f13.net

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gim2kprjL50

August 17.

Official Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7JsKhI2An0

 :drillf: :hulk_rock:

Looks great. I'm so so so glad they're foregrounding the "superhuman law" material, which really made the character work.

I assume we're going to find out in the course of the series why Banner stopped being Professor Hulk, but we'll see...

Also very clear that they're going with "She-Hulk is kind of slutty, but so was Tony Stark, so what's your problem?"

She looked a bit cartoony, like a buff hot Fiona from Shrek.

Yeah, the CGI seemed slightly off/cheap.

He's still Professor Hulk in this trailer, and his arm is healed so this seems like it would be after his Shang-Chi appearance.

And yeah, the CGI on She-Hulk doesn't look great. Part of that I chalk up to the budget of a D+ series vs. the budget of a movie, and part of it is that it's probably a bit harder to make She-Hulk work than it is Hulk.

Tbh I've never felt regular hulk looked all that great. Hulks are probably always going to look cartoony because they are hulks.

But hire Tatiana Maslany to play a hulk and people (guys) are going to be looking more closely.

Banner stopped being professor hulk because it was not worth the CGI for a cameo...

That was my only real complaint with the trailer. Her CGI looked a bit off. I think it was because she has less "texture" than Professor Hulk. Like her skin seems flatter and thus reads more cartoony. I'm hoping they use the next 3 months to improve it.

At 1:23 you can see the motherfucking Frog Man and that is the greatest thing ever put in an MCU property.

If the bright green monster woman looking unrealistic is the worst thing about this show it's gonna be the best Marvel series to date.

Wow, that is Frog-Man. That's a great sign in and of itself but also an indicator that they're gonna use one of the best things about Slott's "Superhuman Law" run on She-Hulk, which was all the minor villains hanging around (especially the ones suing super-heroes).

Tatiana Maslany. She's what you're here for. If the CGI makes her unrecognizable, the show ain't worth watching.

I don’t give two fucks about comic book shit but yeah, if you can’t just paint her green and have Tatiana be believable as two distinctly different characters your writing and direction is terrible. Her work in Orphan black is a god damn masterpiece.

Looks fun.  I'll watch it on Disney+ next year.

The line about anger and fear is genius.

This, this and all of this.  And surely they must know these things.

I'm pretty good about setting aside technical stuff to enjoy a good show (Rogue One is amazing but the Tarkin scenes are hard to watch because the CGI isn't up to the task), and this looks like it should be good...but that CGI is really bad and I don't know why there seem to be a lot of people making apologies for it. Tatiana can be amazing and the CGI can be shit simultaneously and distract from the performance.

Because I missed most of what was going on in the trailer because the CGI was so shit it was distracting in every scene.

For the record, I was a big fan of Orphan Black and I love the premise of this show and want it to succeed in the most snu snu way possible.

Apparently the CGI looks a little bit more textured when you watch the trailer on Disney+. Or more accurately, YouTube’s compression made the trailer look worse.

It may have been updated on Disney+: https://www.digitalspy.com/tv/ustv/a40115405/she-hulk-trailer-cgi-updated/

It looks fucking great now. She looks like green yvonne strahovski at her peak.

Yeah, that is a vast improvement.

Yup, still a ways to go before it's /good/ imo, but at least now it doesn't distract (much) from the actual show (which looks good).

I think they upgraded the lighting and lod, but mostly added in warm tones to the skin. Which is honestly kind of weird (hulk green rar), but it worked, so shrugemoji.

I remember that the thing they seemed to have fixed about the Hulk by the time Avengers rolled around was that first, they did a better job of making him look kind of Ruffalo-ish than the Norton Hulk, who just looked like "generic strong guy", but second, they did something to make the skin seem like skin, if you know what I mean. The Bana Hulk was a visual failure partly because he looked like an amateur job of Photoshopping a color into something--it didn't look like the CGI Hulk's skin. Norton Hulk was closer--he had tendons, some texture to his body and musculature, and the color didn't float above his skin. But it wasn't until Ruffalo that the lighting and textural movement looked right, and even there, you could tell that it took a lot of attention in every scene the Hulk was in to get that right.

Official Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7JsKhI2An0

The CGI is a lot better than it was in that teaser and this looks like it'll be great. I almost think Tatiana is wasted in this role as she is such an incredible actress she can do this without breaking a sweat but it's great to see her back and this will get her the attention she deserves.

First episode was decent, leaned heavily on Ruffalo and Maslany.

But the script was odd. The lines often don't quite scan. Felt like it just hadn't had enough hours in the writing room.

Ep one was superhero Fleabag and I'm here for it.

