Tatiana Maslany as Jennifer "Jen" Walters/She-Hulk in Marvel Studios' She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, exclusively on Disney+. Photo courtesy of Marvel Studios. © 2022 MARVEL.

Marvel Studios shakes up its genre convention with She-Hulk. Their latest Disney Plus series is comedic at its core, plus it is also full of Marvel Cinematic Universe references, cameos, and Easter Eggs.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law has a fundamentally built-in correlation to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, unlike other Disney Plus series this year, Moon Knight and Ms. Marvel. That is mainly due to the titular character’s, Jennifer Walters, cousin being the Incredible Hulk himself, Bruce Banner. After a Sakaaran spaceship accidentally causes their car to crash, Bruce’s blood contaminates Jennifer, turning her into a hulk.

Sakaar is the Grandmaster’s planet (from Thor: Ragnarok) and Hulk was his gladiatorial champion. Bruce remarks that the Sakaarans were probably just trying to send him a message. But later he is shown, in the second episode, taking a ride on that ship away from Earth. This is a clear setup for a future storyline, involving an important relation that Bruce may have left behind on Sakaar.

Bruce takes his little cousin to a private location in Mexico that Tony Stark had lent to him. Bruce even has an Iron Man memento in the living room, a helmet from one of the Iron Legion, which is the time of Bruce’s life where the two science bros. worked closely together. The Led Zeppelin t-shirt that Jen wears presumably belonged to Iron Man.

Bruce explains that this lab is where he molded his two personas into Smart Hulk after the Avengers lost to Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War. And after he used the Infinity Gauntlet in Avengers: Endgame, Hulk then came up with an inhibitor that temporarily sized him back down to Bruce in an attempt to heal his arm. It is essentially through testing She-Hulk’s genetic material that he developed an effective treatment in the She-Hulk pilot.

Bruce is initially flabbergasted by Jen’s ability to control her Hulk alter ego so easily, since it took him so many years to reconcile the two sides of this coin. He even mentions Black Widow’s lullaby as being one of the few serene methods of soothing Hulk back to Bruce. We saw Natasha calmingly transform Hulk in Avengers: Age of Ultron.

This show reinstates a Hulk move that MCU fans have not seen since The Incredible Hulk – the thunderclap. He put out a fire with the windy maneuver in the middle of his fight against Abomination. In the series opener, Hulk and She-Hulk attack each other with thunderclaps. Amusingly, She-Hulk’s faster movements give her the edge to hit Hulk with a series of claps and the soundwaves hurt his ears.

The funniest part of the She-Hulk premiere is Jen probing Bruce about Captain America’s sex life. She asks him about it a few times and then in the credit’s scene, she pretends to be drunk and sad about Steve Rogers dying a virgin. Bruce finally spills the beans that the first Avenger spent the night with a woman during his World War II USO tour. Jen also references Steve’s nice backside, which is a witty nod to Ant-Man labeling it “America’s ass” while on the time heist in Endgame.

The sophomore chapter brings back Tim Roth’s Blonsky, who last faced off against Banner back in his only solo feature, The Incredible Hulk. He is now in Damage Control’s custody – the organization first showed up in Spider-Man: Homecoming and was heavily featured in Ms. Marvel. Abomination had a cameo in Shang-Chi, fighting Wong in a friendly underground bout, and footage of this cage fight has apparently just reached mainstream media after Jennifer has agreed to represent Blonsky in his parole hearing.

In the following episode, Wong explains to Jennifer that he transported the former Hulkbuster soldier out of his cell to have a suitable sparring session; testing his readiness to fight one of Earth’s strongest opponents, now that he is the Sorcerer Supreme. Wong explains to the court that Blonsky returned to prison of his own free will and is fully rehabilitated.

A few Asgardian references stand out in the third episode. First a naughty elf of New Asgard has been shapeshifting to scam She-Hulk’s ex-coworker. She even repeats Thor’s inspirational line, that Asgard is a people, not a place. Then the Wrecking Crew attack She-Hulk using Asgardian weaponry, unlike in the comics when they possess powers without any tools.

