Review: Black Adam

Blah blah blah has changed.

Okay, I’ve put it off long enough, let’s talk about Black Adam. DC’s latest attempt at a live action superhero flic isn’t awful but is another example of DC getting some things right while getting others horribly, horribly wrong. It’s certainly funnier than other DCEU movies, which I must give it credit for, but it’s also funny in the wrong places. They try to do something besides two people with nearly identical or actually identical powers brawling for the majority of the fights… only to devolve into just that for the final-final fight between Black Adam, the Justice Society and the actual villain of the piece. Dwayne Johnson is very fitting in looks and tone for Teth-Adam… but they push the “say’s he’s not a hero but is constantly doing hero stuff” line waaayyyy over the line. Also, not sure if this was everyone’s issue, but my theater had the sound mixing off, so about ¼ to 1/3 of the dialogue got drowned out by the background music BOOMING out. But enough of these vague complaints let’s get to it, shall we?

 

Sigh, this poster was way cooler
than the movie.

Black Adam opens several thousand years ago in the Bronze age in the fictional Egyptian city-state of Kahndaq. It’s a pretty nice city, one of the earliest civilizations in the DCEU canon, until it’s conquered by Ahk-Ton. Ahk-Ton is a tyrannical king whom forced his people to mine Eternium, a magic metal that has been in the DCEU literally the whole time, I guess, to forge him the Crown of Sabbac. It’s a magic crown that will give him great power. A young slave boy named Hurut helps an old man who found a chunk of Eternium turn it over to their masters, only to see the “reward” the old man demands for it is in fact death. Hurut wants to change things, but his world-weary father (whom sounds suspiciously like a former WWE wrestler) tells him to just keep his head down. The boy doesn’t listen, stirs up a small revolt, is captured, but released as he’s about to be executed by the Council of Wizards. The Wizards, lead by the wizard Shazam, bestow upon the boy the power of six gods that he can call upon by saying the word SHAZAM. The powers are: The Stamina of Shu: basically immortality, he can survive without food, water or air indefinitely, invulnerable to most harm; The Speed of Horus: inhuman speed, just short of lightspeed movement; The Strength of Amon: extreme superhuman strength, on par with Superman; The Wisdom of Zehuti: god like intellect, lets him understand all languages and gives him insight into the weakness of others; The Power of Aten: further enhances his strength, lets him fly and summon the Living Lightning, his primary weapon and means of transformation; and the Courage of Mehen: gives him superhuman willpower and resolve, also makes him immune to telepathy and mind control. I list these powers out, because the movie sure doesn’t give you more info than “the (blank) of (insert god). Hurut became the “Champion.” He leads a campaign against Ahk-Ton, ultimately killing him just before Ahk-Ton got the crown and obliterating his throne room and everyone in it. And after that lengthy intro sequence, we can get into the main movie.

 

We jump forward to modern Kahndaq. It’s once again occupied by foreign interests, this time the weirdly well-equipped criminal syndicate Intergang. They’re mining Eternium and using it to power their technology which includes magic flying motorcycles which don’t appear to be a new technology at all. Eternium would break the world as we know it if it existed and it’s weird that it hasn’t come up before from a world building aspect is what I’m saying. We join Archaeologist Adrianna Tomaz, her brother Karim, and her colleagues Samir and obvious villain… I mean Ishmael. They’re stopped at a checkpoint and almost caught, but Adrianna’s son Amon skateboards in and distracts the guard long enough to make him frustrated and wave them through. Why the brother of their highly sought-after fugitive, (who was driving the car!), isn’t also on their “find now!” list, I’ll never know. Amon catches up to them and asks if he can come along after Adrianna pulls herself out of her hiding place in back, but mama says no.

 

I won't lie, he definitely looks the part.

The group travels out to the desert where Adrianna believes that the crown is being held. She is right, and they find an ancient tomb with the crown floating several feet in the air. While Adrianna tries to get it, Ishmael murders Samir by shoving him down the cliff and Intergang soldiers arrive to give him back up. They play it like it’s a mystery what happened to Samir… but like who else could it be? Intergang rush in as Adrianna gets the crown. She is captured, as is Ishmael but we all know he’s playing along at this point, but notices an inscription on the ground. With no real options and “I’ll try anything at this point,” attitude Adrianna reads off the inscription, summoning the “Champion” Teth-Adam back from wherever he’d been for the last 5 millennia. Teth-Adam absolutely obliterates the Intergang soldiers, cooking one of them to bones and ashes with lightning and doing many other unpleasant things to the others.  He follows Adrianna outside and goes to speak with her, but he takes an Intergang Eternium RPG to the face. He survives it, killing the man, but then passes out from the magic enhanced explosion.

 

Around this time, Amanda Waller gets a call about the situation. She deems Teth-Adam a threat and contracts the Justice Society to deal with it. This is one of her dumbest plans ever, but I’ll get to that later. The team consists of veteran members Hawkman (Carter Hall) and Dr. Fate (Kent Nelson), along with legacy member Atom Smasher 2 (Al Rothstein) and completely new member Cyclone (Maxine Hunkel). The team suits up and flies out to Kahndaq to face off against Adam. On the flight there, Waller instructs them about what they know about Adam, ancient hero of myth, great power, and his only weakness is that he’s depowered if he says Shazam. Their plan… is no plan, as all they can think to do is make him say the one completely uncommon word that will take away his powers. Dumb. Dumb. Dumb!

 

Adam wakes up in Amon’s room. The kid is a mega fan of superheroes, which I can respect, but Adam sure doesn’t. He burns the face off one of his posters when he woke up. Adam, not wanting to be involved in any of this, busts through a wall, thanks Adrianna and Karim for their help, and starts fly walking away. I say fly walking, but what I mean is that Adam floats just like a half foot off the ground. He doesn’t move particularly fast, he could just use his leg but he decides not to. Amon chases after him and tries to convince Adam to be a superhero but Adam, again, says he’s not interested. Amon, who is I guess king of not taking a hint, causes a big ruckus in town, gaining Intergang’s notice, and gets Adam to save him. The demi-god murders just so many Intergang members before the Justice Society arrive. Hawkman and Doctor Fate face off against Adam while Cyclone runs support and Atom Smasher tries to find them. Yeah, he got lost during the touch down and must scurry about to find them while the other battle. Hawkman seems to be about on par with Adam physically, while Fate is his match with Magic, but neither can overpower Adam. During the fighting, Fate senses the Crown of Sabbac and then it becomes about Hawkman and Fate tagging in on the fight or tagging out to try to get the crown from Adrianna. Hawkman makes the very dumb call to tell Adrianna, who is a wanted criminal in her own country by an occupying force, that the Justice Society is about protecting Global Stability. Oy, this guy. There is a break in the fighting when Adam flies off to the throne room and Fate reveals to Adrianna that Adam was the one that destroyed most of Kahndaq in his rage 5000 years ago. He was an imprisoned mad man, not a lost hero. They find Adam in the throne room, and the Justice Society and Adrianna try to convince him to help save Kahndaq rather than destroy it. This speech gets extra motivation when Amon calls his mom.

 

They boy had been sent home to hide the crown from all parties. When he arrives there, he finds Ishamael and several Intergang members holding his uncle hostage. Karim is shot and Amon makes a run for it. He’s captured and taken on an Eternium hoverbike. Adam and Hawkman chase the bikes while Fate saves Karim. He reveals to the man that he will in fact die by electrocution. This is rather distressing to Karim as he is an electrician. Adam catches the bikes in flight, searches them for Amon and then drops the bikers, Hawkman saving several of them. He gets the final bike, finds that Amon was stolen away in another bike and the four he’d chased were a distraction, and then kills the last biker by throwing him skyward.

