She-Hulk is fixing to bring it to the MCU. And when we say “it,” we mean laughs. According to writer/producer Jessica Gao, the latest Marvel Disney series is going to be something the franchise has never seen before. Namely, a half-hour comedy featuring a hard-working single lawyer who is also 6’7′ and can throw a Buick across a football field.
Gao says we’ll see more sitcom tropes and less city block leveling action sequences in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. Perhaps that’s not what the average MCU fan might expect, but Gao is excited to be exploring the half-hour comedy concept in the nine episodes of the upcoming season. She described her excitement in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter:
“I’m really excited for Marvel to have a true half-hour comedy and really lean in to a comedy format. Everybody loves the big spectacle — all the action operating at a level that you don’t see anywhere else — but what’s special about TV is that you have the time and the space to really just live with a character and see everyday life. I want to know what’s happening on a Tuesday when the world isn’t in danger. What happens when a 6-foot-7 green woman has to buy a business suit for court?”
— Jessica Gao
While humor is certainly present in nearly every Marvel film, She-Hulk will be the first Disney Plus streaming series to lean hard into the concept. The decision to keep it funny may stem from the series’ source material in the original Marvel Comics books, especially the runs by writers John Byrne and Dan Slott. Although She-Hulk was originally a fairly traditional action hero for the first years of her existence, John Byrne doubled down on the character’s smart acre personality and regularly broke the fourth wall to have Shukie nod and wink or even complain about Marvel editorial policies directly to the readers. Slott added some more humanizing elements to the character, focusing on her relationship with her self and her alter ego, attorney Jennifer Walters.
While many online fans have complained about the series’ CGI values, many others have responded positively to the humor in the first two trailers. It may turn out that turning up the comedy element may land another hit for Marvel and Disney.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law will begin streaming episodes on Disney Plus on August 17.