She-Hulk: Who Is Luke Jacobson?

Across its first five episodes, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law has taken fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe on an entertaining and totally wild story. One of the most-beloved components of the series has been its connections to Marvel lore, both to the lore of Jennifer Walters / She-Hulk (Tatiana Maslany) and the larger landscape of Marvel Comics itself. This week’s fifth episode proved to exercise that once again, introducing a Marvel character to the series who might be the most obscure yet. Spoilers for Episode 5 of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, “Mean, Green, and Straight Poured into These Jeans”, below! Only look if you want to know!

Part of the episode sees Jen concerned with getting new She-Hulk-sized clothes, outside of the oversized suits she already wears to work. Nikki Ramos (Ginger Gonzaga) and Augustus “Pug” Pugliese (Josh Segarra) eventually get Jen connected with Luke Jacobson (Griffin Matthews), a fashion designer who specializes in clothing for superheroes. While Jen initially insists that she only needs business suits that can fit her She-Hulk and human bodies, Luke appears to create Jen’s superhero costume for her anyway — and clearly is also making a new yellow costume for Matt Murdock / Daredevil (Charlie Cox).

Created by Martha Thomases and Tony Salmons, Luke Jacobson first made his Marvel debut in 1986’s Dakota North #1, the first in a five-issue miniseries introducing the titular butt-kicking private security agent. Luke ends up being Dakota’s first case, as she’s tasked with being his bodyguard to protect him from fashion-related threats. Luke ultimately appeared in three of the book’s five issues — and has not appeared in a Marvel comic since. As Thomases would later confirm to The Comics Journal, her intent was for Luke to be gay and HIV+, but that was not able to happen in the series’ initial narrative.

“[He is based on] my friend, the fashion designer David Freelander, who died of AIDS in 1987,” Thomases revealed. “I had wanted the character to also be gay and HIV+, but [Marvel editor Larry Hama] said that wasn’t why people read comics. I suspect that, if the series had continued, we would have gone there.”

Who plays Luke Jacobson on She-Hulk?

Matthews, who is best known for his work on The Flight Attendant and his musical Invisible Thread, told ComicBook.com in 2020 that he wanted to join the superhero space — in part to add more positive representation to it.

“It’s so interesting that you asked that because we’re inside of this conversation about representation,” Matthews explained at the time. “It’s what we’ve been doing for all of 2020, just talking about black lives and black gay lives. I loved Black Panther so, so, so much. And I just want there to be gay people on screen. I want to be a goddamn superhero. I think it’d be so cool to enter that world, because it just feels like we don’t exist in that world. We don’t exist in that space. When I was growing up, I never saw myself. I loved Spider-Man. I loved Batman. I saw all of those films, and I loved those films, but I never saw myself. The closest thing I could say was ‘Maybe I’ll be Robin.’ And I would just love in 2021, in the new year, I would love to really see some queer representation. And honest to God, I would love, love, love to do it, with my little skinny body and a lack of muscle. I want to be a superhero.”

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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