She-Hulk: Attorney at Law - First Four Episodes

Those who read comic books avidly in the 80s have surely been looking forward to seeing Jennifer Walters appear in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and now the wait is over. From the trailer and teaser material we've seen, I've hardly been impressed, but after seeing the first four episodes, I'm pleasantly surprised. So far, at least.

Without telling you too much about the series and spoiling anything important, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is about the lawyer Jennifer Walters, who, together with her cousin, Bruce Banner, gets into a car accident. The impact causes Bruce's blood to mix with Jennifer's which immediately results in her also suffering the wrath of the green monster and turning into a female version of the Hulk. Except that, unlike Bruce's first year, she can control her temper right from the start.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is unlike any other Marvel Studios TV series in many ways. To begin with, the TV series sometimes feels like older, classic TV series like Friends or Seinfeld where each episode revolves around different things. For example, in one episode Jennifer is tired of single life and wants to try online dating, while in another she tries to win a court case against a magician who abuses the magic Wong taught him.

Just as the title of the series suggests, a lot revolves around the legal and it is mostly quite entertaining. Because of this, the episodes don't consist of much action like many of the other series, but more of Jennifer dealing with her new self and her role as a superhero lawyer. Immediately after She-Hulk was shown in trailer form, people were quick to criticise the special effects. Fortunately, the special effects aren't quite as bad as they were beforehand, but they aren't top-notch either. In some scenes, She-Hulk looks really believable only to make a grimace seconds later that makes her whole face look like a deformed Hulk and even her hair can sometimes look like one big, black mess. But, it mostly looks good.

What doesn't look so good when we're talking about these green figures is Abomination who (with the exception of a few seconds in Shang-Chi and Legends of the Ten Rings) makes his first real MCU return since The Incredible Hulk. Once again, Tim Roth plays the character and there is nothing wrong with his design, but on the other hand he has turned into a real badass villain with a cheesy way of speaking and behaving that doesn't feel nearly as unpleasant as in The Incredible Hulk. In other words, he has gone through an identical character journey as the Hulk has in Kevin Feige's hands. And that is all bad, fin my eyes.

By now, we all know that the humour in Marvel's movies and TV series varies in terms of how funny and appropriate it is. In She-Hulk's case, I'd argue that it's handled really well. As most of us already know, it's not uncommon for Jennifer Walters to break the fourth wall, which happens here as well. Both by talking to you as a viewer and making different facial expressions to spice up the scene a little extra. It feels strange at first because we haven't seen this before in Marvel's movies, but pretty quickly you get used to it, and I learned to like it relatively quickly.

Based on what I have seen so far, I am, as I said, positive about She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. It's an easily digestible but oh so charming series that brings together a variety of characters we've seen before and we'll definitely see a couple of other familiar faces in the future as well. I just hope that the remaining episodes are as good as the first four which are all directed by Kat Coiro.