Despite the fact that the two chapters that we have been able to see of ‘She-Hulk: Lawyer Hulka’ have been tremendously fleeting – its less than 30 minutes of duration pass in a sigh -, they have left us enough information and enough unknowns as to have part of the fandom speculating on social media about what the future holds of the MCU. Don’t worry, this time it has nothing to do with Mephisto.
Be careful, from this point on there are spoilers from ‘She-Hulk’ to Cascoporro.
Of Sakaaran ships and planets
The first episode of the Marvel series for Disney+ goes back to the origins of Tatiana Maslany’s She-Hulk. In it, the blood of her cousin Bruce Banner ends up in her body after a car accident caused by the sudden appearance of a Sakaarian shipfrom the planet Sakaar in which ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ is set.
A week later, in the second chapter, Jen calls Bruce to ask his permission—in this way—to defend Abomination. In that scene, everything seems to indicate that Banner is in his laboratory, but when the camera begins to move away we can verify that, in reality, he is traveling aboard a similar ship —if not the same— to the one that appeared in the pilot.
This, as expected, has unleashed the most diverse theories, some of which point —not with little substance— to a letter of introduction to the comic arc ‘Planet Hulk’, in which The Emerald Giant adapts to the planet Sakaar and has two sons named Skaar and Hiro-Kala; events that preceded the events of ‘World War Hulk’where its protagonist returns to earth wanting a fight after the destruction of Sakaar.
Although all this has its part of logic, series creator Jessica Gao has a much simpler answer to the intergalactic journey of the Hulk:
“Well, I’m going to say this, it’s basically a big signal to the audience that this is the ‘She-Hulk’ series and not to expect this to be the ‘Hulk’ series. However, you have a couple of answers to a question or two, but don’t expect this to suddenly turn into a two-way game with the Hulk.”
Do we believe Gao? Call me crazy, but if you show a Sakaarian ship twice in two episodes and have one of the core characters from the MCU ride in it, It’s not just to get rid of it; and even less so in a film and television universe with a shared narrative in which new subplots are constantly opening up.
The connection with ‘Shang-Chi’ and the arm in a sling
What we do know is that with ‘Superhuman Law’ ‘She-Hulk: Lawyer She-Hulk’ has been connected directly with ‘Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings’ through the news of a television news which is going to make the defense of Emil Blonsky quite complicated for our superhuman jurist.
They refer to the clandestine fight between Wong and Abomination that was seen in the film directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, after which the villain was returned to his prison by the Marvelite sorcerer. But the crux of the matter is in his post-credits scene, in which Bruce Banner can be seen in his human form with his arm in a sling.
Gao has explained to The Hollywood Reporter that see Mark Ruffalo’s character in this state is closely related to ‘She-Hulk’:
“No, he was in human form in ‘Shang-Chu’ because of our series, and the reason we had him in his human form is because of the nature of the accident – we knew we wanted him to bleed on Jen. Hulk wouldn’t have bled; you can’t pierce Hulk skin, especially with a petty car accident. So we needed to have him in his human form so we could get his gamma-irradiated blood into Jen and into her system, and we had to find a reason why he was human. “.
“When you first meet Bruce and Jen in the car in the first episode, you kind of hear the end of the conversation. Really, that conversation is him talking about how he found out that his arm could heal better when he’s in human form. So he created this little device that he wears to keep him in human form just to heal his arm and then he goes back to being the Smart Hulk, and that’s why when the device breaks in the accident, he turns back into the Smart Hulk. And since we’re doing all of this we had him in the form of Bruce Banner in Shang-Chi.”
This definitely confirms that the ‘She-Hulk’ timeline is later than ‘Shang-Chi’, and turns what looked like a simple easter egg into a plot key for the adventures and misadventures of our favorite green single lawyer.