History of She-Hulk

[Music] what's up my comic comrad the first episode of she-hulka turning out law dropped this morning on disney plus bringing with it the mcu debut of jennifer walters as well as the return of bruce banner hulk abomination daredevil and wong the show will also give us the mcu debut of villain titania and likely a number of additional surprises but over the next few episodes we're gonna focus on the first three characters starting today with a complete look at the marvel history of she-hulk to get you familiar with the character's origin before seeing her in live action and if you like the content we're putting out for all of you you can return some love back this way by hitting the thumbs up button on this video sharing with your friends and dropping a comment down below those are small simple things but they are the best way to help us kick youtube's algorithm right in the booty you know so it works for us and not against us now let's dive into the history of jennifer walters aka she-hulk [Music] she-hulk was created by stan lee and john busema and first appeared in the savage she-hulk issue 1 in february of 1980. but while stanley is credited for the co-creation of she-hulk the character wasn't originally his idea in fact the only reason she hulk was created in the first place was to gain exclusive rights to a female hulk character you see the idea was born as the 1970s live-action incredible hulk tv series was airing the show was so successful that the cbs network was thinking about making a female hulk spin-off series and if cbs did that they would own the rights to a female whole character well marvel heard whispers of this idea and knew they could pump out a comic way quicker than cbs could put out a tv series so stan got to work and wrote issue one of the savage she-hulk with john buscema as the artist and that is the untold real world origin of she-hulk now let's check out the character's comic book fictional origin she-hulk's origin is given to us in the previously mentioned savage she-hulk issue 1 where we meet jennifer walters a talented criminal lawyer and the woman who would become she-hulk she's actually the cousin of bruce banner with her father being bruce's uncle a local sheriff maurice walters she's five years younger than her cousin bruce but the two grew up together and were very very close a fact that became evident early on in her first appearance when on the second page of the issue bruce visits his cousin at her law firm and she immediately notices something's wrong with bruce bruce says i don't know how to tell you and she responds with don't you remember we were almost like brother and sister we told each other everything bruce explains the police are after me the army sometimes i think the whole human race he then proceeds to tell her his origin how he became the incredible hulk after which jennifer stares in shock asking you really mean it you really are the green skin monster but how bruce answers a chemical change comes over me i can't control it i can't cure it i can't help it sometimes jen i think i'm going mad i'm sorry i have no right to lay this on you but jen just starts gathering her things telling him don't say that doc i want you to come home with me there must be an answer as they're headed to jennifer's car we see they're being watched by two men who follow bruce and jen back to her house we learn that the men work for nick trask who was an enemy of jennifer's father and one of her clients jennifer had to put out a rumor that she possessed incriminating information on trask attempting to get trask to sabotage himself but instead he sent his men to silence her so as soon as she got out of the car one of the men jumped out and shot her bruce rushed in to save her using a water hose to spray the guy forcing him back into his car as if it was a fire hose the guys then decide they've drawn too much attention and drive off anyway bruce picks up jennifer and rushes her inside only to realize that his cousin needs an immediate blood transfusion as she'd already lost too much blood and didn't have enough time to get her to the hospital so he rushes her to the doctor's house across the street and when he sees that nobody was home he breaks in and uses their equipment to do the blood transfusion himself since he and jen share the same blood type however in the heat of the moment he completely forgot that his blood is gamma radiated and could have drastic side effects after he finishes the blood transfusion jennifer wakes up and bruce calls 9-1-1 to get her to the hospital at the hospital however trasks men disguise themselves as doctors and try to chloroform her which obviously puts jennifer in extreme distress and triggers her now gamma radiated blood her skin turns green and she transforms into the she-hulk for the first time knocking all three men back so hard they crack the wall one of the now terrified goons tries to shoot her but she-hulk blocks it by picking up her hospital bed and throwing it at them this causes them to run for their lives towards the elevator but she just rips the elevator doors open holds the elevator up by the cables and tears the roof off said elevator chasing them out of the hospital and into the street they're able to get into their car but she-hulk rips a traffic light pole out of the ground and throws it at their car knocking all the tires off at which point she runs over to the car and pulls them out to give them to the police now that gives us she-hulk's comic book origin but what about her story arcs well we're gonna highlight some of her most iconic stories she's been a part of over her 42 years in comics which is one of the things those of us who are comic collectors keep a close eye on whenever a comic character makes a leap onto the big or small screen because it can really increase the value of certain key characters where that character plays a significant role or center role this is why it's crazy important to keep your collection organized so you know which issues you have which issues you need and generally what the value of those issues are in fact we're very excited to have overstreet access as today's sponsor