There have been a lot of good Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) shows that not enough people talk about, but there was one that was great and still received a lot of complaints. What makes it hard to get over is that the biggest complaints about the show were aimed at something pulled directly from the comics. She-Hulk: Attorney at Law chose to pass on the generic superhero television stories and instead presented the series like a sitcom, and the best part came when She-Hulk broke the fourth wall constantly, talking to the audience. While some fans claimed it was ripping off Deadpool, She-Hulk broke the fourth wall in comics before Deadpool even existed.
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In the finale of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law on Disney+, Jennifer Walters didn’t just break the fourth wall, as she had the entire season. She actually went more meta than anything since the Deadpool movies. She took over Disney+, broke through the interface, and then made her way in to actually meet KEVIN. This is a moment that came straight from the comics.
She-Hulk Broke the Fourth Wall in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law
What really helped She-Hulk: Attorney at Law stand out was making the show more of a comedy and breaking the fourth wall. This happened constantly throughout the entire series, as the show focused on a female hero in a male-centric comic book world, and all the baggage that comes with it. It should be noted that another complaint about the show was the fact that it tackled male toxicity, and that is something that hit some viewers the wrong way when they saw themselves in the villains that She-Hulk had to deal with in the series.
The series follows Jennifer Walters after she loses her job as a prosecutor and gets hired by a prestigious firm to practice law only as She-Hulk and represent supervillains, with her first client being the Abomination at his parole hearing. It also takes breaks to show Jennifer in her dating life, where she meets a lot of toxic men who don’t deserve the time of day, and some fun moments with Wong hanging out with a woman named Madisynn. Through it all, She-Hulk never stops talking to the audience, and it remains one of the most entertaining shows that Marvel has produced. However, it all takes an even bigger jump in the finale.
After lashing out in anger and being arrested by the Department of Damage Control, she tries to find the people responsible and discovers someone who calls himself the Hulk King, who is trying to become a gamma-sized monster along with his group of like-minded misogynists. When it looked like there would be a Hulk and Abomination battle with the Hulk King, She-Hulk stopped this instantly by not only breaking the fourth wall, but also busting out through the Disney+ interface and approaching KEVIN, the AI running the MCU. She demanded a less generic ending that wasn’t a boring superhero trope and succeeded, winning out without a wild fight. It was one of the most creative endings in superhero television.
She-Hulk Broke the Fourth Wall in Comics Long Before Deadpool Even Existed
There were so many complaints about She-Hulk breaking the fourth wall that it seemed like no one had ever picked up a She-Hulk comic book in their lives. She-Hulk was created by Stan Lee and John Buscema and made her debut in Savage She-Hulk #1 in 1979. She rose up the Marvel ranks and was even a Fantastic Four member following the first “Secret Wars,” replacing the Thing. She-Hulk first broke the fourth wall in The Sensational She-Hulk #1 by John Byrne, who also wrote her character in the Fantastic Four books. In fact, She-Hulk broke the fourth wall on the cover itself.
In the She-Hulk: Attorney at Law finale, She-Hulk complains to KEVIN about the generic superhero trope ending to her show and wanting it changed. This was pulled directly out of the comics, where she often complained directly to John Byrne about the plot points in her stories and to the editors about the direction of her title. There were moments in her comics where she actually leaped over comic book panel borders and complained about her stories, admitting she knew she lived inside a comic book. This is exactly what She-Hulk: Attorney at Law did, and it is surprising that so many fans don’t know this.
Deadpool didn’t even debut in Marvel Comics until 1990, over a year after She-Hulk began breaking the fourth wall. Deadpool didn’t break the fourth wall himself until 1997 during Joe Kelly’s run on the title, eight years after She-Hulk made it popular. Deadpool & Wolverine had plenty of fourth-wall breaks two years after the release of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, and Deadpool did it in his Fox movies before that. Deadpool even went to the TVA trying to get his own changes made, but it wasn’t the same as going directly to KEVIN. Deadpool didn’t go quite as far as She-Hulk: Attorney at Law did in its finale, and besides that fact, She-Hulk remains the original, and Deadpool only copied what she did.
What were your thoughts on She-Hulk breaking the fourth wall and approaching her creators, pulling the moment straight out of Marvel Comics? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
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