Why She-Hulk's Big Fight Scene With The Hulk Was Actually A Big Disappointment
"She-Hulk" has finally smashed her way onto Disney+, with Tatiana Maslany leading the half-hour legal comedy as Jennifer Walters, attorney at law. The "Orphan Black" alumna pushes the boundaries of storytelling in the Marvel Cinematic Universe by breaking the fourth wall and directly addressing the audience. It's a hugely entertaining format that works well in the superhero genre, which fans have already seen in the Ryan Reynolds-led "Deadpool" movies — although it's worth pointing out that Jen did it first way back in 1989's "Sensational She-Hulk" by John Byrne.
"She-Hulk: Attorney at Law" Season 1, Episode 1 spends a lot of time establishing Jen's MCU origin story, explaining that she got into a car accident with her cousin Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) and that his gamma-irradiated blood got into hers, which transformed her into She-Hulk. Obviously, she needs a little help getting a grip on her powers, but she's instantly more comfortable with her new skills than Bruce ever was — which understandably causes some tension between the two. Obviously, it's only a matter of time before Jen and Bruce wind up having a scrap across the remote Mexican hideout. To be fair, what's the point in having two Hulks on-screen if they're not going to cause chaos?
But unfortunately, She-Hulk's big fight scene with the Hulk was a big disappointment — and no, we're not debating whether the CGI is underwhelming or not. Visual effects aside, two giant green titans duking it out should've been a much bigger spectacle than it was, and it leaves fans shortchanged in a few ways.
The scene doesn't advance the story
One of the biggest problems with the fight is that it does absolutely nothing for the overall story of the series, or even for Bruce Banner's ongoing arc throughout the MCU. "She-Hulk: Attorney at Law" Season 1, Episode 2 reveals that he's heading back to the junk planet of Sakaar, presumably because Marvel is dipping into "Planet Hulk" again. But the fight does nothing to set this up because Bruce and Jen are almost instantly friends again following their brief scuffle. As soon as they crash into the bar Bruce built with Tony (Robert Downey Jr.), they realize how dumb their fight was in the first place.
However, if the fight had escalated a little more and driven a wedge between them, Bruce could have been pushed to leave the planet for Sakaar as a way to deal with it. Obviously, Bruce and Jen have known each other for years, and they make the adult decision to put their squabble behind them — but for the sake of the series and the MCU, it feels like their fight could have been the perfect opportunity to push their stories in different directions.
The argument could be made that the fight establishes that She-Hulk is just as powerful as the Hulk, but that doesn't move the story forward. She'd already decided to head back home; the fight is just a speed bump in the way.
It's overdone
Let's face it: This isn't the first time Marvel fans have watched two CGI characters go toe-to-toe, and it won't be the last. But it would've been great had it felt like the fight actually had some stakes rather than just being a superpowered bickering session. Some of the moves try to inject a sense of fun — like She-Hulk's thunderclapping after the Hulk's single thunderclap — but doesn't that describe 80% of the fights in the MCU? A few solid punches followed by some sort of physically comedic moment that undercuts any serious dramatic beats of the scene?
The comedic moments wouldn't have been so bad if they'd at least had a similar identity to the rest of the show. All it would've taken is for Jen to break the fourth wall and briefly speak to the audience mid-fight for it to feel a bit more like the rest of the show. Without leaning on Ryan Reynolds too much, the "Deadpool" movies balance those fourth wall breaks against the action without derailing the scene itself.
We've seen some incredible fight scenes on the big (and small) screen over the years, just look at how Captain America (Chris Evans), Thor (Chris Hemsworth), and Iron Man fight Thanos (Josh Brolin) in "Avengers: Endgame." It delivers a truly wild scene that exceeds the audience's expectations of a battle thanks to that Mjolnir reveal. That's the type of gravitas that a fight between two hulks should have. Obviously, there's plenty of potential for bigger fights further down the line, but it's not a great way of kicking things off. Hopefully, if "She-Hulk" has any more fights between Jen and Bruce, Marvel will pull from comics like "Immortal Hulk" to give the Hulk name the weight it deserves.