Warning: Spoilers ahead for She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.
The most recent additions to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, from self-effacing verse-jumper America Chavez to vulnerable high schooler Kamala Khan, have stood among the franchise’s most relatable characters. Jen Walters, the star of Marvel’s latest streaming series She-Hulk Attorney at Law, follows in this tradition as an engaging everywoman who acquires superpowers.
Played spectacularly by Tatiana Maslany, Jen has a ton of relatable qualities, from her compassion to her insecurities to her sense of humor to her unwavering drive to do the right thing.
Her Compassion
Jen really cares about other people. She’s a great cousin to fellow Hulk Bruce Banner, a great friend to her paralegal Nikki Ramos, and she prepares a delicious-looking breakfast for her date (although he can’t wait to leave her apartment when he wakes up).
The most effective conduit for Jen’s compassion is the court of law where she fights for her clients. Like every lawyer, Jen wholeheartedly believes that everybody has a right to a fair trial – even supervillains who have destroyed entire cities.
Her Sense Of Humor
As the MCU’s first full-blown half-hour sitcom, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law unsurprisingly has a title character with a strong sense of humor. Jen uses comedy for its primary function: fighting tough times. Throughout the series, Jen has often used humor as a defense against difficulty, like her complaint to Bruce about “a normal amount of rage.”
When she arrives at her local watering hole and hears the patrons inside chanting her unwanted “She-Hulk” alias, she gives a Jim Halpert-style look to the camera.
Her Insecurity
Jen is confident and extroverted, but she’s also deeply insecure. Her ability to break the fourth wall allows her to confide in the audience. When she makes an awkward comment to her boss about being “agnostic,” she tells the audience that she’ll be thinking about it for the rest of the year.
Everybody can relate to overthinking an interaction that the other person involved probably forgot about in seconds. In the face of embarrassment, letting it go is easier said than done.
Her Workaholism
Jen is a classic workaholic. She doesn’t just confine her professional endeavors to office hours and wind down in her spare time; she takes her work home with her. Jen spends most of her Friday nights alone, working on cases. Even when she’s drinking at the Legal Ease Bar & Grill, she’s applying her green and purple highlighters to case files.
Anybody who has made a career out of doing what they love (like Jen has with practising the law) can relate to her workaholism. It’s easy to let work take over like Jen has.
Her Resistance To Change
No one likes big, unexpected changes in their life. Sometimes, a change is necessary to shake things up, like moving to a new city or becoming a parent, but those changes are premeditated efforts. It’s devastating to be blindsided by a life change, even if that change ends up being for the better.
Jen is horrified when she inherits her cousin’s Hulk powers. When she wakes up on Bruce Banner’s private island with his superhuman abilities, Bruce wants to spend a few months training Jen to be a Hulk. But she just wants to go home and get back to work.
Her Optimism
It can be easy to slip into pessimism when things aren’t going well, but like most people, Jen tries to remain optimistic through unexpected adversity. After losing her job at the D.A.’s office, Jen keeps her spirits up in the face of countless rejections and failed job interviews – even with a creative bluescreen effect making the backgrounds increasingly dreary and miserable behind her in the job interview montage.
As always, hope prevails and it all works out in the end. She’s headhunted by a law firm that wants her to run its new superhuman division.
Her Dating Struggles
In the fourth episode of She-Hulk, Jen finally stopped putting off her personal life and created a dating profile. Unfortunately, she finds the single life to be just as arduous as everybody else. She barely gets any matches on the fictional dating app Matcher and the guys she does match with are the worst, like Mr. New Yorker (who only lived in New York for 14 months and now looks down on L.A. natives).
After reluctantly creating a profile for She-Hulk, Jen suddenly starts getting a lot more matches – but she still has no luck. One guy just wants to brag about how much he can lift and another guy is alarmingly obsessed about the penetrability of her superhuman skin. When she finally does meet a good-looking doctor who listens, their date is interrupted by Wong summoning her to fight a legion of winged demons from another dimension. Jen is just as unlucky in love as anyone.
Her Drive To Do The Right Thing
Not everybody has a moral compass – there are certainly some monsters in the world – but, deep down, most people are inherently good. The human conscience tells people to do the right thing, even if the right thing isn’t the easiest thing.
Like most human beings, Jen is inherently good. When she acquires superpowers, she’s reluctant to become a superhero – but not because she doesn’t want to help people; it’s because she already is helping people in court, and being a superhero would interfere with her lawyering.