Question becomes, how deep into fourth-wall breaking territory are they going to go? I doubt we'll get Deadpool level of audience awareness, but I wouldn't mind that.

The 4th wall break when Bruce caught her breaking it was a great scene.

Cool show, pretty much exactly what I hoped for, tonally. I'd have enjoyed a bit more origin, seems like they pushed through that but at least they did it in an entertaining way.

I'm good for not spending too much time on the origin, considering that the comic origin had her spending a bunch of stupid time in a smallish city where her dad was the DA or something like that, my memory is hazy. They're melding a bit of John Byrne's fourth-wall-breaking She-Hulk with Dan Slott's She-Hulk Attorney at Law and I'm down for it.

I would hope they carry the 4th wall stuff all the way through, as the most well-renowned run of her comics was full of it (the Byrne run).

This was great fun (especially the post-credits scene). The CGI was inconsistent but based on the scuttlebutt, it's a problem industrywide. The pandemic forced a lot of productions into overdrive for streaming shit, and EVERYTHING is getting rushed, outsourced and double-outsourced. The MCU people are notorious for making significant post-CGI edits/notes, causing even more crunch time bullshit.

The CGI was inconsistent but still better than the early teaser. I found it annoying when the showrunner said the CGI complaining was misogyny. That kind of thing is just facepalm worthy in this kind of circumstance. I'd have much rather she say "We're on a TV budget and our CGI people are also working hard, please give them some time." or something.

Anyway, I enjoyed it and am looking forward to future episodes. I was a bit surprised that the fight in the courtroom happened as it did. I figured that'd be something built up by an ongoing rivalry or something but then again, I'm not familiar with that villain so perhaps that is on brand or something.

One thing I'm seeing from the usual suspects is "oh, Jen Walters is such a Mary Sue!" which is BS but I think it's hard to defend because the show, so far, hasn't given reasons for why she is herself when she changes so quickly and why it all comes natural to her. I enjoyed how it frustrated Bruce and made him jealous but would like to know the reasons behind it personally even if it's just a throwaway "women have to deal with shit all the time, of course I adjusted fast." I suppose that may have been the point of some of the things she said to Bruce about her having to put up with catcalls and such so of course she knows how to handle her anger.

Based on Bruce's line about something in her genes something something gamma radiation I just figured she has superior genetics and represents a new master race of Hulk ubermenschen.  

"Walters" is a Germanic name meaning roughly "conquering ruler" and "Jennifer" means "fair one" so it fits perfectly.  :why_so_serious:

I mean, ultimately, it's sort of bad writing and production on Marvels part.  Bruce Banner suffered as he did for a decade with his condition due to child hood trauma and abuse, which lead him to have repressed anger and spit personality issues.  The Gamma blast and transformation gave his rage a physical form, fully splitting his mind uncontrollably, and he's had to wrestle with it since.  It has nothing to do with genetics.  The fact he seems to have TOTALLY forgotten this (genius that he is) and just thinks she will be exactly like him and wants to recruit her as a hero even though he suffered a lot through it all is a little silly.  Though I guess you can't blame them for wanting to forget the previous Hulk movies happened.  I guess you can also chock it up to him just being 'smart hulk' so a lot weaker, but the fact that car she was driving knocked his ass across the screen was laughable.  They are being very very inconsistent with the power levels here again.

I'm pretty sure the Hulk from Avengers/Ragnarok/etc wouldn't even notice a Jeep crashing into him, never mind get knocked off his feet by it.

One of the previous Hulk movies didn't happen. The Edward Norton one is the only MCU Hulk movie and it doesn't really go into Banner's background at all. We don't actually know if this version of the Hulk suffered from childhood trauma and repressed anger.

Also it wasn't technically the impact of the car that knocked him across the screen, he was on the hood and flew off when the jeep turned. Also, comedic effect an all that.

They aren't setting her up as a Mary Sue. Just based on knowing some of the character's history and some cues from the trailer, I'd expect she'll have her own issues to deal with. At one point, she was stuck as She-Hulk for a long time, and even refused to change back because she liked how people saw her as She-Hulk better than Jen Walters. The genetics things was Hulk taking a science/gamma nerd's stab at an explanation when the root may not be physical at all - it's psychological. His transformation happened the way it did because of his baggage and hers will end up being her own baggage.

She-Hulk is great.

Yeah, just too short. Between the intro/recap and 8 minutes of credits that was barely 20 minutes.

Yeah, they're webisodes at best.

Putting Tim Roth in things is never a bad plan.

The CGI in this episode was pretty terrible.