 

Oh just kiss already.

He returns to Adrianna’s home, takes the two bikers that Hawkman saved and interrogates them to tell him where Amon is via threat of falling. They tell him, he drops them anyway, and Hawkman saves them. The learn where Intergang’s headquarters is and fly out in Hawkman’s jet to find them. They arrive at the compound, and while the others want to form a plan, Adam just flies through, lightning blasting everything. They find Ishamael holding Amon behind an Eternium powered shield. He demands the crown for the boy, revealing that he’s the last living descendant of Ahk-Ton and deserves his birthright. Going to call bull on somehow keeping track of a family line through 5000 years, but whatever. They agree to it, but Ishamael betrays the deal immediately and tries to shoot Amon. Adam freaks out, destroying the whole place in lightning, killing Ishamael and seriously injuring Amon.

 

Adam flies back to the throne room and Hawkman follows. In the throne room, Adam touches down to the ground and explains his backstory. He explains that the Champion of Kahndaq was in fact his son, Hurut, and that his actions were misinterpreted as Teth-Adam’s by history. See, his son was made the Champion and lead a successful series of battles against the king. Ahk-Ton, realizing he couldn’t beat the Champion, sent men to kill his parents. Teth-Adam’s wife Isis is killed immediately, Adam grievously wounded before Hurut can arrive. Hurut, wanting to save his father, transfers his power to him via saying Shazam while holding hands. Unfortunately, while in human form, Hurut gets an arrow to the chest by an assassin. Enraged and empowered, Adam attacked Ahk-Ton’s throne room, killing him and severely damaging the city. The Council of Wizards summon Adam to the Rock of Eternity and imprison him for all time. Or so they thought. Seeing that pain he’d caused, Adam turns himself in, saying Shazam and reverting to human form, after getting Hawkman to swear they’ll lock him up somewhere where he can never say the word again.

 

DC has so many contraptions to hold Metas.

Adam is taken to an underwater prison in the arctic circle and sealed up in a cell that would keep him from speaking via a mask over his face. Meanwhile, Adrianna is examining the Crown and realizes that an inscription on it meant that the only way to unleash the power of it was to be killed while holding it. At the same time, Ishamael wakes up in hell and is empowered by six demons when he says their magic word, Sabbac. He’s reborn as a big horned demon thing, and flies to Kahndaq to sit on his ancestor’s throne. The Justice Society are still in town when all this happens and go to try to stop him. Well, they want to, but Fate throws up an energy shield to keep the others out. He wants to face Sabbac alone as it’s the only way to guarantee Hawkman lives. He faces off against the demon king, holding his own for a few minutes with magic copies, while simultaneously using his magic to open Adam’s cell and tell him what’s happening. Adam breaks through all the guards in the prison, somehow, swims up to the surface and transforms again before flying off to help save the day.

 

I’d normally say go see the movie if you want to see how the finale finishes… but it’s been two months, if you had any interest in seeing it, you would have.

 

Whole lot of build up, so little payoff.

Adam arrives and he and a magically enhanced via the Dr. Fate helmet Hawkman battle Sabbac with back up from Cyclone and Atom Smasher. Meanwhile, Amon, Adrianna, Karim and the Kahndaqi people fight the hordes of undead (like 15 zombies at least) that Sabbac summoned when he sat on the chair. Adam literally rips Sabbac’s head off to finish him off.

 

In the aftermath, Adam sits in the throne to see how it feels, decides he’s not a throne guy and destroys it with lightning. He adopts the new name of Black Adam on Amon’s urging.

 

In the post credit scene, Waller sends a drone to tell Adam that he can consider Kahndaq his prison now, and if he sets foot outside it, he’d better be prepared for her to throw the biggest gun she has at him. Adam isn’t impressed and destroys the drone. Only for the big gun to walk in himself… it’s Superman as played by Henry Cavill, saying they need to talk.

 

This movie… is fine. It’s not the worst thing the DCEU has ever cooked up, but it’s just kind of bland. The effortlessly charming Dwayne Johnson comes across as so flat and boring with his constantly scowling Black Adam. He has a few good lines, jokes like him not understanding sarcasm, or him saying “he didn’t make it” when the pilot he threw slammed into the ground behind him .5 seconds before, but that isn’t really enough to make him more than a grumpy Superman with a darker wardrobe. There’s also not much tension in the movie as most of the fights are between Black Adam, a character that is all but invincible being played by an actor who is contractually unable to lose a fight, verses a group of four heroes that in no way can stop him. They could have at least included a minor telepathic hero who they thought could mind control Adam into saying Shazam, instead of just sending them in to try to beat him up until he says it. Hell, Waller should have sent Shazam to do it, as the magic word doesn’t really care which chosen one says it. It’s happened more than once that Billy has said the magic word while grappling with Black Adam and the lightning forcibly changes them both back into human form. That’s a plan that could work way better, but I guess they didn’t want to pay Zach Levi to be in this. Also, again, Kahndaq having a living population and access to an actual, factual magic metal really breaks the reality here. Zero chance in hell that Eternium wouldn’t be mass mined and mass utilized over the whole damn planet if there were people to remember it’s there. Also-also… Sabbac. He’s a bland villain that’s just negative-Shazam with even more nebulous, ill-defined powers. That, and I’m sorry but I can’t accept that Ishamael knew all that he did after 5000 years. Ya know what else was an ancient civilization? Mycenaean Greece. It’s the ancient Greece that the Ancient Greeks said all their myths took place in. It existed between 1750-1050 BC, and that’s about all we know about it. We’ve got writing from the era, but it’s in Linear A and has thus far been untranslatable. So just some random dude knowing he’s descendant from a bronze age king is just… not possible, even in the realm of superhero fiction. The Justice Society was fun, I especially liked Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Fate, but again, their plan is dumb, they are no match for Black Adam, and they kind of stop fighting him a third of the way through the story to focus on the Sabbac plot. It just seemed kind of silly. Also, Waller, why didn’t you send a Suicide Squad in for this? Did you learn your lesson from the Enchantress incident and want heroes holding the bag? So yeah, it’s not the worst but it’s also not the game changer that DC wanted it to be. Have a good night, everyone. 

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Review: Werewolf By Night

Boris Karloff would be proud. 

Figured I should close out Halloween with Marvel’s Special Werewolf By Night. I will do a write up for Black Adam, but it’ll be in November with Wakanda Forever and five other posts I’m still thinking on. Werewolf By Night is the first in the Marvel Special’s category, holiday, and one-off stories that they’ll be doing periodically. I’ll admit that the title is slightly misleading, as it’s more about another Monster themed Marvel character, Elsa Bloodstone, than Jack Russel aka Werewolf By Night. I assume this is because the term Werewolf has broader mass appeal than Else Bloodstone, but whatever. The special is shot in black and white like classic horror films. The exception being the magical Bloodstone. More on that later. Let’s get to it, shall we?

 

It's a cool aesthetic.

