She-Hulk episode 9 season finale had some major reveals, some crazy meta fourth wall breaking and all in all a well-deserved ending for the legal comedy series it set out to be. The episode naturally picked up from where it was left off. She-Hulk, now transformed into Jennifer Walters, was sitting in a jail cell. This was after her outburst at the gala that was infiltrated by the Intelligencia. Jen Walters and her lawyer Mallory Book along with Pug and Nikki struck a deal. According to the deal, she would be released from prison. But only as long as she wore an ankle monitor and never changed into She-Hulk again. And this set her off on her path to legal justice against the Intelligencia.
Intelligencia in She-Hulk
The Intelligencia was first introduced as a website for hateful man-babies who got together to trash She-Hulk. When Nikki Ramos and Mallory B0ok explored the site further, they found a much darker side to the organization. The website was full of death threats that simply became more and more real as time went on. The organization planned the targeted attack on She-Hulk at the gala with the intention to provoke her. As a matter of fact, they even hired Josh to go out with Jen and steal her blood when she was sleeping. They wanted to portray her as a monster and take her down. Consequently, they succeeded in all of their missions and had more up their sleeves.
In episode 9, we see Nikki and Pug try to infiltrate a closed door, invite only, meeting of the Intelligencia. In order to get the invite, Nikki posts a video of Jen dancing in college on the website. Eventually, she sends Pug to the gathering of the “bros” and this is where the reveal occurs. It turns out, HulkKing, the guy who was the admin on the Intelligencia website and apparently created the entire thing is none other than Todd Phelps. The guy who went on a date with She-Hulk and is a client of Mallory Book in GLK and H. While we at wiki of nerds saw this coming, it still felt a bit anticlimactic. The people part of the organization were simply useless men who had nothing better to do. However, the Intelligencia from Marvel comics are quite the opposite.
How the Intelligencia was a major missed opportunity
In the Marvel comics, The Intelligencia was a group composed of the smartest and most accomplished villains of the universe. It was created by none other than Captain America: New World Order’s villain The Leader aka Samuel Sterns himself. The organization also had Doctor Victor Von Doom as a member at one point of time. The Intelligencia were pretty successful in their ventures which included creating the Red Hulk and infiltrating Wakanda to get a hold of their Vibranium reserves. However, in She-Hulk, the Intelligencia simply became an organization created by a rich spoiled guy who is joined by a bunch of hateful man babies.
This was a major missed opportunity for the MCU. Intelligencia can be a huge venture for Marvel and see a collaboration between some of the most brilliant evil minds. Basically a crossover event like Infinity Wars, just for villains.
Can the MCU right the wrong?
There still could be someone else behind the Intelligencia. One who is working from the shadows as of yet. In fact it could just be The Leader who is calling the shots. After all, Todd Phelps really does not seem smart enough to pull all this off. And if you remember correctly, the episode where Jen met Josh, we got to see the workings inside of a lab. Here we saw that the HulkKing was communicating with someone else too. This person could very much be the mastermind behind all of this. Hopefully the MCU can recover this and make something worthwhile of it.