Oddly, I thought the CGI was really pretty good especially compared to the early trailers. I noticed on her face especially the CGI looked pretty good. Though I did find myself wondering why they don't put her in makeup and use the CGI purely to enlarge her or something.

Anyway, I will agree that my own complaint with the show so far is it is too short. I'd like to see episodes that are double the length at least but part of that is Tatiana Maslany is such a good actress I want more of her. This show is making me want to do an Orphan Black rewatch.

See, I thought the CGI was off now and again too. There were points where it felt a bit more like Roger Rabbit, like she was an animated character walking through the real world. Especially in the first visit to the law office--there was just something kind of weird about her face and head a few times, like they were floating away.

CGI/compositing is hard and I'm guessing they don't have the time/budget to it the standards that the movies have taught us to expect.

Putting her in makeup would be jarring becauase we've been taught to expect a CGI Hulk.  They can't put Mark Ruffalo in green makeup and have us accept him as the Hulk at this point.  And if they have a CGI Hulk next to a practical She-Hulk, our brains are going to register one or even both as "fake".  Ditto if they do some scenes with her in makeup and some with her as CGI. 

Hmmm..maybe I just didn't look close enough. In the close up shots it felt like her skin was more "real" than it was in the early trailers. I did notice that in distance shots she looked a little more cartoony at times but it wasn't bad enough to bother me or pull me out of the show.

I agree with the complaint that it's too short. This is a great concept and casting. I want even more lawyer show out of this and hope it continues past a single season. Maybe my favorite Marvel show, in that it doesn't forget to also be a tv show. Hopefully S2 will be 'hour' long shows with more law stuff/Jen time.

It's fun. It's kind of a classic sitcom, which (despite Wandavision) is a new genre for them.

I was interested in the introduction of Pug. Presumably they're not going all-out zany with Andy the Android and some of the other Slott-era cast members, so Pug isn't going to get cock-blocked by Man-Wolf and all that but who knows.

While the animation of the hulk body shape isn't quite there on a TV budget, one thing that seems completely fine is the use of CGI in place of green make up.

Makes me wonder if we might see others using more CGI in place of makeup when characters just need to be a silly colour.

I'm sure Zoe Saldana would be thrilled by that.

Hard disagree on some uncanny valley replacing an actual actor in makeup.

So Youtube suggested a Ben Shapiro video. The title was something like "SheHulk is woke garbage!" I literally tried to think of anything that would set off conservatives and the only thing I can think of is some of her "women are angry all the time because of shit men do to us and we learn how to deal with it" comment and how quickly she learned how to Hulk basically. I didn't click on the video because I was afraid Youtube would think I wanted even more suggestions like it but I thought it was funny. I can't imagine getting so worked up over She Hulk and I'm sure he's not the only rightwinger having a temper tantrum about it.

I'm sure he doesn't give a fuck, but videos like that get clicks, both from actual manbabies who are mildly upset and want validation, and from normal people who want to see a manbaby having a tantrum.

All the worst shitheads fucking hate She-Hulk for just that reason (feminism is bad, trying to destroy all symbols of male power, whatever). In addition, if you don't watch out, you'll get Youtube suggestions for the army of shithead nerds who also fucking hate anything that isn't their traditional, white male superhero (or scifi) shit. Those videos appear often around any new MCU and/or Star Wars release because incels gonna incel.

You can open it up in a private browsing window or just remove it from your viewing history after watching it if you don't want it to mess up your recommendations.

This site is about as toxic as I bother reading on the Internet  :grin:

Life's too short for that kind of nonsense.

Those videos aren't even worth the effort it takes to click on them normally, much less to watch and try to hide from the all-seeing algorithm.

The "wokeness" is that it stars a female, that is all.

There's a pronoun right in the title.  Open your eyes to their agenda, sheeple!

I love those videos because I live to troll the incels.

they-hulk

You hulk, I hulk, we all hulk for...something something.

Honestly, I figured if I clicked on the video it'd raise my blood pressure. Ben Shapiro has a face that just begs for a punch and I'm not even a violent person. I just eyerolled that Youtube had him as a video suggestion of all people. My Youtube history:

A few movie and tv show reactors. I enjoy those particularly married couples and a few women who react to nerdy stuff I enjoy too.
David Pakman, Bryan Taylor Green(I think?).
A couple of channels by atheists and/or skeptics that talk about  whatever nuttery religious people are saying about atheists or whatever
A few gaming related channels that talk about video game news. Purely "this was what Bethesda talked about today" or whatever.
Occasional news clips from CNN or MSNBC

I'm not sure what out of any of that screams "this person wants to see a video by Ben Shapiro" other than David Pakman and the atheists have mentioned his crazy videos a time or two.