We begin with a quick narration explain that this is happening in the MCU, and in the MCU monsters are totally real. This is true to comic canon, as anyone who remembers Blade can attest, but is something that gets… forgotten about quite a lot, I think. This is partially due to the Bloodstone family, a group of monster hunters using their magical Bloodstone to hunt and kill monsters. The patriarch of the family, Ulysses Bloodstone, has died. We arrive at the Bloodstone compound where all the hunters are gathering to take part in a hunt to determine who gets it. We’re then introduced to Jack Russel as he enters the compound. He’s clearly creeped out by all the art depicting monster killings, but masters himself by the time he enters the main hall. It’s full of weapons, paintings of hunts, mounted heads, and more weapons. Everyone gives Jack the stink eye as he walks in. We cut to a servant telling a lady in black that Elsa is there.  Jack, still circling, notes the Bloodstone and is about to touch it when a hunter, Joshua comments on it. Joshua tells Jack he’s killed 57 monsters by way of introducing himself. He remarks that he’ll be starting his 30^th hunting season next year, and Jack comments that he almost (but probably literally can) smells the blood on his hands. Joshua likes Jack’s makeup, and Jack says that he’s honoring his ancestors. They start talking about how great the hall is and Joshua asks if Jack killed any of the beasts mounted on the wall. Jack says no, but points to a vampire looking thing and says he fought him a few times.

 

And you think your step-mom is a pain.

We cut to a woman, Elsa, walking in as her stepmother Verussa comes in to cut her off. We learn that Elsa left 20 years ago to do her own thing, neither Verussa or Ulysses approved of it and Verussa thinks the other guest will object to her being there. Elsa will be happy to leave once she gets the stone. Verussa asks what she wants with the Bloodstone, the strength or longevity it gives, but Elsa says that’s none of her business and that might be the best part. Verussa shames Elsa for leaving, calling her the greatest disappointment of her dad’s life, and then storms off.

 

We cut to Verussa talking up the guests at the funeral, remarking that they have 200 kills between them all. The highest of the hunters is Joshua at 57, but then Verussa reveals that Jack has over 100 deaths attributed to him. Impressive, but this is odd in retrospect. I’ll get back to that later. Elsa loudly pulls a chair over and sits down as Verussa gets started on her speech. She reveals that Ulysses had himself turned into a creepy as hell animatronic in order to lay out how the hunt will commence. I think I’d have turned and vomited were I Elsa. Ulysses explains the situation, they’re going to unleash a unique monster into the grounds of their lodge. Whoever kills it gets the stone and is leader of the hunters. Ulysses makes a joke about “rotting” for them and yeah, definitely barf. Verussa further throws shade on Elsa by pointing out she left and forsook her birthright. They’re only allowed the weapons stashed on the grounds. Also, the bloodstone will be put onto the monster, weakening it but also pissing it off something fierce. One of the hunters’ objects to Elsa being there, but I guess she’s allowed despite all Verussa’s earlier hate speech? It’s odd, but whatever. She unsubtly encourages the others to kill Elsa and calls the hunt to begin.

 

The Hunters draw lots, with Jack getting the right to go first. We hear the monster roar in the distance just before Jack heads out as they others do their creepy cult chant. Jack enters the maze and starts looking around. The horn starts blowing repeatedly and we’re shown the other hunters entering.

 

Elsa comes across a record player, for some reason, and turns it off. Jack and Elsa meet, and Jack suggest just passing each other by. Joshua then runs in and tries to kill Elsa. Unfortunately, she’s a much better fighter than him, she drops him and steals his ax before parkouring away. He announces death is coming for her and resumes the monster hunt.

 

Elsa, ax in hand, finds a trail of footprints burned into the ground. She hears something and approaches a door, ax raised. One of the other hunters sticks his arm out of the door and fires a wrist mounted crossbow. Elsa traps the arm in the door and lops it off. They fight, the one arm guy doing surprisingly well until Elsa grabs his severed arm and uses his crossbow to kill him. Elsa hears someone coming and rolls into a ditch with her opponent, covering his mouth until he bleeds out. It turns out it’s just Ulysses, who grabs the ax without seeing her.

 

Our leads face off. 

We jump to Jack as he approaches a large hedge, suddenly, an arm comes out and grabs him. It’s the monster, but not to worry, they’re friends. They have a classic “human speaks normally, monster communicates in grunts” conversation. Jack says of course he was going to come looking for him and he’ll find a way to save him, but this is the last time. Jack plans to use some demo charges he’s stolen to get them a way out of here, but another hunter comes in and interrupts their conversation. Jack runs way and into a room. Elsa is there and is 1 second to late to tell him to not shut the door. They’re locked in a crypt with other Bloodstones. Elsa and Jack bond a little as Jack helps her with a tourniquet.  Elsa notes that he’s been actively avoiding fights and Jack admits he’s not that kind of hunter. He reveals that he's trying to get the monster out alive, and he’ll give her the stone. Elsa doesn’t believe him. They bond over having unusual families. Elsa spies a specific casket, breaks off a bracket and climbs up to it. She explains that her dad used to tell her stories about her crazy Aunt Francis. She was sure she’d come back from the dead so had herself buried with the keys to the crypt. Jack is weirdly nonplused by being handed Aunt Francis remains as Elsa digs the keys out.

 

They escape and Elsa agrees to Jack’s deal. This is also the first time he says his name officially. Elsa retrieves the wrist crossbow, and tells Jack if they cross her, she’ll kill them both. Jack tells her that to show the Man-Thing (his actual codename in the comics) that she’s a friend she needs to call him Ted (his actual human name). Elsa is as shocked as anyone to hear the creature’s name is Ted. Then Jack accidentally turns on the demo charge and they run to enact their plan as fast as possible.

 

Ted!

We cut to Joshua stalking the Man-Thing. Elsa runs in, distracting him, and Ted comes out of the bushes, grabs Joshua’s head, and melts him into goo. Damn, don’t mess with Ted. Ted roars at Elsa, but then she uses his name and that shocks him. She tells him Jack is waiting for him.

 

We jump to Jack running to the wall and having trouble placing the charge before it goes off. Elsa and Ted run for the wall and everyone else runs after Elsa and Ted. They make it just as the charge blows the wall. Ted makes a break for it, and Elsa uses a hook-shot feature on the arm crossbow to pull the Bloodstone out before Ted runs off. Jack tries to grab the Bloodstone for Elsa but gets blasted back and off his feet. The other hunters arrive and reveal that that would only happen if Jack was a monster. They have Jack tased and Elsa is too after she objects to anyone else having the Bloodstone.

 

Jack and Elsa wake up in a cage. Jack asks if she’s okay, which she is for now, but that’s until Jack rips her throat out. Jack explains that he has systems to make him less dangerous and that he work, so they can be fine. He reveals that he’s a Werewolf, and, because the next full moon is five days away, there’s plenty of time to figure things out. Elsa reveals the Bloodstone can force Jack to transform, which complicates things. Jack, realizing he might become one of the heads on the wall, starts freaking out for a sec, but refocuses a moment later. He tells Elsa to remember to not break eye contact with him, and then starts sniffing her all over. He’s not being weird; he’s trying to memorize her. Elsa asks if this works, to which he says once.

 

The Hunters come in and Jack begs them to not do it this way. He tells them to kill him as he is, or there will be no mercy. The Hunters don’t listen and Verussa claims that their whole mission is on mercy. Verussa tells Elsa that she actually hoped Elsa would come home, but her father died without it, and that he’d prefer that to knowing she betrayed their mission. She starts chanting in Latin and holding up the stone. Jack apologizes to Elsa and then gets hit with the Bloodstone’s power. He’s forcibly transformed into his Werewolf form. Werewolf by Night breathes heavily and Verussa laughs, then he grabs here through the bars and pulls her in close. The guards stop him, tasing the crap out of him and kicking up dust. When it clears, there’s a big hole in the cage and Werewolf by Night is gone. They hear him, though. We see him hanging from the wall before jumping down and killing a guard. The fight is on.

