She-Hulk Premiere Just Introduced One of Her First Comic Villains

The first episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is out into the world, introducing fans to an entirely new corner of Marvel canon. The live-action series recounts the story of Jennifer Walters / She-Hulk (Tatiana Maslany), a character with an impressive and eclectic status quo in the pages of Marvel Comics. While the show is taking some liberties with aspects of Jen’s world, it’s also weaving in a wide array of supporting elements and characters — including a fixture of her original solo run. Spoilers for the series premiere of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law below! Only look if you want to know! The episode is bookended by scenes of Jen preparing her closing arguments for an upcoming court battle, alongside her paralegal best friend Nikki Ramos (Ginger Gonzaga), and another lawyer named Dennis Bukowski (Drew Matthews). While Dennis only plays a very small role in the scenes, he makes an impact, particularly by undermining some of the comments Jen is making, and suggesting that he should deliver the closing arguments instead.

In the comics, Dennis “Buck” Bukowski plays a similar role in Jen’s life, particularly being a thorn in her side at basically every available turn. Created by David Kraft and Mike Vosburg, Buck debuted in 1979’s Savage She-Hulk #2, as the prosecutor in the case against Lou Monkton, which Jen’s involvement with unintentionally led to her getting her She-Hulk powers.

As colleagues, Buck mocked Jen at a number of opportunities, even though she outsmarted him in the courtroom countless times. Buck also developed an animosity towards She-Hulk (who he didn’t realize was Jen), who he blamed for the death of Jen’s best friend, Jill. 

(Fun fact: Buck didn’t actually get the first name “Dennis” until 2009’s Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A to Z #10. He didn’t even get an attempt at a first name until 2007, when World War Hulk: Gamma Files #1 tried to canonize his first name as Joachim.)

Dennis making his live-action debut is just one example of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law’s wide-ranging and entertaining approach to She-Hulk canon.

“For me, it was John Byrne’s run that A, made me fall in love with the character in the first place but B, I consider that like — and most people do, this is nothing new — it’s the iconic She-Hulk run, and he was the one who introduced the fourth wall breaking, and kind of the meta nature of this character and how she was self-aware and knew she was in comics,” head writer Jessica Gao revealed in a recent interview with ComicBook.com. “So for me, that’s quintessential Jen. That’s, well, that’s quintessential She-Hulk actually I should say and I think early, there’s been so many iterations of Jen in the comics and she really started out a little bit more timid, a little bit mousier and as she kinda went along more in the Dan Slott and Charles Soule runs, you started to really see this career-driven working woman who had a very strong sense of right and wrong and we’ve really brought a lot of those traits into Jen.”

What did you think of the first episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

New episodes of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law will debut Thursdays exclusively on Disney+. If you haven’t checked out Disney+ yet and you want to give it a go, you can do that here.

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