Why She-Hulk Is Being Review Bombed Harder Than Ms. Marvel

Marcelo de Souza Silverio Leite - ScreenRant- Yesterday 


The newest Disney+ Marvel series She-Hulk: Attorney At Law is being review bombed on IMDB, and the percentage of 1-star reviews for She-Hulk is much higher than it was for previous review-bombed MCU projects like Ms. Marvel. Continuing Marvel Studios’ post-Avengers: Endgame strategy, the Disney+ platform is once again being used to introduce a new Marvel character into the MCU, She-Hulk. The same strategy had been previously used in Ms. Marvel and Moon Knight, but the Disney+ Marvel series are sparking a level of criticism that often involves not just complaints about the shows but about the MCU as a whole – in addition to a significant amount of bad faith reviews.



Considering how a lot of the Disney+ Marvel shows have been criticized for being too similar in terms of structure – as in the number of episodes, the secret villain reveals, and the CG-filled third acts – it would seem that She-Hulk would be well received for its originality. While She-Hulk is not exactly Deadpool, the idea of placing Jennifer Walters in a fourth-wall-breaking 30-minute comedy sounded like the perfect way to introduce She-Hulk into the MCU – not to mention it would offer something unique to the franchise. She-Hulk episode 1 delivered exactly what had been promised – Marvel Studios’ first comedy series that combines law drama with some old superhero tropes. However, that did not avoid She-Hulk from being review bombed on IMDB.

Related: She-Hulk Fixes 1 MCU Superhero Problem

As of writing, She-Hulk: Attorney At Law has a 31.5% percentage of 1-star reviews on IMDB. In other words, almost a third of the 30,846 IMDB users who reviewed She-Hulk gave the Marvel show 1 out of 10 stars. An important point to understand She-Hulk’s review bombing is IMDB’s flawed rating system, which allows for a show like She-Hulk to be reviewed by those who have not even watched it yet, thus making all movies and shows susceptible to these sorts of review bombings. When navigating through She-Hulk’s 1-star reviews on IMDB, it’s possible to find recurrent topics like the She-Hulk CGI, Hulk’s role in the story being so far limited to comedy relief, and comedy bits that not always land. Those particular elements have been used as a criticism against She-Hulk ever since the marketing campaign for the show rolled out, and it’s not really a surprise to find them in the She-Hulk reviews. However, She-Hulk’s 1-star reviews feature, for the most part, low-effort complaints about “toxic feminism,” “Mary Sue-like main character,” “woke story,” “forced empowerment,” and similar remarks. While not surprising, those types of comments have been common in female-centered pop culture projects, including Marvel’s previous Disney+ show Ms. Marvel.

Related video: Early reviews for She-Hulk are in...

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Is Marvel Review Bombing Getting Worse?

While review bombing is nothing new for major pop culture releases, that practice has recently become much more present as seen with Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk. Before Ms. Marvel, the Marvel Studios Disney + series with the highest 1-star reviews ratio was Moon Knight, with a percentage of 4.8% of reviewers who gave the Oscar Isaac show 1 out of 10 stars. In a jarring contrast, Ms. Marvel has a 22.2% of 1-star reviews, which is now followed by an even bigger number with She-Hulk. Ms. Marvel suffered from the same batch of early 1-star reviews when the show had barely even started, with complaints about the CGI, the costumes, and the action pieces – although terms like “woke” and “childish” could also be found.

Given how most of the Marvel Disney+ series have suffered from the same issues of pacing and CGI, it’s hard not to notice such a discrepancy between the reception of previous shows and the review-bombing of She-Hulk and Ms. Marvel. Online movie and TV discourse, especially involving big franchises like the MCU, often leads to highly-divisive releases. However, it’s clear that there is a significant level of toxicity and unfairness involved in events like the She-Hulk: Attorney At Law review bombing, which calls for platforms like IMDB to revise their rating systems.