 

NGL, I'd prefer more of wolf snout, but otherwise
this is great.

         Jack as Werewolf By Night is stronger and faster than any of these people but he operates on instinct, so it’s reasonably close. He kills a few of the generic guards as Elsa escapes the cage and kills the other hunters. Jack is so distracted killing guards that he doesn’t get to the exit before the door closes. Verussa grabs the Bloodstone and uses it to hold Werewolf by Night back. Elsa comes to help after she kills the last hunter. She shoots Verussa in the back with the grappling hook and pulls her backwards, knocking her out. Elsa walks over the bodies of the dead guards and goes for the Bloodstone, picking it up. She pockets it as she walks closer to the Werewolf. She tries to talk to Jack within the beast. Werewolf by Night charges her, but Elsa doesn’t break eye contact with him and tries to touch his face to force him to feel. It seems to work and Werewolf by Night leaves her be. He breaks out of the not sealed door and runs off. Elsa gets up, but so does Verussa. She claims Elsa will die as she lived, a disgrace to her family. But then Ted breaks in, fries her, and lobs her fried body at Ulysses puppet corpse. He growls at Elsa, who tells him which direction Jack went. He grunts in thanks and walks off, grabbing a jacket off a dead guard as he goes. The servant from earlier, Billy Swan, survived, he says he wants to make himself of service to her, and Elsa tells him he can start by cleaning this shit up. Color comes to the screen as Elsa sits down and looks at her stone.

 

We cut to Jack and Ted at a camp in the woods somewhere. Ted has made Jack some coffee. Jack asks if Elsa is okay and the two share a laugh at something Ted grunts. Ted suggests they get some food, and while Jack is initially not hungry, they agree on sushi. It’s a sweet ending.

 

This special was a lot of fun. This story had just enough in it for the hour run time and too much more would have made it feel stretched, I think. Just in on the creepy monster hunting cult, into the maze and then the big fight in the trophy room. Bing bang boom. Gel Garcia Bernal was great as Jack Russell. I’m not as familiar with the monster characters of the Marvel universe, but this slightly timid man hiding the raging beast inside was entertaining to watch. I thought he did a great job with his parts with the Man-Thing puppet they used. Yeah, there were CGI elements to it, but the Man-Thing’s head was all practical effects. I liked Laura Donnelly as Elsa Bloodstone. She had a vibe like Johanna Constantine in The Sandman, where she’s a badass but also extremely burnt out on everything. I think that they probably could have expanded on a little more why and how Elsa left her family business years ago. We get a vague sense she didn’t like hunting the monsters like a Bloodstone, but not exactly what that means. Did she have an issue with the trophy hunting aspect? The weapons? Did she find her dad insane as he was the sort of man to turn himself into an animatronic corpse? Big old question mark there. But maybe they’ll do a Midnight Suns movie or more specials and flesh her out a bit more. Oh, and Harriet Sansom Harris is great as Verussa Bloodstone. She’s just a little unhinged through out until her big insane moment where she tries to feed her stepdaughter to a werewolf. I liked the choice to make t hiss an homage to old school horror flicks. The black and white color, the mostly practical effects for Werewolf By Night and Man-Thing, how they acknowledge people bleed when you cut them. It’s all very nice. My one nitpicks is that the maze was a bit of a letdown, as it looks like we’re in the same two corridors the whole way through. So yeah, this was fun and I’m looking forward to more Marvel specials. Have a happy Halloween. Or a good day as you’re reading this after Halloween. Ha. 

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Viewer Log: She-Hulk ep 9

 Jen faces off against her most powerful foe, a producer. 

Last time on She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Jen went up against her greatest opponent yet. She was forced to represent “Leapfrog” aka Eugene Patililo against Luke Jacobson. Eugene burned himself badly using the suit’s rocket boosters. Luke cuts ties with Jen when she tries to get him to settle out of court. In court, she meets Luke’s lawyer, Matt Murdock. The New York lawyer quickly deduced via smell that Eugene used jet fuel in the boosters, which went against the manufacturer’s instructions. At the bar, Jen and Matt meet and bond a little about both being lawyers. She’s called to help Eugene while he’s being attacked by a mysterious man. She dons her super suit and faces off against Daredevil. She catches him and learns he’s Matt. Matt tells her that Eugene is the villain here and he’d kidnapped Luke to make him a new suit. The two team up and attack the “Lilypad,” Eugene’s super obvious hidden base. They defeat Eugene’s goons, and Eugene breaks his legs in his attempted escape. Jen gets back into Luke’s not-the-worst graces, and he’ll restart Jen’s dress for a big gala. Jen and Matt “celebrate” back at her place. The next day, Jen goes to her big gala and is one of several winners of Female Lawyer of the year. Her win is ruined by the HulkKing and Intelligencia whom post all the info stolen from her phone and leak a sex tape that Josh secretly made with Jen. Jen freaks out and smashes up the place. She grabs a mysterious figure she thinks is involved but stopped and seemingly arrested by Damage Control. Damn. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

Episode 9: Whose Show is This?

 

Well, this is awkward.

         We open with a weird opener that explains the premise of the show, but in the style of the 70s Incredible Hulk show. There’s a bit that made me guffaw where Jen is arguing with online trolls but on a super old and clunky 70s computer. We learn that she’s been arrested after her outburst. We just to the real world, where Jen is visited in Blonsky’s old cell by Pug, Nikki, and Mallory. Pug has tried getting in contact with Bruce but he’s still off planet. Jen wants to start suing the people that leaked her info, but Mallory says the need to focus on her own case. While Jen’s reaction was 100% understandable, witnesses are just focusing on the “she hulked out and wrecked the place,” so they have to deal with this. Mallory got her a plea deal, but it requires her to wear an inhibitor ankle bracelet like Blonsky’s. Jen is released, and clears out her office, with some help from Nikki and Pug, since no She-Hulk means no GLK&H job.

 

Jen’s story is all over the news cycle. Reporters are camped outside her apartment. Her parents are trying to put a good spin on things, but ya know, there’s no good way to live with your parents in your 30s. She is forced to move back in with them, though as she can’t find a job. There’s a good bit where her dad scares off reporters with his hose when they try to swarm her. Later, Jen has a whole cork conspiracy board thing set up and Nikki comes by to help her. She can’t find much on these guy’s, though, because their faceless internet trolls. Jen has investigated the Intelligencia site itself and it’s run by shell companies outside the US. Nikki says that it’s a group of dumb dudes, so one of them is going to slip up and gives them what they need. Elaine comes in with snacks and derails the conversation with an old dance video Jen did back in law school. She’s shoved out of the living room, but then Nikki gets an alert that Dennis Bukowski is on a news show called the Conversation and trying to get his 20 minutes of fame out of this.

 

Jen flops onto her bed, and muses how this feels all wrong. She breaks the fourth wall and points out that this isn’t really a reluctant superhero story, she’s just getting screwed over. The dramatic 70s Hulk narration kicks up again but Jen cuts him up. Jen tries to text Bruce but gets nothing. Jen then tries to text Blonsky, but his phone is also out of service. Deciding that anytime includes ‘now’ Jen decides to head up there anyway, as a mental health break.