There is unfortunately an intersection between religious denialists who consider themselves intellectual and incels who watch Joe Rogan (otherwise known as Joe Rogan's entire fanbase).

Not only was it another great episode, I love how it punched this entire dangling nonsensical sideline of conversation directly in the face.

This was a pretty good episode and my only true complaint continues to be that I want more than 20 minutes a week with this character. I'm curious if this episode was also the start of some kind of arc with whoever her nemesis is going to be.

This was my favorite episode so far.

I loved that there was no real attempt to make the Wrecking Crew seem dangerous.

I was thinking during the first episode that if getting Hulk blood in you might make you a Hulk if you are genetically close to Bruce Banner, that might make a few people want some Hulk blood. So I'm glad that Chekov gun went off.

The interesting question is who the Wrecking Crew's 'boss' might be. Who could get a hold of some Asgardian tech?

The elf from this episode?
The Enchantress, making her debut?
Sylvie/Loki? (But they seem busy at the moment)
Kang?
The people assembling the Thunderbolts? (I would guess they're just going to recruit Blonsky.)

or

The Leader? (I mean, if you can hire Tim Roth, why not Tim Blake Nelson...)

I'd love to see the bossman be Toomes played by Keaton. He fucking crushed that role and it would be perfectly aligned with stealing tech to use for crimes.

He's stuck over in the Venom/Morbius universe at the moment.

Stealing Hulk blood seems slightly above range for Toomes' MO but the Wrecking Crew do feel like his schtick otherwise.

For a second I thought y'all were talking about the guy from the X-Files.

Marvel needs to put the inhibitor collar on Sony.

I don't think we get nice things on this level.

This latest episode was my least favorite of the series. The pacing was off and I didn't really enjoy the story with the magician. He was just extremely obnoxious. It's the first episode I was actually glad when it ended.

The premise was too kids-cartoon for me.  The idea of a fake magician opening an actual portal to a hell dimension as part of his stage act is cool, but I want there to be actual consequences, or at least the threat of them.  The idea that he regularly sends audience members to hell and they just wander around and find their way back unharmed is stupid.  Wong deciding to sue the guy as opposed to just exacting magical justice is stupid.  The judge saying "I see no harm in this, it's no different from card tricks" in a universe where magic killed half the population of Earth ("I got better!"), and they're talking about copyright law instead of the Sokovia Accords, is stupid.  Drunk girl being constantly drunk and never asleep or hung over is... well, impressive, but also stupid.

I get that they're going for a more cartoony tone with this show, with the fourth wall breaking and all that, but that kind of zaniness works better for me when it's juxtaposed with something that feels more grounded.  Hell, calling it "cartoony" does disservice to the superhero cartoons I grew up with -- people fuckin DIED in those.

I think the MCU has just sort of forgot the Sokovia accords. Its the sort of thing the comics also regularly forget about.

Maybe they got caught up in the peter parker spell.

I mean, She Hulk herself appears to be ignoring them for a start.

Well the Sokovia accords shouldn't need to exist in the first place because vigilante justice is already against the law

That said, "remember the time superheroes brought back half of the life in the universe" may have been enough to get the Accords done away with.

It was a somewhat half-assed version of a Doctor Strange issue (#65!) called "Charlatan". In it, there's a stage magician who has been saying some bullshit incantation for more than a decade that he happened to hear from a drunk who actually knew a bit of real magic. Strange gets called to the guy's performance because of a weird family connection and he realizes in a panic that the guy's incantation is actually going to imminently open a portal to a hellish dimension, not in this performance but soon because of how long he's been saying it. He tries to convince the guy to cut it out and his thug slugs Strange upside the head, giving him a concussion.

Strange comes back to the next performance disguised as his sort-of-girlfriend's father, determined to stop the guy before it gets out of hand, and he fails because of the concussion--he can't focus enough. The guy succeeds in the incantation, monsters come through to attack the socialites at the performance, and Strange is only barely able to close the portal. He erases everybody's memory except the fake magician--he just takes away that guy's memory of the incantation but he leaves him with the horrible memory of the demons that came through as a punishment.

So the mood is not so light-hearted.

I guess you could argue that at this point the Sokovia people have just plain given up--the Snap might have convinced them that trying to stuff superpowers back into the bin is a pointless exercise. There's some reason to think that they've moved on to "we need our own supers" from "we have to keep supers under control".

The sokovia accords we're terrible for cinema and only needed to exist for one movie.

