On last night’s episode of the Scriptnotes podcast, Man of Steel writer David S. Goyer made some remarks about Marvel’s She-Hulk that have thrown the Internet into a bit of a furor.The episode can be downloaded at the link above, and The Mary Sue‘s Alan Kistler downloaded and transcribed the offending section, in which Goyer suggested that The Hulk is a textbook adolescent power fantasy and the She-Hulk is, by extension, a sexual fantasy girl, the only one who could “handle” someone with the powers of The Hulk.That point of view was first voiced by podcast host Craig Mazin, but Goyer took the ball and ran with it…
Craig Mazin: The real name for She-Hulk was Slut-Hulk. That was the whole point. Let’s just make this green chick with enormous boobs. And she’s Hulk strong but not Hulk massive, right? … She’s real lean, stringy…David S. Goyer: She’s still pretty chunky. She was like Chyna from the WWE.Mazin: The whole point of She-Hulk was just to appeal sexistly to ten-year-old boys. Worked on me.Goyer: I have a theory about She-Hulk. Which was created by a man, right? And at the time in particular I think 95% of comic book readers were men and certainly almost all of the comic book writers were men. So the Hulk was this classic male power fantasy. It’s like, most of the people reading comic books were these people like me who were just these little kids getting the s–t kicked out of them every day… And so then they created She-Huk, right? Who was still smart… I think She-Hulk is the chick that you could f–k if you were Hulk, you know what I’m saying? … She-Hulk was the extension of the male power fantasy. So it’s like if I’m going to be this geek who becomes the Hulk then let’s create a giant green porn star that only the Hulk could f–k.
The writer also blasted the long-time Justice League member J’Onn J’Onzz the Martian Manhunter, suggesting that the only people who could identify the character have never had sex.”Well, he hasn’t been rebooted but he’s a mainstay in the Justice League,” Goyer explained. “He can’t be f—ing called the Martian Manhunter because that’s goofy. He can be called Manhunter… The whole deal with Martian Manhunter is he’s an alien living amongst us… So he comes down to Earth and decides, unlike Superman who already exists in the world now, that he’s just going to be a homicide detective… So instead of using super-powers and mind-reading and like, oh, I could figure out if the President’s lying or whatever, he just decides to disguise himself as a human homicide detective. Dare to dream!”Goyer’s draft for Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice was reportedly heavily rewritten by Argo screenwriter Chris Terrio, but he will be involved in writing Justice League and will serve as an Executive Producer on both of those movies, as well as the upcoming Sandman.
