There's a moment early in Marvel's She-Hulk: Attorney at Law when Jennifer Walters, having just acquired the ability to transform into a seven-foot-tall green superhuman, is informed by her cousin, Bruce Banner (the OG Hulk) that she's now obligated to become a superhero. Her response: "I did not go to law school and rack up six figures in student loans to become a vigilante."
Throughout the series, Jen insists, with varying degrees of success, that being a lawyer is her identity, and not merely her day job.
When she finds herself working with Wong, the Sorcerer Supreme of the Marvel Universe, on a legal matter, Wong suggests a more expedient, albeit ethically dubious, approach to their problem. Jennifer demurs: "I am a lawyer. We do things by the book."
Wong replies, "The Book of Vishanti?" (He is here referring to the legendary tome of white magic in Marvel lore, essentially the most powerful spellbook in existence.)
Jennifer: "No, the book of American... uh, laws."
The Book of Vishanti might be able to banish demons, but the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure can compel discovery from a Fortune 500 company. Both require mastery, demand precision, and are incomprehensible to the uninitiated.
The show's most quoted passage comes when Bruce Banner attempts to train Jennifer in anger management, a skill he spent years developing to control his Hulk transformations. She retorts:
Here's the thing, Bruce. I'm great at controlling my anger. I do it all the time. When I'm catcalled in the street, when incompetent men explain my own area of expertise to me. I do it pretty much every day. Because if I don't, I will be called emotional, or difficult, or might just literally get murdered. So I'm an expert at controlling my anger because I do it infinitely more than you.
Jennifer's most overtly jurisprudential moment comes during a closing argument: "What is the responsibility of those with power? Do they merely have an obligation to refrain from the misuse of that power? Or do they have a duty to protect those without it?"
This is, of course, the central question of superhero narratives, but it's also a question that has animated legal philosophy for centuries. It echoes debates about the nature of rights (negative versus positive), the obligations of fiduciaries, and the duties of those in positions of trust.
Jennifer eventually articulates her own synthesis: "Jen Walters can use the law to help people when society fails them. And She-Hulk can help people when the law fails them."
Jen Walters views her law degree not as a fallback or a stepping stone, but as a vocation worth defending. When offered the chance to join the Avengers (Earth's mightiest heroes), she chooses the courtroom. When her Hulk powers threaten to define her, she insists on being recognized as a lawyer first.
"I'm a much better lawyer than I am a Hulk."
