written by David Anthony Kraft with art by Mike Vosburg, as well as a handful of other guest artists. Looking at her run from February 1980 to March 1981, she is very much finding her feet in a very 80’s style. She initially can’t control her transmutation into She-Hulk and increasingly fights with her rage, knowing that She-Hulk is wanted by the police for crimes she didn’t commit and that her becoming She-Hulk in public might lead to her arrest. She largely retains her mental acuity while in the She-Hulk form, unlike her cousin.
The portrayal of her law practice is scant and far from realistic. This She-Hulk is a complete outsider who has to hide her powers for fear of losing control. She is aided by Dr. Mephisto when he diagnoses her with a rare blood disease. In curing the disease, it causes her to be able to control when she will become She-Hulk.
The Byrne Era
John Byrne renamed She-Hulk into “The Sensational She-Hulk” (1985), also frequently referring to her as the “Pin-up She-Hulk.” Byrne’s intent from the beginning was to make her title light and funny. She-Hulk and her best friend frequently break the fourth wall, interacting directly with the audience and arguing with their creators. She is also extremely beautiful, has a highly feminine-idealized body style, and likes to wear pretty clothes.
She is self-aware, making jokes about how she is drawn in such a shamelessly sexy fashion and why she’s treated differently from other characters in the Marvel universe. She’s thrown a number of the more ridiculous villains from the Marvel roster, including a living hill, but she’s always shown to take the threats they bring seriously.
She-Hulk loses her power to transmute back into Jennifer Walters in one of the issues, and she is not a bit upset, as she finds the Hulk form liberating. She is in control of her sexuality, and she accepts the fact of being six feet seven inches of green female at whom everyone stares constantly.
This iteration of She-Hulk doesn’t practice a lot of law—in fact, aside from a few references to off-camera work she’s doing as a prosecutor, she doesn’t get into the legal side of things at all. Some might argue that this phase of She-Hulk is more about the constant showing off her body and how attractive everyone seems to find her, but in reality she has to think her way out of a number of tough situations and save herself and everyone near her. The Byrne She-Hulk is celebrated for her perfect physique, but is also highly intelligent and is no one’s damsel in distress. She thus defies the trope that women can be either intelligent or beautiful, but not both.
Charles Soule/Javier Pulido
This version of She-Hulk (2014) explores her practice of law in much greater depth. She also benefits from much more high-value cameos in this pursuit, including Tony Stark, Daredevil, and Captain America.
She is not drawn as being as traditionally pretty as she was in prior versions, though to be fair, none of the women in these issues really are. Some of the variant covers are a little closer to the prior versions we’ve seen, but while she is still physically idealized with a small waist and large bust, she doesn’t come across as nearly as feminine as she has in the past. It begs the question: Does she have to sacrifice her femininity in order to be taken seriously as an attorney?
The additional visibility of her law practice reinforces that she is highly intelligent and is a fine attorney, having garnered the respect of her superhero associates. Writer Charles Soule used his background in law to make Jennifer Walters believable as a human being and an attorney, showing that the practice of law is often difficult and the money doesn’t just flow in without significant work.
Recent Iterations
Jennifer goes through many phases in the constant tug-of-war over life as Jennifer Walters and life as She-Hulk. She has periods of time where she’s shown to practice more law as she’s confronting within herself how much the world needs Jennifer Walters, Attorney at Law. Even still, she continues making frequent trips to save the world with various Avengers groups. She finds herself taking Tony Stark’s side in the Superhuman Registration Act and registers, though she advises parties on both sides of the Civil War. Stark later injects her with nanobots that make her human, and when she is attacked in the courtroom over her multiple sexual partners, she realizes that she may be “addicted” to being She-Hulk.
Most recently, in her time hosting the Phoenix Force, she has become so unfeminine that she greatly resembles her cousin.
Granted, the Phoenix Force is one of the most epic powers that can be found in the Marvel universe, and the physical effects would be unpredictable, but it’s a very long trip from “Pin-Up She-Hulk” to this.
What to Expect From the TV Show
She-Hulk will star Tatiana Maslany, best known for her appearances in Orphan Black, for which she won an Emmy. She is pretty and has a great smile, but she stands at only 5’3” tall. Teasers for the show suggest that she will be in both the Jennifer Walters and the She-Hulk forms, but special effects will have to work overtime to make someone so slight in stature become 6’7” tall.
As to how much time she will spend lawyering vs. fighting, we’ll have to wait and see, but it would definitely be less expensive for the studio if she spent as little time Hulked out as possible. The show has also announced that Mark Ruffalo as The Hulk and Tim Roth as the Abomination will be part of the cast, suggesting that there will be some time spent doing superhero business.
The show is being billed as a “legal comedy” so that suggests that the focus will be on more legal work and fewer superhero adventures. But the question of how sexualized the She-Hulk form of the character will be remains. Considering the show’s placement on the Disney+ platform, the likely answer is “not very,” though there will be significant room for interpretation in how feminine they allow her to be. We can hope that Disney manages to make her funny and charming and feminine, and allow her to stand in contrast to her cousin instead of merely mimicking him.
