A legal comedy with superhero elements that is not only told from a female perspective but actually written and directed by women is a bold new direction for Marvel. Of course it'll take a few episodes for this show to hit all the right notes, especially with an episode length of 30 minutes that doesn't allow for a lot of plot development. But the first episode wasn't bad at all and I'm confident they'll work out the minor kinks.
One such kink is the CGI, which isn't entirely up to MCU movie standards. It's not as bad as CGI Luke in season 2 of The Mandalorian but the facial expressions don't feel completely natural. I've seen a few text-to-facial-animation solutions and the expressions look very similar here, as if they were software-animated rather than motion-captured. It's probably a budget limitation. Other than that, my only complaint is the runtime. The plot feels rather condensed in this half-hour format.
Now for the elephant in the room that has the self-appointed anti-wokeness police REEEEEEing at the top of their lungs. The superhero genre is a power fantasy, and for once it's not about a Billy Batson who stumbles across a wizard and immediately gains the combined powers of all the Greek gods and heroes. Or an orphaned tween who becomes the sidekick of none other than Batman and learns in record time how to beat up adult criminals twice his size. Or a teenager who suddenly develops mutant powers, finds a Nova Corps helmet, etc. Pp. You get the picture.
Point being, this is a power fantasy by and for women. It should come as no surprise that it involves a lot of the things women have to put up with on a daily basis. Such as condescending men who assume women couldn't possibly naturally excel at anything, especially not to the point of surpassing men.
Being surprisingly great at something is the whole point of a power fantasy. Hal Jordan comes into possession of a Green Lantern ring, everybody on Oa doubts that a primitive human could do the job, but he proves everyone wrong as he quickly surpasses his teachers and it doesn't take long before he single-handedly saves Earth and Oa and the entire universe. But when a woman so much as masters emotional self-control faster than her cousin Bruce did, everyone loses their expletive minds to quote Nolan's Joker. Even when it's true to the comic books, where Jennifer also retained her persona and intellect in Hulk form.
Bottom line: I think female Marvel fans will love this show. As a male fan I realize that it wasn't made exclusively for my demographic but I still find it very enjoyable. MCU Bruce was always a bit dorky and I really don't feel he's getting an unfair or uncharacteristic treatment here. I can't wait to see where Kat Coiro, Jessica Gao et al are taking the MCU's latest offering.
One such kink is the CGI, which isn't entirely up to MCU movie standards. It's not as bad as CGI Luke in season 2 of The Mandalorian but the facial expressions don't feel completely natural. I've seen a few text-to-facial-animation solutions and the expressions look very similar here, as if they were software-animated rather than motion-captured. It's probably a budget limitation. Other than that, my only complaint is the runtime. The plot feels rather condensed in this half-hour format.
Now for the elephant in the room that has the self-appointed anti-wokeness police REEEEEEing at the top of their lungs. The superhero genre is a power fantasy, and for once it's not about a Billy Batson who stumbles across a wizard and immediately gains the combined powers of all the Greek gods and heroes. Or an orphaned tween who becomes the sidekick of none other than Batman and learns in record time how to beat up adult criminals twice his size. Or a teenager who suddenly develops mutant powers, finds a Nova Corps helmet, etc. Pp. You get the picture.
Point being, this is a power fantasy by and for women. It should come as no surprise that it involves a lot of the things women have to put up with on a daily basis. Such as condescending men who assume women couldn't possibly naturally excel at anything, especially not to the point of surpassing men.
Being surprisingly great at something is the whole point of a power fantasy. Hal Jordan comes into possession of a Green Lantern ring, everybody on Oa doubts that a primitive human could do the job, but he proves everyone wrong as he quickly surpasses his teachers and it doesn't take long before he single-handedly saves Earth and Oa and the entire universe. But when a woman so much as masters emotional self-control faster than her cousin Bruce did, everyone loses their expletive minds to quote Nolan's Joker. Even when it's true to the comic books, where Jennifer also retained her persona and intellect in Hulk form.
Bottom line: I think female Marvel fans will love this show. As a male fan I realize that it wasn't made exclusively for my demographic but I still find it very enjoyable. MCU Bruce was always a bit dorky and I really don't feel he's getting an unfair or uncharacteristic treatment here. I can't wait to see where Kat Coiro, Jessica Gao et al are taking the MCU's latest offering.