She-Hulk Showrunner Defends Changes to Tim Roth’s Abomination

In its first three episodes, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law has taken us on a very unique trip through the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and introduced some familiar faces along the way. Episodes 2 and 3 saw the return of Emil Blonsky / Abomination (Tim Roth), who had previously been shown in the franchise in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, and a very brief cameo in last year’s Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Given how long it has been since Blonsky’s most prominent appearance, some fans have been taken aback by the ways that his characterization has changed in She-Hulk. As the show’s head writer, Jessica Gao, recently explained to Radio Times, those changes came about naturally.

“I just thought… it would be really fun to pull this character, who was such an indelible part of Hulk lore, and pull him into this Hulk show,” Gao explained. “But also to have fun with this character, because we saw him so long ago [and] we also saw him in such a serious capacity. It would be so nice to bring him in and actually make him have fun with it and actually let him play around with this character and show you kind of a different side, because there is that long span of time.”

“Anything could have happened to this man over the course of the last 14 years,” Gao continued. “People change, especially if they’ve been sitting in a detention cell somewhere. We don’t know what’s happened all that time and people go through these kinds of changes after such a huge thing has happened to them – and then they’ve had to sit with it for over a decade.”

In a recent interview with ComicBook.com, Roth spoke about the fun of getting to play in the more heroic corner of the superhero space, and cited both Iron Man and Deadpool as personal influences.

“I think I’ve always tackled humor and I think that’s always been a theme with them despite the world calamities that they play around with,” Roth revealed. “There’s always humor and really… This all started with the Iron Man humor. The reason that worked was what Robert Downey did and Favreau and those guys, how they played around with that line. And then if you jump forward, the clearest successful case of that is Deadpool. Deadpool is amazing and the R-rated comedy, Marvel Universe, whatever the hell it… I don’t know what these things are, but what Ryan Reynolds did is astounding, I think. It’s brilliant. I travel with it. I have those on my little iPad when I’m on a plane, or something.”