This is one of those things I just knew was going to happen because you could see it coming from a mile away. She-Hulk attracted controversy ahead of release for its digital effects in trailers, but past that, happens to be an MCU show directed by, written by, produced by and starring women. And as such, it’s being review bombed with a flurry of one-star reviews here on launch day, almost identically to what happened with Ms. Marvel, and what has not happened to the same extent with other MCU series.
In fact, this is actually worse than what happened with Ms. Marvel. All I have to do is consult the last article I wrote about this, which shows what review bombing actually looks like, where it’s taking place on IMDB, which only takes user scores into account, unlike Rotten Tomatoes which splits critics and users.
Back when I wrote how this was happening to Ms. Marvel, here were the percent of reviews that were 1 star for all the other MCU shows:
- Loki – 1.5%
- WandaVision – 2.2%
- Hawkeye – 1.5%
- Moon Knight – 4.8%
- What If…? – 2.1%
- Falcon and the Winter Soldier – 3%
- Ms. Marvel – 22.2%
Ready for the She-Hulk figures? Yeah, so:
Yes, more than a third of all reviews for She-Hulk are 1 star, which makes its current IMDB score 5.4 out of 10, the lowest of all the MCU series. Ms. Marvel is still at a 6.2 with 19.9% 1 star reviews, so it’s not like IMDB every really goes and tries to sort through these kinds of bombing campaigns. And as I posted last time, here’s what this curve looks like for a “just okay” series like Falcon and the Winter Soldier that no one is bombing:
On Rotten Tomatoes it’s less severe. She-Hulk has a 90% critic score with 255 reviews in and 77% audience score, which isn’t great (it’s the lowest among MCU shows at the moment), but it’s not as intensive of a bombing run as what’s being shown on IMDB.
All anyone has is their opinion, of course, but there’s a difference between a show or movie reviewing worse than average, and a literal flood of one star reviews that are incredibly disproportionate compared to every other show except for Ms. Marvel.
After having watched the first episode this morning, I’d say the complaints about CG are mostly moot now, as things look a lot better in the live show than they did in the trailers. I also thought the comedy and fourth wall-breaking worked, but I’m certainly curious to see more and how the show develops now that Jennifer is back in lawyer mode.
So yes, as ever, this kind of review bombing is incredibly childish and stupid. She-Hulk may not end up being the greatest MCU series ever, sure, but what’s happening here is not reflective of its quality whatsoever, and is yet another embarrassing comic book media fandom moment.
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Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2022/08/18/she-hulk-is-getting-review-bombed-even-harder-than-ms-marvel/