Marvel Nailed Wonder Man By Writing Him In Reverse
The Disney+ series completely ignores the hero's comics canon — and it works out for the better.
There was significantly less backlash than usual (manufactured or otherwise) over the decision to cast Black actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as the traditionally white Marvel superhero Simon Williams, aka Wonder Man. In an era of ardent fans finding any excuse to throw a tantrum, that’s both a relief and rarity. However, it also speaks to how far under-the-radar Williams has flown since being created by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby and Don Heck in 1964, when he perished after his very first appearance. (He would be resurrected for a cameo eight years later.) However, the D-lister’s biggest weakness — his obscurity — turned out to be the greatest strength of Wonder Man, his recent show on Disney+, in which Williams, a struggling actor, becomes best buds with the former Mandarin, Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley), the fake villain from Iron Man 3 (2013). That Williams is a “nobody” is both the core of his on-screen drama, and a major reason Marvel Studios could radically re-imagine him in the first place.
The tale of a self-absorbed actor with an ego too big for the small jobs in which he’s cast, the Wonder Man series follows Williams’ journey to landing the movie role of a lifetime: Wonder Man, a fictitious staple of American pop culture, introduced to him by his late immigrant father. For Williams, playing a superhero is a way to belong, as a lonely outsider, and a way to satisfy his lofty ambitions, which have long since become tied up in complex notions of identity. Wonder Man is the role he wants, needs, and deep down, believes he deserves — which is why he’s so eager to flatter and befriend the seemingly connected Slattery, a pseudo-celebrity wanted on federal charges for agreeing to play a fake militant. This is also why it’s easy for Slattery, now a secret informant for the Department of Damage Control, to ensnare him with promises of an audition in the hopes of exposing his superpowers, which William hopes to keep secret since they’re frowned upon on Hollywood sets.
As an avowed fan of the character (and the proud owner of a Marvel Legends 6-inch Wonder Man action figure), it was a thrill to see Andrew Guest and Destin Daniel Cretton’s series do him justice, despite him having little resemblance to his comic counterpart. That might seem like a paradox, but what makes Wonder Man, well, Wonder Man, is that he exists in the eye of the storm as a celebrity superhero, in the vein of DC’s Booster Gold — except he’s also a lovable sweetheart. The version played by Abdul-Mateen II is decidedly not those things, but the show’s imagined origin positions him as a person who could not only fulfill this dramatic purpose in theory, but inevitably will, since he starts out the complete opposite and makes his way across the spectrum through carefully considered drama about artistic struggle. It’s Surf Dracula done right — the long build to a character like Daredevil finally donning his iconic costume after an entire season, albeit without the drudgery. As far the source material is concerned, the show’s success stems from major changes that are entirely worth making.
Who Is Simon Williams In The Comics?
Wonder Man’s comic counterpart is very different from the TV show version.
The short version is he was once a rich industrialist granted nebulous “ionic” powers courtesy of Baron Zemo — energy mumbo jumbo the show doesn’t bother explaining, because really, who cares? However, Williams is also more famously an actor and stuntman, though he wouldn’t actually become either of those things until the 1980s. Despite his in-world stardom and a few self-titled comic runs, he’s actually still a small fry in the grand scheme of things, with a defining arc that involves his brother roping him into an embezzlement scheme before he’s eventually imprisoned. Tony Stark is also tangentially involved as Williams’ competitor, though this story was too inconsequential to really factor into Iron Man’s broader history.
Fittingly, Williams was likely at his most interesting as a supporting character in the 2006 Ms. Marvel comic run written by Brian Reed, when Carol Danvers (played by Brie Larson in the films) held this moniker prior to becoming Captain Marvel. In this series, Danvers decided she wanted to be the world’s most famous superhero (a trait the TV version of Williams absorbs). Wonder Man, by then a well-known celebrity, became the public beau of Carol’s superhero persona — a relationship set up by their PR teams — while Carol’s real affections lay elsewhere, but Williams would end up falling for her anyway, yielding an intriguing camaraderie.
Wonder Man’s first appearance was in The Avengers #9, where he was introduced as an in-universe star before subsequently also dying.