 

Nikki, back at the office, uses the video that Elaine gave her and posts it on Intelligencia using the dummy account she set up with Mallory. She prays to Jen to forgive her for this transgression as she does. 15 seconds later she gets a message from HulkKing telling her about a private meeting he’s setting up that she’s now invited to. She accepts, but then realizes that she’d either presented as, or HulkKing assumed she was a dude. She runs off to see if Pug is still at the office and willing to do her a favor.

 

Jen makes it to Blonsky’s retreat and meets Dirk. And by Dirk I mean Wrecker, I don’t think they’ve used his real name yet… Anyway, he says it’s perfectly okay for her to show up to get away from things and will set up a guest room for her. Jen spends some time reading Blonsky’s book, Deep Haiku’s, but she shuts it saying it sucks.

 

Nikki and Pug arrive at the meeting. Nikki is forcing him to go in despite his discomfort because Jen’s life is on the line. There’s another laugh out loud moment when Nikki reminds him to only refer to women as females while in the meeting and Pug groans like he’d just been told to kick a puppy or something equally distasteful. She has him wear an earbud and will be talking with him via the phone. Pug walks around, but Nikki is forced to get in close because the reception is real bad. Pug gets into a conversation with some dudes complaining about both She-Hulk and Mighty Thor. Pug initially can’t participate, but he pulls back and tells himself “Be gross,” before getting back in there with a “Females” line that instantly earns all their respect. Turns out, Todd Phelps is there (Nikki: Todd? Oh, wait, that tracks). He hugs Pug and then goes into a She-Hulk hate rant. Nikki keeps giving Pug what to say and learns that Todd made Intelligencia and is in fact HulkKing. Nikki loses the call at this point, say’s it’ll be fine and Pug can improvise, remembers she’s talking about Pug and runs to try to find someway to help him. In the meeting, Todd starts a big speech about how proud he is of his troll collective for hacking Jen’s phone and ruining her life.

 

Jen, meanwhile, is getting tea with Dirk. He says that Saracen turned him onto this tea, but she should be careful if he makes it for her, as he likes to slip chicken blood in it. Jen wants to talk to Blonsky, as he went through a similar character assassination as this. Dirk tells her he’s at some meeting out at the lodge. Jen goes to find him, and Dirk muses that he kind of misses the chicken blood in his tea.

 

Ohhhh, I see where this is going.

 

Et tu, Emil?

Todd introduces his guest speaker, the Abomination. Blonsky comes out and he’s in full Abomination form. He starts his speech as Jen starts walking toward the meeting. She comes in and sees him. Blonsky hulk’s down and explains that he does speaking engagements but for money, he doesn’t believe it. Nikki comes in and she and Pug explain about Todd being the HulkKing. Todd, super proud of being a toxic asshole, reveals that the bit of his plan where Josh also stole her blood. He reveals that his team synthesized a means to give him her powers and injects himself with it. Jen asks him, and the camera, if we’re actually doing this. Todd starts transforming as Jen objects to this being where the seasons was going. Titania bursts in, Jenn commenting that isn’t the scene messy enough? Blonsky hulk’s up again and saves Jen from Todd’s charge, but then Bruce bursts in, sees Blonsky holding Jen and attacks him. Blonsky objecting as they do.

 

Seeing a character in real life has gotta be weird.

Jen breaks her inhibitor and breaks the fourth wall. She breaks into the Disney+ menu and goes into her own Marvel Assemble to get answers. Jen slips into the office of the She-Hulk writing staff and demands to know what’s happening. She yells at them for doing the “villain steals my blood to give himself powers” cliché, and asks why can’t they do the story their own way. They say this is the story that Kevin wants, and Jen then wants to talk to Kevin. The writers laugh at the idea, one of them saying they’d murder her to protect Kevin, and Jen storms off to talk to Kevin. She has to sign an NDA, but the guy up front pushes the security button anyway. Jen beats her way through some guards and then meets Kevin. Not Kevin Feige, though, KEVIN. Knowledge Enhanced Visual Interconnectivity Nexus is what his acronym means. He looks a lot like OTTO from WALLE but wearing a baseball hat. He promises to answer her questions, but only if she de=hulks. Why? Because she’s very expensive to animate. She does, off screen because the visual effects team is working on another project, and he begins explaining.

 

KEVIN is all powerful!

He makes all the decisions and uses the most advanced algorithm to make nearly perfect product. When Jen asks about “nearly perfect” the robot shrugs and says some are better than other but he leaves the debating up to the internet. Jen says she’s not happy with her show, but KEVIN says that doesn’t matter. Jen wants to focus on this being a legal comedy and asks to make her closing statement to fit that mold. She talks about how the MCU is a bit formulaic, and that doing the formula distracts from Jen’s stakes. Jen’s stakes being her life falling apart just as she was figuring out how to be Jen and She-Hulk. KEVIN is interested by her point and asks what sort of ending she’s proposing. She begins by asking to erase the Todd gets Hulk powers part, as he is the villain, not the powers. Then, cut Bruce swooping in and saving the day in her story. KEVIN says that was going to introduce some stuff, but Jen says save it for the movies. He then asks about Blonsky, and Jen says she just wants him to hold himself accountable. She asks for the climax to be in the daylight, to which KEVIN acquiesces. Jen asks if she can see Daredevil again, because a woman has her needs and sits to asks about the plethora of daddy issues in the MCU and when we’re getting the X-Men. KEVIN says their done, and that She-Hulk won’t get access to KEVIN again. They fixed the glitch that let her break reality. He sends her back to her show.

 

She-Hulk returns to her story, Titania is streaming everything that’s happening, cops are arriving and she’s looking pissed. She de-hulks and tells Todd that she’ll see him in court. Daredevil leaps in out of nowhere looking to help and seems kind of bummed he missed everything. Pug’s mind is blown that his friend clearly has a thing with Daredevil. She goes to talk to Blonsky, who is signing a confession to his actions. He’s going back to jail for 10 years for violating parole, and he’s happy to do it to earn back some good karma for his actions.

 

Jen and Matt have a nice outdoor dinner with her family. Matt getting grilled about what he does by Aunt Rebecca. The family seems to like him, though, so that’s a win. Bruce then shows up, and introduces his son to them, Skaar. Oh neat. … Time moves differently on Skaar, and aliens are often shown to mature faster than humans, so Skaar being a teenager despite him being what… 10 is doable. Good on the Walters/Banners for just rolling with this. I suppose after two scions of your family become hulks, there’s very little that will surprise you.

 

She-Hulk a few days later heads into court and says that she’s going to hold people like Todd and Intelligencia accountable for their actions. When the reporter she’s talking to asks if she means in court or as a superhero, she says both. And the credit’s roll.

 

Damnit, Wong, we talked about this.

In an after-credit’s scene, Blonsky is in prison again. Wong opens a portal into his cell and breaks him out again. Oh my, I wonder what this is building to.

