She-Hulk’s Weird Retreat Villains Are All Real… Seriously!

Warning! This post contains spoilers for She-Hulk: Attorney At Law.She-Hulk: Attorney At Law episode 7 featured Emil Blonsky’s wellness retreat alongside many strange new faces pulled from some of Marvel Comics’ most obscure characters. The episode picks up after She-Hulk episode 6 ended, with Jen dating Josh whom she met at last week’s wedding. After a series of dates and even their first night together, Jen gets a call from Blonsky’s parole officer about a potential breach of parole and has to travel to the wellness retreat to find out what’s happening.

Once there, Jen realizes that Blonsky simply damaged his ankle bracelet. However, upon attempting to leave, Jen’s car is damaged by two of the people staying at the retreat and she is forced to spend a day around Blonsky’s new friends. It was quickly evident that Blonsky’s retreat was filled with some obscure characters, not counting The Incredible Hulk’s reformed Abomination, with Jen getting to know the group over the course of the episode all the while working through her own issues.

These obscure characters are, surprisingly, all pulled from Marvel Comics. The initial characters Jen meets who destroy her car are Man-Bull and El Águila who are physically working through their issues. Eventually, Jen takes part in a meeting between the group and meets Saracen, a man convinced he’s a vampire, Porcupine, and a familiar face from She-Hulk episode 3: Wrecker from the Wrecking Crew. All of these characters have appeared in Marvel Comics in one way or another, though have obviously been changed and adapted for their appearance in She-Hulk and the MCU.

Saracen

She-Hulk’s Weird Retreat Villains Are All Real… Seriously!

In the comics, Saracen is actually one of the first vampires on Earth and successfully lived until the modern era. Because of his exceptionally long life, he is considered part of a group known as the Ancient which consists of other long-lived vampires. These other vampires include Nosferatu, Lamia, Boy, Maracen, and Verdelet. In the modern age of Marvel Comics, Saracen lives beneath the Vatican with Boy, one of the other vampires of the Ancient. As Saracen isn’t a particularly popular Marvel character, his powers are uncertain though it is likely he retains the abilities of other powerful vampires such as Morbius or Blade from the Marvel universe. These include the ability to transform into a bat as well as summon bats, rats, and wolves to his will. Also, Marvel vampires can control the will of those they bite, though some with extremely strong willpower can defy this.

In the MCU, Saracen has been adapted to fit the much more comedic and light-hearted tone She-Hulk employs. For one, it isn’t made overtly clear if Saracen is actually a vampire or not, with Blonsky first introducing him as “Saracen, thinks he’s a vampire.” Throughout the rest of the episode, Saracen makes comments about blood that are often played as jokes due to the unclear nature of whether he is actually a vampire in She-Hulk and the MCU. The character does hold a few references to his comic book counterpart, however. He is shown to be wearing a costume that looks akin to a priest, a reference to his home under the Vatican in the comics.

Porcupine

Another of the many colorful characters introduced in She-Hulk episode 7 was Porcupine. In Marvel Comics, Porcupine is a supervillain name used by a few different people, though Alexander Gentry is arguably the most well-known. In the comics, Gentry designed a battle suit to resemble a porcupine, with impenetrable quills on the outside for defense that can also be used as projectiles as well as shoot gasses, chemicals, and other weapons from the quills. The Porcupine has often been shown as a villain to Ant-Man, though over the years has even fought the X-Men, The Avengers, and Defenders across the different iterations.

The MCU version of Porcupine, like Saracen, follows the tone of the show he features in. Given how these characters are all part of a wellness retreat and are shown having a big group therapy session, Porcupine also cracks a lot of jokes. His costume though is actually extremely accurate to one of the earlier designs of Porcupine’s costume in the comics, down to the green gas mask, ghillie suit, and spiky quills. The main trouble Porcupine is going through in She-Hulk is an unwillingness to remove his costume due to feeling safer with it on, something he overcomes by the end of the episode.

Man-Bull

In the comics. Man-Bull is shown to primarily be an enemy of Daredevil, set to appear in She-Hulk in the coming weeks. Before becoming Man-Bull, William Taurens was a criminal tasked with kidnapping people to be used as subjects for an experiment by the Professor. Due to his failure at the hands of Daredevil, William was forced to undergo the experiment himself, becoming Man-Bull in the process. Some powers granted to Taurens because of his transformation include superhuman strength, durability, and stamina. Also, his mutation meant that he grew long bullhorns on the top of his head often used as weapons when charging at his opponents.

In She-Hulk, Man-Bull is one of the first characters Jen meets when he destroys her car in a fight with El Águila. The bulk of Man-Bull’s role in the episode centers on his codependency with El Águila and helping Jen overcome her issues with Josh. Continuing the trend of using obscure Marvel characters for humor, like Mr. Immortal in She-Hulk episode 6, a lot of the humor with Man-Bull comes from him being triggered by El Águila due to the latter’s resemblance to a matador, fitting the tone of the overall episode and She-Hulk as a whole.

El Águila

El Águila is also from Marvel Comics, taken from Alejandro Montoya, a Spanish native who became the vigilante El Águila once moving to America. In New York, El Águila worked to defend the city’s poorer citizens and often found himself both in conflict with and teaming up with Power Man and Iron Fist on different occasions. In the comics, El Águila’s main power is bioelectricity. He can produce a blast of 100,000 volts at its most powerful as long as it exits his body by a conductive medium. In the comics, this power actually makes El Águila a mutant, meaning his She-Hulk adaptation is one of the MCU’s first mutants after Ms. Marvel. The TV adaptation shows his power in action, with El Águila using his sword to conduct electricity. This power along with the costume and weaponry of the character in She-Hulk makes him one of the more comic-accurate appearances in the episode.

Wrecker

Finally, the last member of Blonsky’s group is Wrecker, who was last seen in She-Hulk episode 3. Wrecker was introduced as part of the Wrecking Crew, who wielded magical weapons and attempted to steal She-Hulk’s blood. In the comics, Wrecker was a criminal whose weapon of choice was a crowbar. Eventually, through a series of events, Wrecker received superhuman powers from Karnilla, the Norn Queen and ally of Loki, God of Mischief. This made Wrecker brazen in his criminal activities which eventually drew the attention of Thor. After having his power drained, being imprisoned, and then later escaping with three other inmates, Wrecker located his crowbar which stored his magical powers.

These powers were then distributed to Wrecker and his three allies, and the four became the Wrecking Crew. The Wrecking Crew first appeared in the MCU in She-Hulk episode 3 in which they were quickly defeated by She-Hulk. In the MCU, the Wrecking Crew do not seem to have any superhuman abilities like their comic book counterparts, and instead simply have Asgardian weaponry matching those of their comic characters. This means that the only real similarity Wrecker has to the comics is his use of a crowbar.

Now that most of the obscure characters revealed in She-Hulk’s trailer have been revealed, it is likely the remaining two episodes will focus on the identity of the Wrecking Crew’s leader who wants She-Hulk’s blood. It is safe to say though, that the Wrecking Crew themselves likely will not appear again due to the reformation of Wrecker shown in She-Hulk episode 7, alongside the many other colorful characters the episode introduced based on some of Marvel Comics’ most obscure heroes and villains.

New episodes of She-Hulk release on Thursdays on Disney+.

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