This Week’s ‘She-Hulk’ Set Up Some Huge Marvel Villain Debuts

This week’s She-Hulk is so inconsequential within the short-term that it truly made enjoyable of the truth that it was a minor, standalone episode. Even earlier than the opening titles, Jen Walters (Tatiana Maslany) breaks the fourth wall to announce that she’s taking an inopportune break from the present’s ongoing storylines to attend an outdated pal’s marriage ceremony.

In a manner, that was a fake-out. While many of the episode was certainly a light-hearted lark, the present ended with a tease that might wind up introducing (or in a single or two instances, reintroducing) live-action variations a number of the most well-known and highly effective villains in all of Marvel Comics. They could be the “Intelligencia,” one more group of super-villains who’ve been featured previously in Marvel books, and who’re name-checked on the finish of Episode 6 of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.

In the present, Intelligencia is the title of a Reddit-like web site the place web trolls congregate to alternate imply GIFs and memes about She-Hulk. Jen’s co-worker Mallory (Renee Elise Golsberry) dismisses the positioning as another meaningless supply of web hate. But Jen’s finest pal Nikki (Ginger Gonzaga) isn’t positive it’s all so harmless. And she is right, as a result of on the very finish of the episode, we see glimpses of some mysterious villains prepping a huge syringe to varsity She-Hulk’s blood for an experiment.

It’s attainable Nikki is aware of to not belief the Intelligencia as a result of she’s learn Marvel Comics, the place it’s the title of a gaggle of sensible super-villains who congregate often to share data, and sometimes to make use of it in opposition to the Hulk. Here they’re on the quilt of the 2009 mini-series Fall of the Hulks.

Marvel.com describes the group thusly:

They are a number of the most sensible minds on the planet, and a number of the most harmful criminals as effectively. United they might obtain issues denied to them on their very own, and the world could be on the mercy of the Intelligencia.

The group was the brainchild of the Leader, the Hulk’s most persistent antagonist in Marvel Comics. That’s him within the orange jumpsuit and big inexperienced noggin above. He’s been uncovered to gamma radiation similar to the Hulk, solely his made his mind stronger as a substitute of his muscle tissue. The different members of the crew, from left to proper, are Doctor Doom, MODOK, the Red Ghost, the Mad Thinker, Egghead, and the Wizard. (The big gorillas are “Super-Apes,” who’ve been uncovered to the identical cosmic rays that gave the Fantastic Four their powers. Now they serve Red Ghost, who additionally has cosmic powers, as a result of comics are the very best.)

While it’s too early to inform which if any of those baddies we’ll see in She-Hulk’s model of the Intelligencia, there’s one which looks like a really protected wager: The Leader. Not solely is he the character with the most important chip on his shoulder on the subject of the Hulks, but additionally as a result of Marvel has already introduced that the character, who first appeared onscreen manner again in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk might be returning to the MCU within the very close to future. Tim Blake Nelson, who performed the Leader (or at the least his human alter ego, Samuel Sterns) in Incredible Hulk has been introduced because the villain of Captain America: New World Order, which is due in theaters on May 3, 2024.

She-Hulk appears primed for a shock re-debut of the Leader, in a lot the identical manner Loki concluded on a shock cameo from Jonathan Majors’ Kang forward of his official first look within the MCU within the upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Some of the opposite members of the Intelligencia are fairly unlikely — though it will be cool as hell to see She-Hulk struggle some Super-Apes.

New episodes of She-Hulk premiere weekly on Thursdays on Disney+. Sign up for the service right here.