So

I don't give a fuck about the Sokovia Accords specifically.  At this point in the timeline, saying "well there's nothing in the rulebook that SAYS a dog can't play basketball" when confronted with a guy who's doing actual magical shit is dumb.

Drunk girls adventures in whatever hell dimension she ended up in would've made a better episode. I did enjoy it even if it doesn't hold up to scrutiny.

Here in the real world we can't even get strong gun laws enacted despite the frequency of mass shootings, so yeah it's not hard for me to imagine the law being slow to catch up to regulating magic and superpowers.

Drunk girl could turn out to be a Chekov gun, I suppose.

What would be really hilarious is if She-Hulk fourth-walled it and said "I bet you think she made a deal with Mephisto and at last he's going to show up. Nope! It was just some no-name demon."

His name was Jake, duh.

The goat was shown with a name tag in the credits.

This show can't miss.

The batsuit with nipples, fucking perfect.

Fun once again. I had to freeze-frame the helmet a couple of times to realize that it was Daredevil's bad yellow-suit helmet.

Pug's shoe collection feels like a vague nod to one of the fun features of Dan Slott's She-Hulk run, which was that the "law library" for the Super-Human Law Office in the firm was a complete set of Marvel comics (which are canonically published in the 616 Universe as authorized adaptations of the actual adventures of the superheroes) and that Jen Walters, Pug and Mallory Book end up using what's in the comic books to make claims about legal precedents (including ownership of superhero names as intellectual property).

It's too bad that they can't easily adapt the absolute best Slott story, which is Spider-Man suing J. Jonah Jameson for libel; She-Hulk has to pass the case to Pug because she has a conflict of interest (she's dating Jameson's son). Pug is heading for a big win and he decides to expand the lawsuit to include Peter Parker for having fraudulently created photographs that helped Jameson to libel Spider-Man, and so Spider-Man has to tell Pug to settle the case without financial damages. (Jameson and Parker have to wear chicken suits for a day while handing out copies of the Bugle where the front page story is an apology to Spider-Man for false accusations.)

nor should they, this sounds like a shitass throwaway gag that would be dreadful on film

Also, why wouldn't PP continue the suit knowing it would still impact JJJ, and PP would just be paying himself (via S-M)? Dumb.

Or just tell his lawyer he doesn't want to include Peter Parker in the lawsuit because he was just a photographer that had no influence on how his photos were used and he therefore would feel bad to sue him too?

Its moronic to write a story where the lawyer extends a lawsuit on his own without consulting the client. Lets hope the series never walks anywhere near this idiotic plotline.

I haven't read it but I'd assume the problem is that Spiderman was already sitting in court next to his lawyer so there was no way that Peter Parker could be called as a witness.

That's pretty much it--Pug is questioning Spider-Man and he moves into questioning about Parker and Spider-Man is forced to concede that Parker's pictures were staged or untrue (which is both true and important to his case against Jameson) so Pug moves that Parker be added to the complaint. So Spider-Man can't undo the testimony without saying he perjured himself and can only tell Pug to settle the case for something other than financial damages. It's a funny story.

this shit can't stop delivering

Agreed. It's a pretty much perfect 23 minutes each episode.

“I’m hurtin’ for a yurtin’”

This last episode may be my favorite in the series. But damn Jen can't catch a break in her love-life. As someone who hasn't really read She-Hulk I have no idea if this is a theme in the comics too.

They seem to be pulling heavily from the Dan Slott series of comics. The only steady boyfriend I ever remember was when she was a member of the Fantastic Four, she dated Wyatt Wingfoot for a time.

She got married to J. Jonah Jameson's son (who was a magical wolfman also) but that kind of turned out to be mind-control. Sort of.

Good episode. Can’t wait for the finale.

Really good

Some great minor villains in this episode.  The frog dude was straight out of The Tick (the good 90s one).

and
just fucking killed me.

I'll settle for his son, even though I have an actual frogman action figure.

I am so sad this season is coming to an end. I have absolutely loved every episode, and this was my favorite. Daredevil was great, Charlie Cox really seemed to relish being allowed to smile and have fun with the character. I loved the new classic-colored suit.

That just took it to a whole other level. Amazing ending to a great season.

As much as I liked the rest of the series I was not hopeful for the finale.

And I was unconvinced before the wall breaking bit. And then I thought it was bad until they got to glados. But the Glados scene won me over.

The ending was suitably wholesome.

Perfect television.

Also, World War Hulk inc.

I have a special love for Thor:Rag and the first Strange. This was really some of the best of anything Marvel has done.

I also enjoyed Werewolf at Night too, which was a really nice diversion from any expectations I had of Marvel stuffs.