This adorkable version of the hero, some four decades into his existence, taps into what makes him such a reliable supporting player: he’s the ideal pal, in a narrative sense, and a great foil to other characters who’ve similarly been treated as also-rans. (His defining buddy arc in the comics is with supporting X-Men staple Beast.) As a celebrity superhero, he exists at the fragile nexus between the public and private lives of your average Avenger — which matters a whole lot more in the comics, where concealing one’s alter ego remains a major priority. In fact, in the comic series Civil War, where factions led by Iron Man and Captain America are split over superheroes registering their names with the U.S. government, he’s drafted as a mouthpiece for the pro-registration side and uses his fame for propaganda, but soon comes to regret it. (Again: he’s a sweetheart.)
How Wonder Man Adapts the Character to the MCU
Wonder Man is mostly a meta comedy on Hollywood that gradually builds to the persona Simon Williams is known for in the comics.
Wonder Man on Disney+ feels like it takes place eons after Captain America: Civil War from 2016 — the movies’ closest equivalent of the comics’ registration arc — and since the MCU practically began with a superhero publicly revealing themselves, in 2008’s Iron Man, the dual identity concept is practically moot. Everybody knows who Captain America is, and while the Spider-Man movies flirted with Peter Parker being revealed to the public, sorcery shenanigans quickly undid this. Having a character like Williams be publicly known as a superhero just wouldn’t have the same impact in the MCU, so the show instead pulls the admirable trick of making “Wonder Man” a celebrity identity for him to work towards, rather than a name he initially adopts, and makes famous after the fact. It also leaves the origin of his powers a mystery, but implies he was either born with them, or developed them at some point in his adolescence.
This Williams has no reason to declare himself a superhero, but he has every reason to hustle his way into being cast as one, at the risk of being exposed. It’s quite the conundrum. The show’s backdrop — in which the Department of Damage Control, seen in the Spider-Man films and the Ms. Marvel series, pursues dangerous individuals — also lets the MCU finally skirt close to the Civil War of the comics, albeit by having Williams fulfill the polar opposite function. He’s a man whose powers are concealed from the government, and evidence of his extraordinary abilities would torpedo his career. This plot taps into the ongoing Marvel saga in a manner that, for the first time in many years, makes it feel like the events of this universe have grounded consequences. What’s the impact of a bunch of heroes hopping dimensions in shows like Loki, and the recent Spider-Man and Doctor Strange sequels? That remains to be seen. But in a world where a punch from Williams might crack a wall? He’d be shunned from the industry he loves, so the stakes feel more tangible than the umpteenth abstract apocalypse.
Simon and Trevor’s friendship is the beating heart of the show.
Unlike his counterpart in print — a white man who rose easily and quickly through Hollywood’s ranks — the TV version of Williams is saddled with the kind of meta-textual cultural baggage that justifies the way the role was cast in the real world. This version of Williams is the son of Haitian immigrants, and the numerous structural and personal challenges in his path have all worked to actively prevent him from becoming the new Wonder Man, i.e. being cast in the role of a white superhero. Fittingly, his ethnicity is never a hurdle to actually playing the part (in fact, it doesn’t come up), but the show gestures at the idea that him becoming an actor is an entirely non-traditional career path for someone of his backdrop, i.e. someone navigating rigid cultural expectations and familial obligations. (Usually, his brother fulfills these before chastising him, thus playing an equally antagonistic role as he does in the comics.) Wonder Man is, essentially, about why someone like this specific, remixed version of Williams might never become the more traditional Wonder Man of the comics — in part because of the hurdles inherent to the film industry, but also because the MCU, and its increasingly superhero-populated landscape, has deemed him too dangerous to chase his dreams.
Williams should, in any rational or realistic story, never come close to fulfilling his objective. However, through ludicrous force of will, and an unexpectedly moving dynamic with a decade-old minor character deemed persona non grata, the series’ drama has him inch ever closer to both stardom and self-actualization — two goals seemingly in conflict with one another, but which, when achieved in tandem, will finally make him the more selfless version of Wonder Man from Marvel’s pages, a superhero who thrives in the spotlight.
