Disney+ She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (Marvel Cinematic Universe) (1 Viewer)

[Josh Dial]

Now that more people have seen it, I feel comfortable in saying that I didn't like the finale. Yes, the ending was bonkers. But it set a terrible precedent. Doing this was certainly unexpected and different, but it creates a real stakes problem for the future. If any plot thread can just be thrown out at will, then why should I care about anything going on?

This isn't how the particular concept works.

Breaking the fourth wall--whether it's used in "extreme" form like She-Hulk re-making her show or more "mild" ways like Peter Pan asking the kids in the audience to clap in order to revive Tinkerbell--rests on the bargain struck between artist and audience.

The bargain is unwritten and may be multi-faceted. It governs how the story is told, how the story is to be received. It's the collection of rules.

Every literary and sensory device is fair game for inclusion in the bargain. But some are more "dangerous" than others. If the artist "misses" with satire, perhaps the audience thinks it's serious (and not funny). If the artist presents a mystery but doesn't solve it (or doesn't allow the audience to solve it), then perhaps the audience leaves feeling "ripped off".

I think breaking the fourth wall is one of the most dangerous things an artist can do. Especially the way She-Hulk does it. She isn't simply talking to the audience: she's directly changing the story from within. But part of the bargain here, in She-Hulk the show and in the MCU as the "meta verse", is that only She-Hulk does it. That's the rule. I have every confidence that Wakanda Forever isn't going to end with Shuri talking to the audience saying, "Wait, is this what you want? Namor just...wins? No way." And then she deletes him from the movie. That won't happen. Because that's not the bargain. The bargain is--the rule is--that only She-Hulk gets to do this.

But rules are made to be broken, right? So Deadpool gets to do it too. And maybe some day She-Hulk is in a movie with Ms. Marvel and Jen turns to the camera with a wry look or comment and Kamala Khan notices and says something like, "who are you looking at?" See Fleabag season two for something just like this.

An interesting aspect of fourth wall breaking is that it has the audience ask the meta-question "did that actually happen?" Did--within the confines of the show we just watched--Jen/She-Hulk/Tatiana actually leave the show and go the real life Marvel Studios campus? Of course not. Or...maybe yes? What does the artist want you to think? What do you think? Maybe you're bored by the question (and fair enough). Maybe you're fascinated by it.

So ultimately there is no dangerous precedent. No rules were broken. If anything, your question "f any plot thread can just be thrown out at will, then why should I care about anything?" Is extremely important to the MCU. By doing what it did, the She-Hulk series actively called out the other content in the MCU. She-Hulk knows that the audience expects the narrative to hold together across an individual series and across the entire MCU. That's part of the bargain, too. If a show or movie goes off on its own and ignores everything else (or worse, tears it down simply to be iconoclastic), then She-Hulk has given the audience permission to criticize it.

 

[Sean Bryan]

I loved the character of Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk. I very much enjoyed the series and the tone of the humor.

I liked the finale, but am a little mixed on it. It was a fun and interesting thing to do, taking the 4th wall breaking that far. I don’t have a big issue with it being hugely meta and basically stepping outside of “reality”, especially if that is doing something that has been done with this character in the comics. But there’s also the part of me that does prefer a bit more serious drama to be delicately mixed into something like this. When the overall tone is lighter and comedic, it’s nice to weave in a bit of drama. I feel like they were kind of doing that, but then kind of hand waved it away.

Still a very enjoyable show for me, and I’m looking forward to seeing Jen in future MCU stories outside of her “show”.

They seem to be planting some seeds for a future Hulk story. The rumors have been saying a “World War Hulk” adaptation may be coming. Obviously that would be very different that the comics story. But Smart Hulk still seemingly has some sort of connection to Sakkar and now his son form his time there has been introduced. If they do some sort of lose adaptation of that, or really any large Hulk-Centered MCU movie I hope Jen will be a part of it.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Interesting shot-by-shot comparison of "The Savage She-Hulk" sequence to the original Bill Bixby "The Incredible Hulk" credits:

Breaking the fourth wall--whether it's used in "extreme" form like She-Hulk re-making her show or more "mild" ways like Peter Pan asking the kids in the audience to clap in order to revive Tinkerbell--rests on the bargain struck between artist and audience.