because they have recently launched a brand new community driven platform to help collectors do exactly that and much more and you can check it out for yourself by going to overstreetaccesslaunch.com or by clicking our link in the description the name overstreet should sound extremely familiar to my fellow comic collectors and that's because overstreet access is a creation of the publishers of the well-known overstreet comic price guide which has been a trusted resource for collectors for 52 years and they've now expanded their widely used and trusted price guide into a digital platform that not only allows you to get up-to-date price guide values for your comics but also adds incredible collection management tools that take your collection to the next level this includes the ability to create a digital library of your personal collection by leveraging overstreet's massive comic database and filtering your searches for issues by story arc character or publisher there's also tools like their amazing gap list feature that allows you to quickly identify missing issues in your collection and even connect with comic retailers who can help you add the missing issues which brings us to our favorite aspect of overstreet access and the platform they're building it's created and being developed by an amazing team of people who are fans and collectors themselves and really want the platform to be a community experience so being created by collectors for collectors they've designed and structured overstreet access to be a synergistic resource for every player in the comic book collector ecosystem from the individual collector to the local comic shop we're already members here at variant and i'm telling you if you're a comic collector on any level you want to jump on now just head over to overstreetaccesslaunch.com or click the link in the description and choose which tools and features you want between the bronze silver and gold member options we recommend the silver or gold level which also gives you access to the overstreet access app either way jump on and start building your collection now and let us know which feature is your favorite as we just went over everything started for she-hulk in the savage she-hulk title giving us shiok's origin in issue 1. initially her transformation was triggered by rage much like her cousin bruce but as the series progressed she learned to control her transformation specifically in savage she-hulk issue 12 when michael morbius cures her of a lethal blood disease as a show of gratitude she agreed to defend morbius in court he was set to stand trial for his murders as a vampire but she's such a good lawyer she was able to successfully argue that his medical condition should not be taken into account and his charges were reduced to involuntary manslaughter but now being able to control her transformation jennifer eventually decided to become the she-hulk permanently seeing it as just an upgraded version of herself this letter on a series of typical superhero adventures and ultimately a team spot on the avengers as most marvel superheroes tend to do at one point or another as an avenger we later see her play a role in the secret war storyline as one of the several heroes transported to battle world by the beyonder as a matter of fact we actually go through both secret war stories in this recent episode right here so check it out regardless the events of the secret war story led to ben grimm the thing on the fantastic four choosing to stay on battle world for a year after the battle was won when he discovered that the planet allowed him to change into his human form at will so he wanted to explore that ability and sort out who he really was this opened the door for she-hulk to join the fantastic four and led to one of her most iconic stints in comics as the temporary fourth member of the fantastic four during her time with the team she would become romantically involved with an ally of the fantastic four named wyatt wingfoot i'm not going to elaborate any further on that i just really wanted you all to know that there's a marvel character named wyatt wingfoot it was also during her time with the fantastic four that she hulk was exposed to radiation and lost her ability to transform back into her human form which i suppose wasn't really a big deal considering she liked her she-hulk for him better anyway however reed richards later discovered that it actually wasn't the radiation exposure that kept her from changing into jennifer walters but rather a mental block in jennifer's head so it turned out she liked being she-hulk even more than originally thought from here we have the sensational she-hulk title which lasted for a total of 60 issues the series follows jennifer after her time with the fantastic four and showing her rejoining the avengers for a bit she would however get hypnotized by a character named the ringmaster and get manipulated into becoming a circus performer yes a circus performer issue one even opens up with panels of her lifting elephants but one of the standout things for this series is an issue 15 of the sensational she-hulk where marvel introduced a gray version of she-hulk that would appear only at night and had the mind of a child gracious even speaks in third person going as far to call jennifer walters puny jennifer mirroring how the grace savage hulk spoke in his first appearance for those of you unfamiliar with the story around the first grey hulk the incredible hulk as a character was originally meant to be gray but technical inking issues forced marvel to change the color to green after she hulk's time in the grey didn't last long and was really more of an homage more than anything so she returned to her normal green color in issue 17. after this she-hulk took on some legal work for heroes for hire and started dating luke cage she also rejoined the avengers yet again and even made an appearance in the jla avengers crossover series where she was brainwashed by starro and started fighting the avengers she was eventually freed and went on to help the avengers hunt down the 12 artifacts they needed to defeat the dc villain crona and fight sturter in the final battle