She-Hulk Just Introduced a Controversial Marvel Group

We’re now two-thirds of the way through the first season of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe origin story of Jennifer Walters / She-Hulk (Tatiana Maslany) definitely isn’t slowing down. The Disney+ series has taken Marvel Comics canon and given it a uniquely modern, self-aware bent, from the supporting characters in Jen’s life to the villains she goes up against. Along the way, fans have wondered if She-Hulk could have a villain waiting in the wings — and based on the newly-released sixth episode of the series, we have our answer. Spoilers for Episode 6 of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, “Just Jen”, below! Only look if you want to know!

During the episode’s subplot, Nikki Ramos (Ginger Gonzaga) and Mallory Book (Renee Elise Goldsberry) deal with the ex-spouses of Mr. Immortal, who has been using his regenerative powers to get out of his failed marriages. One of the ex-wives reveals she found out he was still alive thanks to a video posted on Intelligencia, which Mallory refers to as a website for gross men. Later on in the episode, Nikki and Mallory visit the website and discover that it has a secret anti-She-Hulk forum — and after some light catfishing, they’re invited to join it. They then see death threats and other various malicious messages made about Jen — which is then made worse when we discover that a lab of scientists is communicating with an Intelligencia member under the username of “HulkKing”, who is asking them to prepare another syringe to take Jen’s blood.

This serves as the first official set-up for Intelligencia on She-Hulk — a group that some fans have theorized might appear on the show, and a group that has some bizarre context of its own in Marvel Comics.

Who are the Intelligencia in Marvel Comics?

Created by Jeff Parker and Paul Pelletier in 2009’s Fall of the Hulks: Alpha #1, the Intelligencia are an assembling of some of the smartest supervillains in Marvel lore, who work together to cause evil that can benefit all of them. After they initially formed and disbanded, they got back together after the events of World War Hulk, and were led by MODOK and The Leader. Their goal in the fight against Hulk was to create their own powerful being through gamma and cosmic radiation, and their work led to the creation of Red She-Hulk, A-Bomb, and Amadeus Cho. 

This directly connected with She-Hulk in the 2010 miniseries She-Hulks, which saw Jen and Lyra / She-Hulk, the future daughter of Bruce and Thundra from another war-torn Earth in the multiverse, hunt down the members of the Intelligencia and bring them to justice.

Based on Episode 6, it definitely seems like She-Hulk is recontextualizing the Intelligencia as a sort of a “men’s rights activists” group, which gives the show another outlet to deal with the sexism and misogyny that Jen faces. Now, there’s the question of whether or not some of the previously-unsettling scenes on the show, like the Wrecking Crew’s attempt to steal Jen’s blood and Todd’s (John Bass) creepy fascination with She-Hulk, could be tied to Intelligencia as well. After all, both the Wrecking Crew and Todd scenes highlighted the awkward and uncomfortable moments of Jen existing as a female superhero, between the comments Todd made and the Wrecking Crew accusing her of “flaunting her powers” by just existing in the public eye. With Samuel Sterns / The Leader (Tim Blake Nelson) conveniently just confirmed to be the big bad of the upcoming Captain America: New World Order movie, we’ll have to wait and see if he could factor into things as well.

What do you think of She-Hulk name-dropping the Intelligencia? 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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