You can’t expect every character in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to get an origin story similar to their comic book counterparts. While the MCU’s initial films were relatively loyal to their source material, the films and shows have since paved their own path, and Wonder Man is the latest hero to get a total revamp. In the comics, he gains his powers via exposure to ionic radiation. In his Disney+ debut, however, we never learn how he gained his super strength or his ability to generate ionic pulses — but he might have been born with it.
According to co-showrunner Andrew Guest, that was by design. The Wonder Man team wanted to pay tribute to a specific kind of superhero movie in exploring Simon Williams’ (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) origins: Fox’s X-Men saga.
“One of the things we wanted to do was [make] sure that the powers for Simon Williams served his character,” Guest recently told The Direct. “I look back at that first X-Men movie and how those powers that all those teenagers [had] felt so psychological... And [Simon’s powers] felt like it was some part of him that sort of happened to him as opposed to something that he was A, excited about, or B, wanted to even get to know.”
Simon might be a mutant, but the Wonder Man team wanted to leave the situation open-ended.
We never see how Simon gains his powers, but Wonder Man does explore how they manifest, just as the X-Men films introduce Rogue and Cyclops in the moment their abilities first appear. It’s impossible not to wonder if Simon is a mutant himself, and it’s apparently a question that the Wonder Man team pondered, too. For now, though, it’s up to the powers that be.
“It’s a very good question,” Guest said. “It’s one we discussed, and it’s one we decided we weren’t going to answer.”
Wonder Man is a part of a much larger world, so decisions like this are likely out of Guest’s hands. Still, Simon is basically a mutant in all but name. Do we really need outright confirmation after Wonder Man hinted so strongly towards it?