I will say that they are doing a good job of letting creators push the envelope on what kind of stories can be told in the MCU. The comics have always been able to play with different genres within the broader superhero stories, but these are doing so with major investment. I didn't like Strange 2 and don't think it was very well done, but it was definitely an exercise in letting Sam Raimi be Sam Raimi within the context of Dr. Strange.

This was an incredibly brutal yet fair takedown of the worst of the hardcore MCU/comics nerds and I am here for it.

LOVED Werewolf by Night--that was one of the best things they've done.

Finale for She-Hulk was...ok. To be honest, it was very like a lot of the wall-breaking that John Byrne did in his run on She-Hulk, which is to say kind of defensive and peevish and not quite as funny as it thinks it is. I mean, maybe it would have been just fine to do an ending that wasn't the conventional brawlfest spectacular and have her fourth-wall quip at the end "bet you were expecting a giant fight with the LEADER or something", then cut to Tim Blake Nelson as the Leader working as a quant at Goldman and Sachs, saying "I'm smart, I'm not crazy!"

I also think the series in the end showed one of the shortcomings of Dan Slott's run on She-Hulk in the comics, which is that having set up the great premise of a superhuman division of a big corporate law firm, it ultimately wasn't as interested in mining out that premise as it could have been, which is too bad because there's a lot of possibility in it.

I loved the series overall, though.

Yo, dawg, I heard you like meta so we put writer's in jokes in our climb through the 4th wall so you can...I don't know, fuck it, we're done.

--Dave

My only issue with the finale was that once they did the big wall break she spent far too long marching around the site, and the writers scene was cringeworthy.

But the glados scene was great.

They probably should have spent those minutes continuing to make fun of Marvel final acts.

Because Marvel final acts are really easy to make fun of.

For me personally the 4th wall break in the finale was just too much. It took me right out of the show and made me super aware it was all just TV. It was just a bridge too far for my tastes. I enjoyed the series over-all but I just lost all interest in anything going on in the finale due to that whole scene since it destroyed any feeling that this was "real". So I was super aware I was watching actors on a set as opposed to Jen having dinner with her family or whatever.

4th wall breaking is a delicate thing. Deadpool handles the balance pretty well in part by giving you an emotional arc in there that's oddly real/engaging and by having other gags that don't depend on self-referentiality exactly. I think the all-time best example of 4th wall breaking that's more extended is Blazing Saddles (though the crashing into the gay musical bit hasn't aged well and was too long even back then) in part because it still finds time for a call back to the weirdly satisfying relationship between Bart and the town and Bart and the Waco Kid and it still lets Bart shoot it out with Hedy Lamarr (at Grauman's Chinese, even).

What I find kind of dumb in fan discussions is now there's people saying that She-Hulk has a superpower that lets her get outside her reality to our reality at will. No, no, no, you dumbfuckers, that is literally the worst way you could possibly process this. All the 4th wall breaking stuff Grant Morrison has done over in DC Comics understands properly that if you take it seriously as a story premise, it can't possibly be funny--it's the most horrifying thing ever. Imagine if you found out you were just the figment of some real person's imagination and everything you did, good and bad, depended on how they wrote your character and yet somehow you were also self-aware and thought of yourself as real. (Which maybe is just something the writer is doing to you for now.) That's pretty much Billy Mumy-wishes-you-into-the-cornfield territory. The only way you can process 4th wall breaking really is that it's a gag or joke, a sort of meta-commentary. (And you can do meta without 4th wall breaking: say, The Princess Bride, for example.)  That's why it's really hard to sustain for an extended time.

"It's not like in Rapefest Quark Zoom, where they subvert the clichés by embracing them. And then undermining them by making them all true."

This show had 1 good episode and decided to say "and yes we fired whoever wrote that episode"  :drill:

So what you are saying in your usual coded way is that I absolutely need to watch this show, gotcha.

Not really coded. The show has some flashes of good moments like she-hulk twerking, getting straight to business with that random tinder date, and the entire episode between she-hulk and daredevil... which is surrounded by an island of uninteresting main plots, subplots, and characters. Ultimately the show relies on you feeling sorry for an upper middle class lawyer in her 30s and her nonexistent love life. If you feel sorry for her, kudos, but I really don't.

does class and job have anything to do with feeling sorry for someone for their love life?

i'm not sure i'm understanding, did you root for the guys who ran the website in the show?

You know he did.

I don't think you really feel sorry for main character, so much as find her more relatable than other Marvel heroes.

Except at the end of the second to last episode. Then you probably feel sorry for her. Unless you are a bit weird.

