‘She-Hulk’ Writer Reveals That Her Original Pitch Featured A ‘Rousing’ Abomination Trial
She-Hulk: Attorney At Law is a courtroom comedy that takes place within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The series has a lighthearted tone as Jennifer Walters (Tatiana Maslany) tries to balance her work and social life with being a Hulk. She-Hulk writer Jessica Gao says she pitched the series as being more serious and it would have featured a multi-episode Abomination trial.
Many familiar faces from the MCU appear in ‘She-Hulk’
She-Hulk: Attorney At Law stars Maslany as Jennifer Walters, a lawyer who becomes a Hulk after being exposed to blood from her cousin, Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo). Once she is able to balance being both Jennifer and Hulk, she is assigned to head a department that represents super-powered beings in need of legal assistance. Eventually, this leads to Jennifer representing Emil Blonsky/ Abomination (Tim Roth).
It’s been a long time since Abomination has been in the MCU but fans will remember him as the antagonist in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk. There are many familiar characters making appearances in this series including Benedict Wong as Wong and Charlie Cox as Daredevil/ Matt Murdock.
‘She-Hulk’ writer says her initial pitch included an Abomination trial
In an interview with Variety, Gao discussed the original pitch she made to Marvel for She-Hulk. She explains that the series is mostly similar to what she pitched. However, the pitch included a multi-episode trial surrounding Abomination. Once she and the other writers realized creating “rousing” trial scenes wasn’t their forte, they went in a different direction.
“My pitch for the show is pretty close to the show that you’re watching,” Gao shared. “All the kind of key foundational elements were there: Emil Blonsky/Abomination was always in the pitch. Bruce was always in the pitch. I didn’t know if I could use them. I didn’t know what their relationship was to Abomination anymore. But I thought, you know what? This is what I want — so I’ll just pitch it. Thankfully, they liked all of it. When I went in, it definitely skewed a lot more heavily towards Blonsky’s trial. In my original pitch, it was an actual trial and it spanned multiple episodes. When we got into the writers’ room, inevitably things change as you’re developing the show and as you start writing. And one thing that we all realized very slowly was none of us are that adept at writing, you know, rousing trial scenes.”
Is the Abomination in Shang-Chi the same as Hulk?
Abomination does sport a different design than in the 2008 film, but it is the same character as portrayed by Roth. Before She-Hulk, Abomination did return for a brief cameo in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. In an interview with ComicBook.com, Gao confirmed that this was because of his role in She-Hulk.
“Because everything in Marvel is connected, that was actually why he then was put in Shang-Chi because he was in our show,” Gao said. “That way, it was kind of to seed him so that people can get excited but also remember him and it kind of forced people to go, ‘Oh, I should go back and check in on him and remember who he is and what all of that was about.'”
The first episode of She-Hulk: Attorney At Law is now streaming on Disney+.