alongside wonder woman we actually did an entire episode on the jla avengers crossover which you could find right here as for more modern iterations there's the 2004 danslot she-hulk series which seems to be where marvel studios is pulling a lot of their inspiration from for the disney plus series at least based on the trailers and footage we've seen so far anyway when dan slott started working on she-hulk he decided he wanted to take the character in a new direction so instead of focusing on the character's superhero adventures he explored more of her personal life and career as an attorney that included her life as a superhero in new york and the relationship dynamic with her cousin bruce as he hates being the hulk while jennifer loves it just right there you could see the similarities to the tone of the show then in 2005 dan slott would create a follow-up series that continued to focus on jennifer's life as a criminal lawyer which really didn't happen much before dan slott took over she-hulk slot also injected a lot more comedy in the 2005 she-hulk series than the character has shown before creating a more fun light-hearted version of she-hulk as we see her trying to balance her life with her fiance while defending fellow heroes in court one of which is hawkeye another more recent she-hulk comic is immortal she-hulk in 2020. this one-shot comic by al ewing explores every single time shiok has died and come back to life and the mental struggle jennifer is going through due to her immortality it's actually a solid story with cameos from fan favorites like thor and wolverine even if it was more meant to capitalize on the success of the immortal hulk title and bring she-hulk up to speed finally this brings us to the most current iteration of she-hulk in her new 2022 six issue mini-series which brings her back to basics of dan slott's version of the character jennifer is trying to rebuild her law career reconnect with friends fight bad guys and even explore her love life so if you're interested in she-hulk's character you should definitely jump on this title but now that we're caught up with story arcs let's get into powers and abilities sheol's powers are of course very similar to bruce banner hulks she's just not nearly as strong since her gamma exposure was second hand through banner's blood however this led to one of the biggest differences between she-hulk and the hulk and that jennifer is able to control her transformation into she-hulk and maintain her intelligence instead of it being reduced and altered by rage like banners hulk with that said there have been instances where she lost the ability to transform at will like the mental block i mentioned earlier leaving her stuck as either she hulk or jennifer walters as for her strength level it's been shown that her base strength is slightly weaker than the things but that's been interchanged depending on who's writing her at the time and originally she hulk strength had a set limit on how strong the character could be it didn't increase with her rage like the hulk but as time went on that was changed too so her rage could increase her strength similar to her cousin besides superhuman strength jennifer walters is also a very competent hand-to-hand fighter having been personally trained by captain america she's also extremely intelligent of course being a highly gifted criminal defense lawyer and one of the go-to lawyers for superheroes alongside matt murdock better known as daredevil she even practices law in she-hulk form as we've seen from the she-hulk attorney at law trailers as for her personality she was first introduced as the savage she-hulk but in the more modern era she becomes more of a kind-hearted sweet person not really getting too angry in fights and actually joking around a bit another funny aspect of the character is that for a time she hulk would regularly break the fourth wall doing it before deadpool she was so aware she was in a comic she would do stuff like talk to the reader and even get into arguments with the writers of the comic it was pretty dang funny her breaking the fourth wall was later tamed quite a bit but it's a pretty memorable aspect of the character at least for me anyway let's get you guys some reading recommendations check out she-hulk 2 superhuman law essential savage t-hulk vol 1 shield omnibus one shield volume one law on disorder and shield by seoul the complete collection that should be enough to get you all started [Music] first up for the week of august 17th we have the hulk issue eight in the final installment of the epic crossover between the hulk and thor series marvel's two heaviest hitters expend their rage on one final brutal brawl that will answer once and for all which of these heroes is the strongest now we have daredevil issue two after devil's reign everything for daredevil is changing and the same thing for elektra with her new role of the woman without fear daredevil is more ambitious than ever here we have gunslinger's spawn issue 11 gunslinger's realization that his enemies have ended up in the future alongside him sets him up on a new path the hun is on and he's bringing hell with him fourth on the list is black adam issue three the last issue gave us white adam so i'm very curious to see where this goes especially since black adam is dying and finally we have flash issue 785 just when the speedsters seem to have snapped barry out of pariah's clutches wallace seems to be falling in and the creator of aries mind prison isn't about to let the team of speedsters just run off and that's gonna bring today's episode to a close but if you enjoyed this episode check that one out right here if you like all the content subscribe like and comment it helps us out but other than that i will see you next time when i talk about all things comics

Channel: Variant Comics

Views: 263,835

Keywords: origin of she hulk, history of she hulk, she-hulk and the fantastic four, was she hulk a member of the fantastic four, abomination, titania, bruce banner hulk, avengers, mcu, marvel studios, phase 4, doctor doom, daredevil

Id: ddE6ogip30g

Length: 14min 51sec (891 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 17 2022