MediumHigh is like the Bill Kristol of movie and TV, if I remember correctly.

The show does ask you to emphasize with someone who is more normal than many of the other comic heroes. Is she dirt poor and barely surviving like Peter Parker? No. But she has struggles that are relatable particularly to women. I mean, the whole bit with her expected to be She Hulk in the office is a metaphor for how women are expected to look a certain way on the job even if their colleagues aren't held to the same standard.

I wouldn't call her upper middle class either. Sure, her family has a nice house but this is TV. That's never a good way to judge since everyone on TV has a nice house or a huge apartment even if they talk about how they can barely afford food or whatever. She starts the show as a DA, hardly a job that will make her rich. She makes more at her new job but it's no accident that when she loses it she almost immediately moves in with her parents.

It's a TV comedy, everyone is always one fuck up away from being fired and instant destitution the second they lose their job. That's just how things work.

The shit you guys come up with when you watch tv is endlessly fascinating.

Shorter MediumHigh: I liked it when she fucked guys and shook her ass, not so much when she was a human being.

I mean...

So it needs edgy swearing, raw sex, and gratuitous violence to be good? I think schild nailed it, you're the type She-Hulk is very blatantly poking fun at.  (Not sure how DP is not a Disney brand, since it's developing the 3rd movie and the first two are on Disney+)

He's literally the "Is this what you want" guy she completely smashed the 4th wall to call out.

Should we change his name to MediumIntelligencia?  :why_so_serious:

To sum that up.

Captain Marvel gets to fight alien imperialists who enslave entire world and commit genocide.
Wanda gets to deal with the emotional trauma of losing her husband and her brother within a 2 year period. And also being used and experimented on by literal nazis.
Black Widow gets to fight the ghost of the cold war and our petty desires to "win" the game of thrones at any cost + her guilt associated with playing her part in the game.

But she hulk is a comedy. So she gets to fight slut shamming. And internet trolls. And getting ghosted after a one night stand.

I don't need her to be edgy, I don't need her to kill people, or save the world. I'm perfectly fine with her being human and having human problems. But she got the short end of the stick when it comes to an actual conflict, she only gets to be fun sometimes and her "drama" was done better in shows that don't require superpowers to tell. I felt the same way for Iron Man 2, in fact this is very comparable to Iron Man 2. There are plenty of examples of doing a man suffering from high ego and self destructive tendencies + daddy issues better, but the kids bop version of alcoholism wasn't it. I feel the same way about the internet trolls coming for she-hulk like I did Justin Hammer stealing stark tech.

Also Jessica Jones did it better and managed to be the more fun character despite literally dripping in self destruction, alcoholism, and abuse.

 :psyduck:

Unfortunately, I find myself having to argue that he has a point. That climb through the fourth wall trivialized the stakes of the entire series. It was cute, but the jokes were so meta that they were only really funny to a few hundred people, all of them working for Marvel. And then they just deus exed into...shit, I don't even remember except it was generic happy ending bullshit.

Literally if it had been 8 episodes and ended on a cliff hanger, it would have been better.

--Dave

Yeah, it sucks when sitcoms trivialize the stakes of the series.

*cough* Wanda Vision *cough*

Did you actually watch WandaVision?

don't be such an unfun bitch

4th wall or not the show did not have a generic happy ending and brought world war hulk into the picture

What i wanted to say is that WandaVision did being a sitcom better. Did it first. And still managed to have overall conflict in its story.

I think classifying Wandavision as a sitcom is an extreme bit of reductionism. It was not a sitcom.

Specially when the sitcom plots didn't have to actually lead anywhere.

If you managed to completely miss that the "sitcom" elements of WandaVision were there as a form of lampshading on the series as a whole, you have basically shot any credibility you ever had here.

This is a pretty good description of why I think the finale went too far for me. I didn't expect She-Hulk to have huge stakes or anything. But the show made it clear it'd only have stakes, at all, if that's what Jennifer wanted so it all just didn't matter in the end. (Speaking on not mattering, Titania could have not been in the show and it'd have barely impacted anything...a shame as I love the actress.)

 I think I'd have been more ok with it if it didn't have cameos from other Marvel characters that tied it into the MCU. For example, if they do a World War Hulk movie I'm probably going to have a few moments of "this was set up in the TV show that had Kevin Feige as a Wizard of Oz-esque robot head" and I'll get yanked right out of the movie.

Just finished it.  I loved every minute, and it just deepened my irrational love for Tatiana.  I can see why the 4th wall stuff bothered some people, but for me this series hit all the right notes.

The fact that it is so poorly rated by a lot of viewers says more about the viewers than it does about the show.  I hope they make a lot more of this.

