No matter how much we might love our family, sometimes they cause us… problems. In fairness to gossiping aunts and annoying little brothers everywhere, though, they’ve never been the reason another planet tried to kill us. (As far as we know.) But that’s what happened to Jennifer Walters in She-Hulk‘s premiere. Her cousin Bruce Banner has made some powerful alien enemies over the ears. And that inadvertently led to the MCU’s newest attorney acquiring superpowers she doesn’t want. A Sakaarian spaceship was out to kill its incredible former champion.
She-Hulk’s transformation into a giant green monster was an accident. Literally. It started while she was driving with her cousin Bruce. He was still in human form— just as he was in a Shang-Chi mid-credits scene—thanks to a modulating bracelet that keeps his Hulk persona at bay. Unfortunately that also left him vulnerable when an alien spaceship, a Sakaaran craft, fired on Jen’s car. The resulting crash injured both of them, and Bruce’s blood got into his cousin’s wound. That made her a Hulk.
Bruce doesn’t know why the ship attacked him. But based on his history with the trash planet Sakaar we can make a pretty good guess why someone there—if not the entire planet—has a grudge with him. Sakaar is where Hulk lived for two years. While there he was the Grandmaster’s greatest fighting champion. And thanks to his unmatched prowess in the ring the residents of Sakaar celebrated and revered Hulk like a god.
That all ended in Thor: Ragnarok after his old Avenger colleague showed up. The God of Thunder helped force Hulk to finally transform back into Bruce Banner. Along with Valkyrie, they then launched Korg’s rebellion, stole one of the Grandmaster’s ships (the same kind that attacked Jen Walter’s car), killed some of his soldiers and most loyal servant, and fled Sakaar, leaving the planet in disarray. (The Grandmaster declared the rebellion a “draw.” But we’re pretty sure that didn’t fix everything.)
Not only did Bruce Banner take away Sakaar’s most favored warrior, he helped unleash chaos and unrest. If the sociopathic Grandmaster with a love for vengeance retained power (after possibly living with Darryl for a bit on Earth), he might have sent that Sakaaran ship after Bruce. Or it could have been someone trying to kill the traitorous Hulk in an effort to curry favor with the people in their own quest to rule. But it just as easily could someone angry about what Banner did to their planet. Or someone mad Hulk left. They really loved that big green monster!
The good news is the attack didn’t work. Bruce survived. But even worse for the Sakaaran who sent that ship is that they created another powerful enemy in the process. And if they thought one Hulk was dangerous, wait until they meet another.