Wong returns for the fourth part of She-Hulk, requesting Jennifer’s help with a sorcerer school dropout. Donny Blaze was a student of Kamar-Taj before quitting, but he took a sling ring with him. MCU fans are familiar with that homebase of the mystic arts from the Doctor Strange films – Strange learned sorcery from the Ancient One at Kamar-Taj in the first movie. The magician Donny Blaze is a parody on the Ghost Rider, Johnny Blaze, who also had been known to travel inter-dimensionally and is associated with demons.

When She-Hulk explains to Wong that they will have to do things by the book, he asks if she is referring to the book of Vishanti, which obviously she is not. Strange sought the book of Vishanti in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, since it could counter the Darkhold. Wong also suggests sending Blaze to the Mirror Dimension, which was previously employed in Doctor Strange, as well as Spider-Man: No Way Home.

The fifth episode’s references are comprised of the various costumes and merchandise planted throughout the plot. First, Pug recruits Nikki to help him secure the new “Iron Man Three” sneakers. This is a comical nod to the Iron Man trilogy, which are the only MCU films that include numbers in the sequel titles.

The pair pick up some knock-off merchandise, such as a t-shirt with incorrectly colored “Avongers”. Better quality Avenger products were sold at AvengersCon in the Ms. Marvel opener. The most important Easter Egg in She-Hulk episode 5 came in the final seconds at the fashion designer’s studio; a completed yellow Daredevil mask.

Next, She-Hulk introduces Intelligencia, a supervillain team established by the Leader in the comics. Along with the Wrecking Crew providing a blood sample to their “boss”, these were early clues of the character’s MCU return after only appearing in The Incredible Hulk, 14 years ago. Tim Blake Nelson is set to reprise the role in Captain America: New World Order, but was absent in the She-Hulk series.

The seventh inning stretch of She-Hulk does not contain many links to the MCU, instead uncovers a handful of low-level rogues. One of them is a vampire named Saracen, and while he is the first of its kind to be shown in the franchise, vampires have been mentioned in Loki and part-vampire Blade’s voice is heard at the end of Eternals. Correlative horror-based creatures are on full-display in the recent Werewolf by Night special.

The penultimate episode pays off the big Daredevil tease from earlier in the season. Charlie Cox made his MCU debut in Spider-Man: No Way Home as Matt Murdock after portraying Daredevil in the eponymous Netflix series, which, for all intents and purposes, is most likely a completely separate Marvel universe. She-Hulk is the first time he suits up in the MCU. After wearing black and red in the unrelated show, it appears Marvel is differentiating the blind superhero in this universe by going back to his comic book roots with the costume design – a more classic “ketchup and mustard” ensemble.

The finale brings back most of the guests who have popped up throughout the series, such as Abomination, Daredevil, Wong, and Hulk. Bruce returns from Sakaar with his son Skaar – which wraps up the Sakaar subplot for the time being, only without going into details about Skaar’s background or a certain Hulk romance that took place between Avengers: Age of Ultron and Thor: Ragnarok.

While the eponymous hero breaks the fourth wall during the entire season, the climax takes this stylistic device to another level; having She-Hulk escape from her own series on the Disney Plus Marvel screen and drop in on the show’s creator in Marvel Studios: Assembled. She wants “Kevin” to end her show in an original way that matches She-Hulk’s narrative disposition. Instead of meeting Kevin Feige, she learns a machine is pulling the strings a la 2001: A Space Odyssey’s HAL 9000.

Kevin and Jennifer have plenty to discuss, including editing around special effects and she even asks about the X-Men. In the end, She-Hulk gets a more appropriate conclusion for her “legal comedy” and leaves us wanting more of her candor and humor, not to mention the vast array of super-powered players that drop in on the final minutes.

What did you think of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law? Are you looking forward to seeing more of She-Hulk in the Marvel Cinematic Universe? Let us know in the comments below.

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