I think that's part of the problem though. The bargain Marvel struck with the audience was a cohesive cinematic universe, where characters can cross over and the events of one story can and will have repercussions on the other stories. While there are stylistic differences and even genre differences from title to title, there is a shared reality that exists across all of the works.

Now "She-Hulk" comes along and plays by a different set of rules. But when it's puncturing its own reality, it's not just puncturing its own reality -- it's puncturing the reality of all of the interconnected works. Even if She-Hulk is the only character that knows she's in a fictional story, it's still shoving the fact that the MCU is a fictional story in the audience's face. That is completely at odds with the idea of a fully immersive fictional universe.

I think Deadpool benefited from how messy Fox's X-Men continuity had become by the time he arrived on the scene. It didn't feel like a violation because Fox hadn't really made any serious effort to create a fully immersive fictional universe.

But setting all of that aside, the ending still didn't work for me on its own terms; yes, it made fun of the deficencies in Marvel Studios's formula for these types of stories. But it didn't offer a better alternative. Many of the plot threads set up over the course of the season didn't get any satisfactory resolution. I didn't feel like my investment in the story up until this episode was rewarded; if anything, I felt like my investment in the story was actively scorned by the writers. It's all nonsense, the episode seemed to be saying. And while that is, on some level, objectively true, it left me asking a question that I don't think Marvel would desire: If it's all nonsense, why should I care about any of it?

 

[Walter Kittel]

And while that is, on some level, objectively true, it left me asking a question that I don't think Marvel would desire: If it's all nonsense, why should I care about any of it?

I'd suggest that a show like She-Hulk is about the journey, not the destination. It is something to be experienced in the moment. But I'm just a dude on a keyboard, so what the Hell do I know?

- Walter.

 

[TonyD]

The show was fine.
I don’t think the problem is with the show.

 

[Citizen87645]

I see good points in Adam's and Josh's 4th wall debate. Ultimately I'm not as concerned with the issues in Adam's perspective because this was an aspect that was part of the source material. So like someone else said, if she goes into Daredevil's show and starts to do the same that would be more of a problem. I could give them a pass if it were a She-Hulk focused episode within another series, but not when she is a supporting player.

 

[Josh Dial]

And while that is, on some level, objectively true, it left me asking a question that I don't think Marvel would desire: If it's all nonsense, why should I care about any of it?

She-Hulk does this exact thing in her comics. Both her and Deadpool know they are characters in comics written by humans living our real world. They know and tell the audience that it's all a fiction and everything is made up.

Do the handful of panels in the handful of She-Hulk issues render nugatory the entirety of Marvels 20,000+ issues since the company began?

I just can't believe that after this one episode of She-Hulk anyone would be honestly now asking themselves why they should care about the previous hundred hours of MCU content or the next hundred hours.

I agree that this episode did undermine the viewing experience. If a viewer walked away thinking their time wasn't valued by the artists that is a completely valid criticism (though I would suggest that feeling was deliberately fostered by the artists). But I don't think one episode using one narrative technique has thrown an entire decade plus worth of material into some sort of existential crisis.

She-Hulk didn't exactly re-invent the wheel here. No disrespect intended to the artists but nothing here blew my mind (though it did entertain me!). To quote my country mates the Barenaked Ladies, "it's all been done". Fourth wall breaking exactly like this has been done before. I did like how She-Hulk did it, though.

Fun and interesting discussion (and I'm sure that was at least part of the artists' intention).

 

[Citizen87645]

Do the handful of panels in the handful of She-Hulk issues render nugatory the entirety of Marvels 20,000+ issues since the company began?

I was going to ask a similar question in my post. I think for those who feel like Adam, there isn't necessarily the same cohesive agreement with the Marvel Comics (Publishing) Universe compared to the cinematic one. I think there's the expectation that Marvel Comics/Publishing is this complicated beast where not all the titles are expected to be in the same universe, so variation is expected if not welcomed. The movie adaptations by nature of the ambition to have a wholly connected series of films, don't have the luxury of being so sprawling and potentially disconnected, so having them all at least be non-self aware seems like a fundamental requirement to the films. So She-Hulk shakes up that agreement or expectation.