 

Well, that was certainly a bonkers ride. I’ll get to the fourth wall break in a second. I liked the set up here, with Jen hitting the most rock bottom she could and then going to Blonsky because they’ve both been through this only to find out his affiliation with HulkKing was well done. Like, her reaction to having her private information put on display and seeing an extremely personal moment put on display, yeah, I’d start breaking stuff too. Unfortunately, the legal reaction also makes sense. When you have as much power as She-Hulk has, she had to have been making people nervous from minute one. Nikki and Pug were great in this episode, too. I appreciated that Pug was getting visibly ill and uncomfortable with every word he’d make to seem like an Intelligencia Proud Boy. “Come on, Pug. Get Gross” being a major standout. Nikki was also brilliant. Yeah, kind of scummy to post a video of your friend embarrassing themselves, but that was key to getting in to the Intelligencia convention. Okay, now onto the fourth wall break. … I’ll be honest, I loved it. Seeing Jen get meta about the formulaic nature of the MCU and advocating for her show to do something different was fun. I also loved that KEVIN, much like Kevin Feige, was wearing a baseball cap. I much prefer the ‘corrected’ version of Jen’s finale overall… but I do have one complaint. That Jen was dropped in once everything was sorted out. I would have preferred them restarting from when Jen walked in and going from there. The arrest and Jen’s “I’ll see you in court” were perfect, I just wish she hadn’t marched in like that. Also, why was Titania there? I can accept Matt appearing because KEVIN respected Jen’s libido, but not even a “Nikki texted her and she hates Intelligencia too,” explanation? Okay… I’ll be curious to see where the post credit scene goes. Wong seems to imply he’s been busy, and I wonder if Blonsky is going to be involved now. Or if Jen is going to have to go Abomination hunting in season 2. So… yeah, I enjoyed the show, liked the finale overall, I just wished they’d made it more diegetic when Jen reappears. Oh, and I hope Dirk keeps up the retreat even with Blonsky gone. It was weird to see Wrecker with any personality traits beyond “yell at his subordinates and break things,” but I enjoyed this guru in training. And the guys need someone who can help them, or else Man-Bull and El Aguila will never get over their codependency issues. Yeah, fun show. Tomorrow, for Halloween, it seems only fair to talk about Marvel’s special. See you then. Ahrooooooo!

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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero

Viewer Log: She-Hulk ep 8

Player 2 has entered the battle. 

Last time on She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Jen had a good thing going with Josh for three days before he ghosted her. She dwells on that for most of the episode, even when she’s stuck spending a Sunday at Blonsky’s retreat after two of his guests wreck her car. She ends up being in a group therapy session with several reforming villains, including Wrecker of the Wrecking Crew. He’s the guy that tried to jump her in episode 3. They help Jen talk out some of the anxiety and negative feelings she’s been having, both about Josh and about being She-Hulk, and ultimately encourage her to delete his number and try to move on. She has a nice session in a yurt and things seem to end on a high note. Until we see a flashback to three days prior where Josh is revealed to be working for HulkKing and that he stole her blood and copied her phone data. Oh no. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

 

Episode 8: Ribbit and Rip it

 

Why... why is the frog flying?

We open with a stupidly dressed teen trying to fight off some guys steeling some flatscreen TVs. This is Eugene Patililo aka Leapfrog. He’s an idiot with too much money trying to be a superhero and it shows. He hurts himself more doing his jump kick than he hurt either guard. We jump out of the scene to Jen and Eugene in Jen’s office. Back to the scene, Eugene narrates (making it sound way cooler than it was) him embarrassing himself in front of these two thieves who kick his ass. He tries to escape (he framed it as deescalating the situation) using rocket boosters on his ankles, but the crashes after flying several feet into the air and catches on fire. His suit was supposed to be fireproof, but instead he got third degree burns on his legs. The thieves escaped, and Eugene is looking to sue the guy who sold him the suit. Luke Jacobson. … OH, this is going to get complicated for Jen.

 

Jen has a meeting with Holliway. She’s really hoping to pass the case to someone else, as she loves the suits that Jacobson makes for her and he’s literally the only tailor that she’s found that can make a size changing suit. Yeah, I could see that as a pretty niche market. Holliway isn’t willing to shift lawyers, though, as Patililo sr. is one of their biggest clients and Eugene is super excited to have a Hulk as his lawyer. Holliway suggests Jen go speak with Jacobson and see if they can’t settle out of court. They both mock Eugene’s catchphrase “Ribbit and Rip it” as Jen walks out.

 

At Luke’s office, Jen tries to politely ask Jacobson to settle out of court. Jacobson, upon hearing Eugene is calling his defective, throws a spectacular fit, ripping up the dress he was making for Jen’s big gala and telling her they’re done professionally. Well… at least she got a few suits beforehand, right? Jen is rightly upset as she prepaid for the suit and storms off angrily.

 

She's never getting more clothes...

We jump to the day of court. Jen is clearly annoyed to be dealing with Eugene still, and Luke, interestingly, is present without his lawyer. Is he representing himself? No, his guy was just running late. Who is his guy, you may be asking? Why, none other than Matthew Michael Murdock. Matt comes in with perfect dramatic timing. He starts by asking that the judge block Jen’s request to compel Luke to provide a client list. Luke has a very strict confidentiality policy, as a certain Devil from Hell’s Kitchen is extremely aware of. Matt says the list isn’t relevant, Jen thinks it is since she could use it to find other potential defective merchandise. They have a back in forth for a bit, Jen pointing out all the reasons why she should have the list, Matt pointing out all the reasons why she should not, but it ends up being a moot point. Why? Eugene pulls out the suit when the Judge sides with Matt, and Matt is able to smell jet fuel from the suit’s rockets. Luke’s instructions specifically told him not to do that. Eugene tries to backpedal, everyone can tell he’s lying, even the people without super hearing, and the judge finds in favor of Luke Jacobson. Jen tries to apologize as Luke walks out, because, again, she has basically no other option for suits. Luke gets her hopes up for a second before saying “No. Because I hate you now.” I really love this guy.

 

Jen goes to the bar and is given an appletini… courtesy of Matt. Everyone’s favorite blind lawyer is trying to extend a peace offering to her, and Jen is willing to listen. She asks him his story. He explains that he owed Luke a favor after Luke made him a few suits, and that he in fact prefers doing pro bono work for clients that need a skilled lawyer. But he does a few higher profile cases on occasion to pay to keep the lights on. He describes it as “one for us and one for them.” Jen admits that that’s noble, but she personally doesn’t have the gas to do more as she works for “them” full time. Matt disagrees, saying that Jen can help people in the court, but maybe She-Hulk can help when the law fails people. I wonder where he got this idea from? Ha. He walks off to check a call, and Jen turns to the camera and asks if we all felt that. To which I say, yes, we did all feel the electricity between them. The moment is ruined by Jen getting a text from Todd, the rich creepy dude she went out with once and is a big GLK&H client, saying he has a legal issue to discuss. Matt has to leave for a work thing, and Jen is strong armed into meeting with Todd. Her firm has a 24/7 policy for guys like him.

 

Jen meets with Todd. Todd brags about getting an authentic Wakandan war spear at an auction. He claims to have studied abroad there and creepily does the Wakanda Forever salute. So the legal issue he had was with Wakanda demanding they get the spear back because it was taken by colonizers, which is a solid point, but he admits this meeting was more about him making a pass at She-Hulk. Jen says no, shoves the table at him and storms off, saying she billed him for the whole hour.

 

She makes it home and drops on her couch, just in time to get a call from Eugene. He’s being attacked by someone and needs Jen to bail him out. He adds her on Find my Friends and beg her to save him. She agrees to help and suits up.

