She-Hulk: Jessica Gao explains the decision to use a controversial villain in the series

The writer and series manager spoke about Jen’s journey through toxic behavior.

The Big Break of the Fourth Wall, the Return of Daredevil and Kevin Feige’s New Version, Season 1 She-Hulk: Protector of Heroes came to an end. The decision to have Jen stand up to a toxic misogynistic group rather than the ultimate comic book villain drew criticism from some fans, but Jessica Gaoscreenwriter and largely responsible for the Marvel Cinematic Universe project, explained what made her make this choice.

While She-Hulk features characters such as Titania, the Abomination, the Frogman, and other unknown villains, the heroine’s worst enemy is a group of toxic men who have problematic online behavior. In an interview for Legion of HeroesGao explained that this is a realistic depiction that she would like to explore in the series.

“At its core, this series is a realistic depiction of a young woman who has to deal with an inadvertent transformation into a superhero. So we needed a practical approach to what it would look like in real life.” said. “The way society treats the media, portraying not only people in general but women in particular, was something we certainly wanted to focus on. And, unfortunately, we knew exactly how a certain percentage of toxic fans would react.”

She-Hulk breaks the fourth wall to fix the final events of the series

Since the first promotional materials for She-Hulk started coming out, a lot of toxic comments have been made. A good part of them are replicated as part of the speech of villains Intelligencebut according to Gao, this was predicted almost three years ago:

“We started writing this series three years ago. So most of the script was written between two and a half and three years ago. And it really goes to show how clichéd and tiresome a lot of these guys are, to the point where we predicted them so accurately.”

The writer also explained the decision to focus on Jen’s more personal threat rather than working on a larger plot or global event.

“One of the highlights of the series is that, unlike the big Marvel movies where it’s all about ‘the world will end’, ‘humanity will end’, ‘we have to save the day’, here we are narrowing down the boundaries of what this means that instead of the end of the whole world, it is the end of her world. And that’s why these terrible toxic guys are the real villains. Because that’s what happens when we talk about one person’s world.”

First season She-Hulk completed on Disney+.