She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, one of the latest additions to the MCU lineup, has broken the formula that Marvel has carefully followed up until this point and could make future MCU TV shows a harder sell. The MCU has succeeded because of its ability to weave an interconnected universe together. While each project has its own flavor they all fit together in order to tell a larger story. When Marvel announced they would be debuting MCU TV Shows on Disney+ that connected straight to the shared universe, many fans were thrilled. Enjoying shows like WandaVision and Loki that led directly into the movies made the MCU seem even bigger and more exciting than before. However, She-Hulk has continued to make jabs at the foundation Marvel is built on such as mocking specific MCU trends.

A self-aware satire comedy, She-Hulk follows Bruce Banner's cousin Jennifer Walters after she gains Hulk powers. She-Hulk/Jennifer frequently breaks the fourth wall to address the audience and makes jokes about whether this is a "filler episode" or demands a second "previously on" segment to remind us of a former character. When watching She-Hulk, viewers are frequently reminded that they are watching a TV show and this may lead to the downfall of Marvel's TV shows.

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She-Hulk being a self-aware TV show is comedic but adding the mockery of Marvel's usual tropes will make it much harder for the MCU to pull off those tropes in the future without people mocking them further. One of Marvel's most successful TV shows, WandaVision, also played the self-aware card with Wanda frequently breaking the fourth wall to address the audience and adding mock commercial breaks throughout the episodes. The difference, however, is that audiences quickly learned that Wanda had created an in-universe TV show born out of her grief over losing Vision. When WandaVision showed audiences what was happening outside Westview, it was treated as a normal TV Show. She-Hulk, however, does not have this added element. Near the end of She-Hulk episode eight, when Jennifer Walters says to the audience, "Oh, this is the big twist isn't it? But the question is, is this the kind of twist that's like, there's another Hulk but this one's red, or like, I'm getting fridged?"

Why She-Hulk Made Every Future MCU Show Harder

She-Hulk in Episode 8's Final Shot

In an earlier episode, Jennifer addressed the audience to assure viewers that this won't be the kind of TV Show where there's a cameo in every episode. When Jennifer Walters openly admitted to the audience that the big twist to come may be that the Red-Hulk is coming to the MCU it fell flat and even took a jab at fans who have been speculating about his debut. Usual tropes that are their go-to such as big twists, crossovers, cameos, and other Easter Eggs now have a stigma attached to them. And Marvel has openly admitted that they know they use the same formula in many projects and this could subject them to mockery.

Seeing as the MCU is arguably the most successful franchise of the last twenty years, it is hard to believe that they made this error in She-Hulk without a solid plan in place for future projects to avoid this problem. Marvel knows how to play the long game given they spent over a decade setting up the Infinity Saga and Avengers: Endgame turned out to be one of the highest-grossing movies of all time. Only time will tell whether She-Hulk has set up future Marvel TV shows for a more problematic run.

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

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