 

She finds Eugene racing down a parking ramp, leaps in the way and stops the car, hurling his assailant from the roof. Got to say, I dig Jen’s suit. Luke Jacobson does do really good work. The guy stands up, and it’s none other than Daredevil. He’s rocking a new yellow and brown version of his suit. Daredevil tells her to back off, but Jen is like “And waste this outfit?” She tells Eugene to go and she proceeds to fight Daredevil. She-Hulk outclasses him in physical strength by an absurd degree, but Daredevil is second only to Spider-Man in dexterity and easily dodges her heavy, concrete breaking blows. She collapses part of the parking lots top floor with one punch, Daredevil dodges, and acrobats his way to group level. Eugene just passes him, shouting “Ribbit and Rip it” as he does. Daredevil goes to chase him, but She-Hulk lands in front of him, cutting him off. She grabs at him, he dodges, and then she throws a car at him. He dodges a few more times, but then Jen tries the Thunderclap. That throws him off his feet and stuns him, because ya know, loud noises hurt him a lot. She-Hulk rips off his mask, and it’s Matt Murdock, what a shock.

 

She-Hulk de-hulks back to Jen and asks the obvious question “are you just pretending to be blind? Because I find that very problematic.” Matt explains his ultra-hearing thing. Matt explains that Leapfrog is the bad guy here, as he’d just kidnapped Luke Jacobson. When Jen asks why he didn’t open with that, Matt asks why she didn’t ask before trying to whoop his ass. In her defense, I would probably also assume the guy in a devil costume is the bad guy. They banter a little before going to save Luke.

 

It's an okay costume, ngl.

Inside, Eugene is forcing Luke to make him a new suit. He wants all the bells and whistles for version 2.0, bulletproof shields, British AI, and poison darts. Luke, clearly pissed, tells Eugene to find whoever told him that he could pull off Green and shoot them. As Eugene workshops the name “Leap Squad” for his guys, Jen wonders how this idiot could have henchman and goons. Matt explains that goons and henchmen are different, goons are hired muscle while Henchmen believe in their boss’s cause. So yeah, the Leap Squad are very much goons. Matt detects 25 goons scattered around the building. Jen is disbelieving of Matt’s heartbeat hearing, but then he points out hers is beating pretty fast. Matt wants to take them out stealth-fully, but Jen is all for just breaking in and wrecking the place.

 

Matt goes to do his “thing.” He starts taking out the goons one at a time, but then Jen busts in an takes out five of them in one go. “She-Hulk smash” she says as she does. She-Hulk and Daredevil burst into the main room. Jen frees Luke while Matt takes out the rest of the goons. Jen tells Eugene to just stop before he wracks up more charges. Jen says they might be able to spin it as a mania episode, Matt (while still beating guys up) says that that’s murky ethically speaking and suggests maybe trying undiagnosed PTSD instead. Jen lets us know that ninja + lawyer = doing it for her. Eugene tries to escape out a window, falls and breaks his legs. Whoops.

 

In the aftermath, Eugene is wheeled out to an ambulance and Luke forgive Jen after he helped save her. Jen asks him to make her the gala dress, to which he agrees and gives her a backhanded remark about not getting bloated between now and then. Jen is happy they’re strained professional acquaintances again.

 

Great way to end a team up.

Jen and Matt meet on the Lilypad sign. They bond a bit while play arguing who was the lead hero on this case. Jen asks when he flies out, Matt says tomorrow and says maybe he can take her out next time he’s in town. Jen prefers now vs. later, so they head back to her place and finish their team-up episode in style. Ha ha.

 

The next day, Daredevil is seen walking away from Jen’s place with boots in his hand and whistling. Jen comes out into her living room and wonders why we’re still here, since it seems like the episode should be over. Nikki comes in and reminds her about the gala. She points out that she saw a guy in a devil costume doing the walk of shame, but then compliments Jen when she learns his walk started at her place. Jen, upon realizing that we’re doing the gala tonight, has an existential crisis when she realizes that this is the penultimate episode of the season. She wonders if the big twist is like “there’s another hulk but he’s red,” or “I’m about to get fridged” but is willing to roll with it.

 

Jen looking FIERCE.

That night at the Gala, Jen and Nikki meet with her parents. She sees that creep Todd again and does her best to avoid him. At the award presentation, Jen wins along with a few others because that’s the kind of award this is. Mallory also wins, so that’s neat. Jen gets the mic and begins thanking her friends and family, but then HulkKing and Intelligencia take over the projector. They put up all of Jen’s personal info that Josh stole and then the sex tape Josh made with her. Dude, not cool, her parents are in crowd. Jen, despite Mallory’s warnings, gets pissed and smashes the wall. Alarms start blaring and people run. She sees a dude in a mask run out, jumps through the wall, and grabs him, but is stopped by Damage Control. The episode ends with Jen breathing heavily and in custody.

 

Let’s be real, everyone was waiting for this episode pretty much since She-Hulk was announced, and that Charlie Cox was going to come back as Daredevil. Two of Marvel’s most iconic lawyers facing off in court and then teaming up in their superhero identities on the street? No one would with any sense would say no to that! Again, love Jen’s suit, it’s a nice spin on one of her comic suits. Matt’s I’m less in love with, I was partial to the red and black, but it at least looks better than it did in comic form. Yeah, the brown and yellow costume is his canonical first suit. And he wore it for years. It was also fun to see how their fighting styles clash. Jen, obviously, all brawn. She can’t be hurt and can throw around 90% of things, so she rushes in like a bull. Matt relies more on ninja tactics, cornering opponents and overpowering or out classing them. It’s a brain vs. brawn situation, and I’m happy it’s gender swapped from the two of them. Also, them hooking up makes total sense. What, they’re both extremely attractive lawyers that fight crime on the side and are lawyers? You’d need to spray them like cats to forgo that conclusion. Tatiana Maslany and Charlie Cox had solid chemistry between the two of them, so the meet, flirt, fight, flirt, and… the last f word, makes a lot of sense. Don’t look at me like that, my mom reads these on occasion so I try to keep it classy as best I can. Matt doing the next morning walk in full costume was hilarious too. I refuse to call it the walk of shame when the scene makes it clear he had the smuggest grin on his face the whole way back. Eugene was annoying but I enjoyed him. He’s an eventuality that ya know definitely exists in any world of costume heroes, the idiot that tries to buy his way in. I enjoyed every single time when he got hurt because of his actions. It was cathartic. The reveal at the end was dark as hell. I figured that HulkKing and Intelligencia would ruin the big night, but was not expecting them to go that hard. I am looking forward to the finale and all its fourth wall breaking splendor. See you then. 

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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero

Viewer Log: She-Hulk ep 7

 A retreat with Supervillains, what could possibly go wrong?

Last time on She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Jen had to go to a wedding. Parts sucked, like the bride telling her “no She-Hulk” at the wedding; parts were good, like Jen meeting a cute guy named Josh and them hitting it off; and parts… started sucky but turned out okay, like Titania weaseling in as a plus one but Jen got to deck her and see Titania have a huge public gaff. High fives all around. Meanwhile, Nikki worked with Mallory Book on a… complicated divorce settlement. Craig Hollis aka Mr. Immortal, had over the last several years been married multiple times only to sort of fake his death because he’s too much of a wuss to have a conversation. I say “sort of” because while he survived, the things he did would have killed someone without immortality. The exes had found him after a video of him surviving death popped up on Intelligencia, Reddit for incels. Nikki is able to work out a settlement that satisfies all the exes and she and Mallory have a celebratory drink. While having that drink, they learn that Intelligencia has a Cancel She-Hulk page full of death threats. Mallory wants to not tell Jen, as there’s very little point telling her about Trolls, but Nikki tells her immediately. Enough recap. Let’s get to it.