But I would say She-Hulk can do that at this time because the MCU has earned the right to do so. It's not that they've made this huge accomplishment and can now rest on laurels, but they now have the luxury to try something different and have it not be such a gamble. WandaVision and Loki were past examples of this, and She-Hulk is now the most recent.

 

[Jason Goodmanson]

I for one loved the series - and yes, the ending was bonkers, it was hella fun and I laughed and loved it.

I don't think my wife understood my glee at the opening credits (she's a child of the 80s not the 70s so she probably has no recollection of The Incredible Hulk show (or the memory of Daredevil and Thor in one of the last TV movies . . . )) but I digress . . .

The 4th wall breaking didn't bother me - I remember that from the Byrne comics, plus Jen did it quite often in the show itself so it's not like it came out of nowhere.

Did it change my life? Nope. Was I entertained? God damn right I was. So that's a win and the show was successful because of it.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I'd suggest that a show like She-Hulk is about the journey, not the destination. It is something to be experienced in the moment. But I'm just a dude on a keyboard, so what the Hell do I know?

It's definitely a "your mileage may vary" situation. I know lots of people who loved this finale, and lots of people who didn't. Just because I'm in the "didn't" category doesn't in any way invalidate the opinions of all of the people who loved it.

Different viewers respond to different things, after all.

I just can't believe that after this one episode of She-Hulk anyone would be honestly now asking themselves why they should care about the previous hundred hours of MCU content or the next hundred hours.

I don't think my entire investment in the MCU is thrown out because of this; when I'm watching the titles that don't have fourth wall-breaking, I'll just put "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law" (and, at some point, Deadpool) out of mind. But it does mean that I'll be watching the second season of "She-Hulk", should it get renewed for one, through a different lens, with far less investment in the story since any aspect of it can be thrown out at any time.

Fun and interesting discussion (and I'm sure that was at least part of the artists' intention).

This I will agree with. I think each person's stance in the debate ultimately says more about the viewer and what they are looking for/are willing to tolerate in their entertainment than it does about the entertainment itself. I'm definitely pretty far toward one extreme in wanting verisimilitude from much of my entertainment.

I think for those who feel like Adam, there isn't necessarily the same cohesive agreement with the Marvel Comics (Publishing) Universe compared to the cinematic one.

Exactly. The MCU, to me, struck a different bargain than Marvel Comics. While comics do seek to maintain a continuity across titles, it's always been looser: there's too many titles and too many writers and artists over too long of a time, with characters largely not aging, or aging at a much slower rate than people in the real world, so that the dates of past events are constantly being overwritten and moved forward in time.

WandaVision and Loki were past examples of this, and She-Hulk is now the most recent.

It's interesting that you bring those two shows up, because "WandaVision" worked for me and "Loki" didn't. "WandaVision" implicitly acknowledged that we were watching a TV series by recreating and satirizing various eras of American sitcoms. But all of those conceits were fully justified within the story itself. The first few episodes that were basically just sitcom episodes could be seen as the broadcasts that Darcy intercepted on the old cathode ray television.

The problem with "Loki" was two-fold:

1. The MCU has never really given us a concrete, definitive answer about how time travel and the multiverse work. "Endgame" provided two competing explanations, and "Loki" provides a third.
2. The whole conceit of the series robs the characters of agency; everything that has happened in the MCU up until this point hasn't happened because the characters chose it but because the TVA has decreed it so. Any time any variation of a character makes a choice the TVA doesn't approve of, they nip that timeline in the bud.

That being said, the ending of "Loki" season one addressed the first point, at least.

 

[TonyD]

I just can't believe that after this one episode of She-Hulk anyone would be honestly now asking themselves why they should care about the previous hundred hours of MCU content or the next hundred hours.

That’s somewhat over the top and hyperbolic.

 

[Joe Wong]

I don't think my entire investment in the MCU is thrown out because of this; when I'm watching the titles that don't have fourth wall-breaking, I'll just put "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law" (and, at some point, Deadpool) out of mind. But it does mean that I'll be watching the second season of "She-Hulk", should it get renewed for one, through a different lens, with far less investment in the story since any aspect of it can be thrown out at any time.

