The first trailer for She-Hulk is out, and surprisingly, it leaves out one of the best things about her character from the comics. With only the She-Hulk trailer to go on, it still isn’t entirely clear what the MCU is going to do with the character. Even with that in mind, however, it’s still odd that such an iconic part of the character is seemingly being omitted from the show.
She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is set to follow the titular She-Hulk a.k.a. Jennifer Walters. After getting a blood transfusion from Bruce Banner, who happens to be her cousin, Jennifer ends up with a similar ability to transform into a superpowered version of herself, although she has more control of herself than Bruce initially did. Much like the She-Hulk comics, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law will likely be a combination of Jennifer being a superhero while also working as a lawyer, with the two professions sometimes coinciding with one another.
Unlike the comics, however, She-Hulk doesn’t appear to have She-Hulk break the fourth wall, which was one of her iconic traits from the comics. When John Byrne wrote Sensational She-Hulk in 1989, the character became established as a fourth wall-breaker with metafictional awareness, even beating out Deadpool to the gimmick years before the titular character made his debut and became associated with it. While later appearances of She-Hulk have been inconsistent about it, She-Hulk being able to break the fourth wall is still seen as a signature part of her character, so it feels odd that it would be absent from the trailer.
Of course, just because Tatiana Maslany's She-Hulk isn’t breaking the fourth wall in the trailer doesn’t mean that she won’t do so in the show. As previously stated, She-Hulk doesn’t always break the fourth wall in the comics, so not having her do it in the trailer could be to make people believe that she won’t be doing it in the MCU, as is the case in many stories in the comics, only to surprise people with her breaking the fourth wall in the actual show. There’s also the possibility that the trailer secretly already had her break the fourth wall, as Jennifer’s opening narration summarizing her life, much like her narration in the Disney+ teaser trailer, could easily be directed at the audience rather than a character; while the trailer does show her at a table with someone as she begins her narration, it could easily be a misdirect in some way, as Marvel trailers are known to do.
All in all, while She-Hulk doesn’t always break the fourth wall, the gimmick is still very much associated with the character, so its absence from the She-Hulk trailer can come across as disappointing, to say the least. The gimmick may still be part of the character in the MCU and simply wasn’t shown in the trailer, but there isn’t a definite way of knowing that at the moment. Regardless, once She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is finally released on August 17, 2022, it should become abundantly clear what the MCU is trying to do with She-Hulk.