It does kind of point to the spot on the doll where the viewers touched them. Tackling the twitter bullshit right out of the gate...and then twitter doing exactly that, was such an enjoyable meta.

Also loved the show, but we've gotten the point in the MCU that is past what I remember reading as a child.  Had no idea that She-Hulk was involved in 4th wall business until I started watching this, and was mostly fine with it until the ending (which was just a little too much for me, not that I though it was particularly bad).  I kind of like that I'm now an average watcher and not someone with inside knowledge of the source material.  Much more relaxing this way.

I think the reason it's poorly rated is because of men-children who need to be told at all times that men are awesome and women need to be hot and saved (I'm sure that is the reason).

But just on the face of that sentence, my first though was, "if 'viewers' (or 'gamers') are the problem with your product, then YOU are the problem".  So I'm slightly torn on that point.

Which leads to the my second point and your first point; if you book someone as awesome as Jameela Jamil and then don't do too much of anything with her that makes her being in the show important or memorable... then you fucked up.  Do better.  The character was a perfect opportunity to have some commentary about women shitting on women, but they pretty much just made her a stand in for, I don't know, narcissistic social media stars? People throwing tantrums?  Maybe I'm just out of touch but I still cannot fathom what her character's character is supposed to be (horrible sentence, sorry).  (really tired, sorry if this makes no sense)

I don't think it's just the creeps that the show was criticizing. It's also that the show was pretty accurate in talking about the normal pattern of Marvel's films and TV series at this point, about how relatively formulaic (if highly skilled and entertaining) their output is now. So I think some viewers just reacted negatively because this show didn't service the formula--maybe even without knowing quite why that annoyed them. My wife didn't like the last episode despite liking the rest of the series and certainly liking the messaging on gender because she actually did expect all the plotlines to intersect and for there to be some kind of big to-do, if not a conventional punchfest.

The meta stuff at the end was fun, but didn't feel satisfying. Like the whole payoff was missing. Subverting the dominant paradigm is great, but can lack closure.

"see you on the big screen" "wait...really?" "no" was all the payoff i needed.

I really enjoyed this and it's the first Marvel anything I could see my wife possibly enjoying if she can get past the fact that the main character is a giant and green. That said there were definitely some missteps like the magician episode which felt like a waste of time and didn't really make sense ('We answer to a higher power!' Then maybe consider appealing to that higher power rather than trying to sue the guy for doing something that there isn't a law against but could destroy all life?) The ending I'm mixed on, I was really worried they were going to have the Abomination in on the whole plan and undermine him entirely as a character so it was a relief they didn't do the formulaic ending but I feel like they pulled just a tad too hard on the meta joke there. The writer's room was a touch too long and self-indulgent, the 'debate' with KEVIN in contrast felt a bit too rushed. I'd have appreciated it more if they'd skipped some of the build up and instead pitched it a bit more like a writing room moment with some pushback from the 'formula', hell even throw in a couple of bad ideas they could immediately backtrack on.

Really though it would have been that much more satisfying if they had actually played out the final confrontation in the plot rather than jump right to its conclusion. Yes I know part of the point of the KEVIN scene is that those plot point lines don't really matter, it's Jen's journey and experiences that the show is about but going 'all this set up conflict was about character growth so we're just going to skip to the point after the resolution' is and always will be an unsatisfying way of making that point. I'd have preferred to see Jen put techbro in a headlock and hand him over to the police while Abomination held on to a couple of his henchmen.

All that said, minor quibbles. It was a good series and I'm hoping they can run another season with a bigger focus on Super Hero Law stuff.

You know, the reaction to the show essentially tracks against the pluses and minuses of "continuity" in the source material. That is, when shit in the comics was wildly different tonally or thematically from the regular universe, you had the fans who were invested in continuity constantly fretting about how to explain that. And then you had people saying "just enjoy it, relax". It's a DC Comics thing but I loved the bit in Grant Morrison's Animal Man where he meets his creator (e.g. Grant Morrison) and they talk among other things about why Animal Man is a completely different person when he's a member of the Justice League and Morrison says, "eh, it's just the way the business works, don't worry about it." Some time ago, Marvel's continuity fractured enough that this stopped being the issue it used to be--soft reboots happen all the time--but I do sort of get the angst of people who treat an entire comics universe as it has to be internally consistent. There's a nerd pleasure in that which isn't that different from being a literary critic who has studied a huge difficult novel like Ulysses or Middlemarch--you're able to explain how it all fits together to a new reader who is sort of overwhelmed by it all.

the magician episode was arguably the most entertaining one tho