The She-Hulk: Attorney at Law show comes out Thursday. It features the return of Tim Roth’s Emil Blonsky/Abomination after an appearance in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and, now, show creator Jessica Gao has revealed why was there first.
In a new article published by Comicbook.com today, Gao says the character was part of her pitch for the project from the beginning, and she did not know if the company had any plans for him when she submitted her idea. Thankfully, they were cool with his inclusion, and to hype the show they ultimately put him into the earlier movie as a means of cross-project promotion.
“Because he was built in to be such a big part of the show in that original pitch and in the writer’s room, we really like, we were creating this whole story for him. Because everything in Marvel is connected, that was actually why he then was put in Shang-Chi because he was in our show. 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.'”
Gao did not reveal anything else about the coming show or Marvel’s plans for Roth’s role. The initial season of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is set to consist of nine episodes and will run every Thursday on Disney Plus through to its evening conclusion on Oct. 18. The series will also include Jennifer Walters’ signature breaking of the fourth wall, which the character frequently does in the comics. In a recent interview, showrunner Jessica Gao also says the commentary was initially too much, and she was told to tone it down by Marvel. They even banned them altogether at one point, and text boxes would have appeared instead, but things did change a bit. As well, the character’s origin story for the show, in which she gets powers from a blood transfusion, has also been changed up.