She-Hulk: Attorney at Law has officially started its streaming run on Disney+, and with it comes another round of Avengers callbacks and references for fans to enjoy.
While Ms. Marvel did this differently by showing how big of an Avengers fangirl Kamala Khan was, She-Hulk takes it to another level thanks to the Hulk's history as one of the OG Avengers. Fans already had one of these connections revealed when the show's first officially released clip showed a Sakaaran ship coming face-to-face with the two leading heroes, and the story only goes further from there.
Warning - The rest of this article contains spoilers for Episode 1 of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.
The aforementioned scene teased the question of whether Steve Rogers was a virgin in the MCU, with fans getting a hilarious answer in the episode's post-credits scene along with another near-MCU F-bomb.
But of course, in a project so focused on Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner and the Hulk, the show would be remiss not to mention his relationship with the MCU's late Natasha Romanoff, played for nearly a decade by Scarlett Johansson. And She-Hulk didn't disappoint on that front, as a key moment in the Hulk's development came in a conversation between Bruce and Jen after the car accident.
"Hey Big Guy...Sun's Getting Real Low"
Episode 1 of Marvel Studios' She-Hulk: Attorney at Law took a small shot at Natasha Romanoff's lullaby for the Hulk from Avengers: Age of Ultron.
After Jennifer Walters transformed into She-Hulk in Bruce Banner's lab, she asked Bruce how he would change back from his Hulk body into his human body before they joined together. This led back to a reference to Avengers: Age of Ultron, in which Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow would say to Bruce "Hey, big guy, sun's getting real low" before working her hands on his arm and hand.
This was known to both of them as a lullaby, which became a consistent part of the Hulk's MCU story.
“Well, usually I fall out of a jet or I get knocked out by a robot and wake up as Banner. Or, Natasha, for a little while, would tell me a lullaby.”
They even came to terms with the fact that there wasn't "a great explanation" for how this actually changed Bruce back from the Hulk, leaving it an unsolved MCU mystery:
Jennifer Walters: "Walk me through how that worked again."
Bruce Banner: "I don’t have a great explanation for it."
This was also referenced again in 2017's Thor: Ragnarok when Thor fought the Hulk on Sakaaar as a part of the Grandmaster's gladiator-style tournament. Thor didn't know that the Hulk had been the dominant personality for two full years, and when he tried out the lullaby, he ended up suffering a Loki-style beatdown before the fight continued.
Scarlett Johansson Gets She-Hulk Nod
More than three years after sacrificing herself for the Soul Stone in Avengers: Endgame, Scarlett Johansson's Natasha Romanoff still makes her presence felt in the greater MCU. While her relationship with Bruce Banner was quite an on/off affair throughout Phase 2 and Phase 3, their Avengers 2 moment gets a funny time to shine as Jennifer Walters learns how to be her own version of the Hulk.
There's still no true reasoning for why the lullaby from Age of Ultron actually worked, which only adds to the mystery behind the Hulk's ever-evolving journey as Banner learns more about his big green alter-ego.
Now that Johansson and Ruffalo's moment has been touched on, the chances are low that fans will see another reference to the lullaby in later episodes, even with so much still unknown about the Hulk and Banner's relationship in the past. But while Jennifer Walters takes the spotlight in her own solo series, hopefully, Marvel will have a chance to bring more Hulk-centric stories to the forefront in the not-too-distant future.
The first episode of Marvel Studios' She-Hulk: Attorney at Law is now streaming on Disney+.
