Three things that I love are She-Hulk, Tank Girl, and Boston Legal. These might seem completely unrelated, but that’s only because (thus far) Marvel has lacked the vision necessary to put these three things together and shake vigorously until money falls out. The concept is sitting right there, just waiting for a showrunner to run in and take it. She-Hulk, Attorney At Law would fit right in with the other street-level heroes on Netflix — her comic counterpart has even worked with Patsy Walker aka Hellcat — and Jennifer Walters being Bruce Banner’s cousin could be a handy bridge to the MCU should the two sides of Marvel’s media universe ever decided to meet. Heck, write Dan Slott’s run on the book in the ’00s even tees up the premise of Jennifer Walters helping superheroes hash out their differences when punching each other into the concrete fails. It wouldn’t take much to convert that arc into a Boston Legal-esque TV pilot.
But where does Tank Girl fit in? With its director, Rachel Talalay. Vice recently did a fantastic and long-ranging interview with Talalay that covers everything from her early days in Hollywood to why it took 22 years to get from Tank Girl to Wonder Woman. One moment that stands out, though, is Talalay’s love of all things She-Hulk.
“I have such a strong vision of what She-Hulk should be. The difference between She-Hulk and Hulk is that she loved being She-Hulk. She was the Tank Girl of earlier days in terms of being able to say what she wanted, and when she became She-Hulk, it was like an opening of the door to freedom, to be the person that you wish you could be. That you’re stopped from being as a woman. And that’s the version of She-Hulk that I would love to embrace.”
Despite being thrown in “film director jail” indefinitely after Tank Girl, Rachel Talalay has carved out a niche for herself in television. Her recent work includes stints on The Flash, Supergirl, and Doctor Who. All of which are series blending fantastical elements and snark with more serious subject matter. I’ve beaten the drum before that She-Hulk is tailor-made for a Netflix series, but having a director like Rachel Talalay interested in the character makes the concept both more tantalizing and, perhaps, closer to reality.
Just spitballin’ here Marvel, but have Rachel Talalay as the She-Hulk showrunner, maybe toss in Chelsea Cain (Mockingbird) or Julie and Shawna Benson (Batgirl and the Birds of Prey, The 100) and get ready to jump into your Scrooge McDuck pile of money the results generate.