She-Hulk's Villain Reveal Could Repeat The MCU's Illuminati Troll

This article contains spoilers for She-Hulk: Attorney at Law episode 6.She-Hulk: Attorney at Law has set up one of Marvel’s most significant supervillain teams as its villain, but the best way for the MCU to adapt Intelligencia is by once again subverting expectations. While the idea of flipping audiences’ expectations is usually a topic of debate when it comes to sagas like Star Wars and the MCU, the universe built by Marvel Studios has grown large enough to sustain all sorts of different takes on the Marvel Comics lore. As a 30-minute law comedy procedural with few ties to the larger MCU, She-Hulk is the perfect show to flip what audiences could expect from a supervillain team like Intelligencia.

Continuing Marvel’s experimental run on Disney+, She-Hulk is not like anything previously released by Marvel Studios or by any other superhero franchise. Despite its obvious connections to the MCU, such as the Hulk’s role in the story or Wong’s cameos, She-Hulk has so far been a standalone story that creates its own rules within the MCU. That allows the show to have fun with the Marvel universe in a way that other movies and shows cannot.

Still, She-Hulk season 1, episode 6, “Just Jen,” ended with a massive tease that the Intelligencia are the show’s real villains. In the comics, Intelligencia is a sort of crime alliance put together by some of Marvel’s smartest villains such as The Leader and MODOK. The reveal came when Nikki and Mallory were looking at an internet board named Intelligencia that had helped Mr. Immortal spread false information, only to find out an entire section of the forum dedicated to hate messages and death threats against the She-Hulk. While Nikki ignored Mallory’s advice not to tell Jen about it, it may be too late now that Intelligencia seems to have acquired She-Hulk’s blood. Still, while everything points to an old-fashioned superhero confrontation between She-Hulk and a team of geniuses Marvel villains, She-Hulk could actually be setting up an Illuminati-like fake-out reveal. In other words, She-Hulk’s Intelligencia might not be a comic-accurate version of the supervillain team but rather simply a group of insecure men who are trying to take down the She-Hulk.

She-Hulk Has Teased Its Ending Since the Start

She-Hulk has been targeted with review bombings since before it started, with a lot of the negative discourse aimed at the show accusing it of trying to “replace the Hulk” or “push an agenda.” It seems like She-Hulk was prepared for this type of criticism, as the show has been making fun of this exact type of reaction ever since its first episode. The fact that She-Hulk can break the fourth wall allows the show to get very meta, which includes a scene in which the world reacts to She-Hulk and labels her as a lesser version of the Hulk.

The idea that there are thousands of people online who hate Jennifer Walters for not being as good as the Hulk, or for trying to be, has set up She-Hulk’s perfect villain twist. Instead of a “legion of supervillains” trying to take over the world with their money and intellect, the MCU’s Intelligence could be nothing but a group of people who bonded over their hatred for the She-Hulk trying to create their own version of the Hulk to destroy the new superhero. That would obviously go incredibly wrong, and it’s likely that this Intelligencia would create something closer to the Abomination than to the Hulk.

Why Intelligencia Shouldn't Be The Real Comics Version

Tatiana Maslany as She-Hulk and Marvel's The Leader

Although the prospect of seeing Intelligencia in the MCU has already led to many theories and speculation, a comic-accurate version of the group would not make sense given what had been established in She-Hulk. There is simply no way a character-assassination campaign against She-Hulk on the internet could be of assistance to someone like The Leader or MODOK. A comic-accurate Intelligencia would even tackle characters like Doctor Doom, which is just not the scope of a 30-minute comedy series like She-Hulk.

At this point, She-Hulk has already proved what its tone and intent as a show are – neither of which asks for a comic-accurate Intelligencia. She-Hulk’s actual antagonist has been how people react to this new superhero, lawyer, and female-Hulk celebrity that has shown up, with those reactions being so far embodied by Titania. Therefore, the most natural way to bring Intelligencia to She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is by having it be exactly what episode 6 showed – a group of men behind an online board eager to create their own Hulk.

New episodes of She-Hulk release on Thursdays on Disney+.

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