As I mentioned in post #296 of this thread (previous page), I don't think she will crash the MCU and change the storylines again. If she is able to, then yes, "why should I care?" It's like if a writer uses the "It was all a dream!" device to explain everything. It may work (or not) the 1st time, but you can't expect it to be used a 2nd time.

But there's also a definite hint in the episode itself that stops this possibility (as someone on another forum pointed out). If you fast-forward to around 23:14 in the episode, when Jen mentions she has ideas for Season 2, the dialogue is as follows (taken from the subtitles):

Jen: I have thoughts about Season 2's direction.
KEVIN: You will not be able to access the K-E-V-I-N again.
Jen: What?
KEVIN: That error on our platform has been fixed.
Jen: Th... That's it? We're done?
KEVIN: That's it? You obliterated the thrilling ending K.E.V.I.N. formulated.

So if She-Hulk has a Season 2, the 4th-wall-breaking may still be present, but she won't be able to change the plot anymore.

 

[Dave Moritz]

Watched two episodes and have not watched it since! So far no interest in going back and continuing this but I am surprised is getting a second season.

 

[TonyD]

Watched two episodes and have not watched it since! So far no interest in going back and continuing this but I am surprised is getting a second season.

Why are you surprised?
You really don’t even have an informed and complete opinion about the show.

 

[Josh Dial]

That’s somewhat over the top and hyperbolic.

I don't think anyone here on the HTF has this extreme view. But I've definitely seen it in the darker corners of the internet. There are people on Reddit and Twitter saying that She-Hulk capital "r" Ruined the MCU. I think those people are being dramatic for "funsies".

Interestingly, in a way the "villain" of She-Hulk season 1 was real life internet trolls.

 

[Dave Moritz]

You really don’t even have an informed and complete opinion about the show.

I was so turned off by the way the first two episodes where done and how she hulk just can do everything her brother took countless years just because she was female. The overly simplistic way she got in the position to become the hulk was horrible. David Banner was exposed to massive doses of gamma radiation while she just got some of his blood on an open wound. The she hulk character is dismissive of the hulk character which doesn't go over good. For me it was so bad I just didn't feel the need or want to watch any further episodes. So I have to sit through every episode to have an opinion of it. mmmm.

 

[TonyD]

You sure can have an opinion.
On the first two eps.

Either way it’s probably best you didn’t watch the rest.

 

[Sean Bryan]

I was so turned off by the way the first two episodes where done and how she hulk just can do everything her brother took countless years just because she was female. The overly simplistic way she got in the position to become the hulk was horrible. David Banner was exposed to massive doses of gamma radiation while she just got some of his blood on an open wound. The she hulk character is dismissive of the hulk character which doesn't go over good. For me it was so bad I just didn't feel the need or want to watch any further episodes. So I have to sit through every episode to have an opinion of it. mmmm.

Cousin not brother, and Bruce not David.

Just for a frame of reference, Bruce seems to be the only “Hulk” who upon first becoming so completely loses himself. When Blonsky first became The Abomination in The Incredible Hulk he basically kept his own mind, if not somewhat amped up. She-Hulk is the second example in the MCU of someone else be coming a Hulk after Bruce who maintained their mind better than him. There’s rumors of another “Hulk” character coming in future films and I expect that will also be someone who more or less retains their mind. And the comics have many different “Hulks” who all seem to have a much better retention of their own selves in Hulk form than Banner did (except for when he was in his “smart Hulk” periods).

 

[Sean Bryan]

So maybe it’s not that she handles becoming a Hulk better “just because she’s female” and more because Bruce had some deep-seated emotional issues.

 

[Dave Moritz]

Cousin not brother, and Bruce not David.

I stand corrected

TV Show was David Banner and the movie was Bruce Banner

So maybe it’s not that she handles becoming a Hulk better “just because she’s female” and more because Bruce had some deep-seated emotional issues.

Not that she is female but the entire I can do it automatically because I am female. There are alot of great female characters but IMHO this isn't one of them. This just seems to be a formula in a number of modern movies. What is missing is like any real person where something happens there is learning and adapting not just bam I can do this no problem.