Things start off well.

 

We open on Jen having a few dates with Josh. Things seem to go well with him, those first few days of a new relationship are universally exhilarating, aren’t they? But, by Friday, coincidentally the day after they slept together, he starts ghosting her. Now that feels awful. At the office, Nikki tells Jen that she’s been nominated for Female Lawyer of the Year, but Jen doesn’t react like one should upon hearing they’re up for an award. Why? Still waiting for Josh to text back. Nikki tells her to stop looking at her phone or she’ll drive herself crazy.

 

By Saturday, Jen still hasn’t heard anything and spends her day with her phone nearly constantly in her sight. I mean, she can’t even enjoy the Great Muppet Caper, she’s checking her phone so much.  What? It’s a good movie. Saturday rolls into Sunday and first thing that day she gets a call. No, sadly, not from Josh letting her know he’d been in a coma for 48 hours or something. The call is from Chuck Donelan, Blonsky’s parole officer. He lets her know that Blonsky’s inhibitor is malfunctioning, Chuck has to go check it out, and he’s hoping she’d be willing to meet him at Blonsky’s ranch incase Blonsky isn’t feeling cooperative. She agrees to help and heads out to meet him. Refreshing her phone constantly as she does.

 

Man-Bull and El Aguila are delightful.

She meets Chuck at Summer Twilight Ranch. It has a gate and everything. Jen honks her horn to try to get Blonsky’s attention, but Chuck is feeling jumpy. He asks her to hulk up, just in case and they go inside. They find out that Blonsky’s inhibitor is malfunctioning, but Blonsky is still being extremely chill. Blonsky thinks it might have been due to a shock he got from an electric fence while trying to get his favorite chicken back. Chuck recalibrates the inhibitor, and books it out of there. I kind of get it, as Blonsky’s retreat is for superhuman criminals trying to reform themselves. Jen prepares to leave, but her car gets hit hard by two of Blonsky’s… patients? I guess? They are Man-Bull, a bull-human hybrid, and El Aguila, a man dressed like a matador. I can kind of get why there’s friction here. They smash up the car a lot, but Jen stops Man-Bull from hitting her car and impaling El Aguila. After the fighting stops, both men are chiller than they seemed initially. They’re working through some aggression, I guess, because while El Aguila insists he's not a matador, he looks like one and that is a bit triggering for Man-Bull. Blonsky asks Man-Bull to push the car into the garage, he says “My name is Man-Bull, not Mechanical Bull,” and everyone judges him for how planed that sounded.

 

Blonsky tells Jen that the mechanic can’t arrive until later, but that’s good news so Jen can relax at his retreat. She’s not super jazzed for this, as she’s still waiting for a Josh text. He leads her to a sweat yurt and offers to let her relax but she’s not interested. The retreat doesn’t have wifi or cell reception, so Jen is incredibly screwed on the text and work front. Blonsky tells her he’ll be around if she needs him and walks off. Jen spends a while searching for service but can’t find a single bars worth of it. Eventually, she stumbles on a bar of cell service, but also Blonsky’s group therapy session. It consists of him, Man-Bull, El Aguila, Porcupine, and Saracen. Porcupine is dressed in a head-to-toe spiny costume, and Saracen thinks he’s a vampire. Jen tries to get service while the guys talk about El Aguila’s identity issues and his dislike of being called a Matador. The others all think Man-Bull and El Aguila are in an unhealthy codependency thing, and that Porcupine really should take off his suit and be vulnerable with them. They’re then joined by none other than Wrecker. Remember him? He led the group with Asgardian construction tools. He was in the Yurt and lost track of time. Jen recognizes him and calls up a previously on this guy to remind everyone. She hulks up and throws him. Blonsky tells her go to sit in the calming chair. Wrecker, or maybe Dirk since he doesn’t have his crowbar, offers to talk with her so they can work through their issues.

 

"What did I say about Bioelectricity?" funny line.

He’s apparently given up his magic crowbar and trying to not be a “supervillain.” The circle senses that Jen is dealing with some things that she’s not wanting to talk about. They get her to talk about Josh and how he hasn’t texted her in days and how she made it worse with some cringe worthy “looking for you,” texts she sent in the meantime. The guys talk about how she was probably ghosted. Jen explains that she met Josh as Jen and he seemed to like Jen more than She-Hulk, so that’s probably why she’s fixating on him like this. She feels like She-Hulk is that more popular friend from high school that got all the attention, and that being able to change back and forth feels like Cheating. The group agree that they should go kill Josh, except Dirk, who suggest maybe they should try to find a healthier way to handle this. The group give her some life advice, Dirk and the others agreeing that maybe Jen feels this way because she’s not spending enough time as Jen. Which is a shame because they’d all like to get to know Jen. Jen de-hulks and this encourages Porcupine to take off his mask too. He stinks to high heaven, but the gesture means a lot. The group tell her to delete Josh’s number, so she does and feels a lot better, and agrees to use the yurt. She comes out of the yurt sometime later and gives them the thumbs up.

 

As she leaves, the group give her a goodbye card and wish her well. Blonsky gives her a little more empty advice, Jen thanks him and then leaves with the tow truck guy.

 

The support group was right, they should have
hunted him down and killed him.

We flashback to Thursday night, where it’s revealed that after having sex, Josh cloned all of Jen’s phone contacts, took a picture of her and texted the HulkKing that he got her blood. Oh no.

 

I’ll start by giving a shout out to the Villains support group. I loved these guys from minute one and how they helped Jen get through the Josh situation. Nathan Hurd as Man-Bull, Joseph Castillo-Midyett as El Aguila, Terrence Clowe as Saracen, Jordan Aaron Ford as Porcupine, and Nick Gomez as Wrecker/Dirk were all great in this supportive support group. The joke about Man-Bull and El Aguila being codependent and how that’s a bit weird gets me every time. I wasn’t expecting to see Wrecker as a member of the group, and I got to say I like this version of him as a dude trying to get his life together with some new age healing. Wrecker in basically every other adaptation is pretty one note, he commits crimes and yells at his boys when they commit crimes. Not a lot there, but I think Nick Gomez adds a lot to the character. And Jen’s whole journey through the episode was great. While not the five stages of grief, I think everyone who hasn’t married the first person they dated has gone through the high of the new relationship followed by the crash when it falls apart. It especially sucks when one is ghosted, since like Jen showed, you spend way more time than you should trying to figure out what went wrong. The whole bit about her being conflicted about She-Hulk and admitting she likes how being noticed like she does in hulk form feels good and that she feels bad about it feeling good is true to the comics too. It’s been years since I read a She-Hulk story, but if memory serves a recurring plot point for her is that Jen is kind of addicted to being She-Hulk. She doesn’t have to battle the inner demons like Bruce, but the transforming from a meek introvert to a superpowered extrovert is a battle all on its own. I think they handled the explanation of that well here, with digging into the ick factor. Comic She-Hulk has some impulse control issues and might be a sex addict, depending on the writer. It’s good that they found a way to explain how Jen feels about the difference between her as base Jen and as She-Hulk without dipping into that particular can of worms. And the reveal that Josh was just getting close to her to get her blood for HulkKing just hurt. Like, damn, they found a way to make it worse than him just ghosting her after getting laid. Awful. Next time… a devil comes down to LA. See you then. 

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