She-Hulk Answers The Most Important Captain America Question Of All Time
(This article contains spoilers for the first episode of "She-Hulk." Please proceed with caution.)
When Jason Lee's Brodie Bruce meets Stan "The Man" Lee at the local mall in Kevin Smith's "Mallrats," they have an emotional heart to heart talk about love and how some of the iconic Marvel Comics characters created by the legendary writer reflected his own heartbreak and regret. But moments before, the comics-obsessed slacker inquires about the sex habits of some of the Marvel Universe's top heroes.
Many True Believers have likely had similar questions over the years, especially during their formative years. Questions like these also played a part in the creation of indie comics like "The Boys" and "Invincible." And though we've gotten small glimpses into the romantic lives of major superheroes like Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Daredevil before, it's not like these characters are openly and explicitly talking about having sex and losing their virginity in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
However, that all changes in "She-Hulk: Attorney At Law" when Jennifer Walters presents a theory to her Avenger cousin, Bruce Banner, about his beloved friend and colleague Steve Rogers. While the duo are driving through the mountains, she hypothesizes that Captain America was too preoccupied to lose his virginity after taking the Super Soldier Serum, fighting in the war, getting frozen in ice, and becoming one of Earth's Mightiest Heroes.
"So it seems like he was pretty, pretty busy," she says before a Sakaaran ship causes the car wreck that gives her Hulk powers. "Obviously, Captain America was a virgin."
Despite not getting an answer then and there, Jen does get an answer by the end of the episode and the show's creator and head writer Jessica Gao recently revealed how that came to be.
Like a virgin
While speaking to Variety about She-Hulk's introduction into the MCU, Gao touched on her fandom of the character, the various shows that inspired this one, and the budgetary constraints that affected their scipts. The former "Rick and Morty" and "Robot Chicken" writer also shared that the episode order was altered slightly so that material from episode 8 was moved to the pilot in order to reveal She-Hulk's origins sooner, which ended up changing a running gag in the show about Captain America's virginity.
"We just started putting it in scripts. There used to be a season-long runner where the thing that is constantly gnawing away at Jen is this question of whether or not Steve Rogers had ever had sex. You just regularly see her like googling it, talking about it. You got the sense that she was just constantly pestering people in her life, this question that was burning away at her soul. I can't describe to you how thrilled and shocked I was that not only was Kevin on board with answering the question, that he supplied me with the canon answer."
This answer comes straight from the incredible Hulk's mouth after a night of drinking at his bar on the beach following a full day of training with his cousin. Banner reveals in the post-credits scene of episode one that "Steve Rogers is not a virgin. He lost his virginity to a girl in 1943 on the USO tour." Clearly, Walters is ecstatic to hear this and exclaims," CAPTAIN AMERICA FUC-" before getting cut off by the rest of the credits. While it's a bummer that this recurring bit had to be cut, at least the Brodie Bruces and Jennifer Walters of the world have their answer.
But moving on to Reed Richards, who can stretch every part of his body ...
So... who did it for their country?
While Banner might have finally — and definitively — answered the question that had been gnawing at Jen, it does still open the door to a whole new trove of questions. Like, how did Bruce come by that information in the first place? More importantly, who exactly was "the girl" that Cap lost his virginity to in 1943?
Peggy Carter lovers can rule Steve's soulmate out right away, as she was off fighting on the front lines while Steve was staging a showdown with Hitler. There was also Natalie Dormer's flirty, forward lieutenant that stole a kiss from Steve — and caused a bit of a rift between him and Peggy — in "Captain America: The First Avenger," but all that went down after the USO tour wrapped.
Could Steve have lost his V-Card with an unnamed USO dancer, or maybe an off-screen gal that didn't appear in "The First Avenger" at all? It's possible, but Steve had at least one other romantic run-in that coincided perfectly with the events Banner described. Remember the beautiful blonde that approached Steve for an autograph during the USO montage? Yeah, their interaction was brief, but they had some serious chemistry — the kind that alludes to a little something more. There's always the chance that the enigmatic "Autograph Seeker" wasn't Steve's first, either, but it's endlessly fun to speculate. There's a reason this was the topic that consumed Jen Walters' every waking moment.
But wait, there's more
Will "She-Hulk" find a way to keep the gag running, and give fans an answer to who exactly got down with the Star-Spangled Man? It might feel like the series was forced to wrap up one of its best jokes prematurely, but according to "She-Hulk" director Kat Coiro, nothing's off the table. Coiro spoke to Total Film about the viral Captain America reference, and how the meta nature of "She-Hulk" makes it possible to comment on even the most out-there MCU theories:
"The writers definitely had their fingers on the pulse about what people were talking about online, and we were able to address all that because the show has that fourth wall-breaking element. The show is very meta and conscious of what's going out into the world regarding the MCU, so that's a direct reflection of the writers' involvement with the internet."
According to Coiro, the big wigs at Marvel are very keen to hear what the internet has to say as well. "One thing I love about Marvel is that everyone involved really listens to the fans, and takes in their wishes and desires. I think it's what makes the MCU so strong." It's also what made the Steve Rogers gag possible in the first place — and if the fans are wishing for more, it doesn't seem like they'll be waiting very long to get it. "It's something that comes back," Coiro added. "That's all I'll say."