RIOTUS

Wonder Man is a pretty quirky show. As a long-time superhero comic reader, Simon Williams, aka Wonder Man, isn’t a new character to me. I was first introduced to him in the Data East arcade video game Captain America and the Avengers. He was an assist character, he’d come out at a certain part help out, and the characters would say “THANK YOU, WONDER MAN!” After I’d read the trading cards and old issues along with the current issues of The Avengers, and see how the ionic superpowered fun guy who was also an actor was alright. His best look was the red safari jacket with his red sunglasses, which made him stand out. I wondered why they took so long to bring him into the MCU, as he’s such an essential character to the Avengers.

Wonder Man started as a foe of the Avengers and the basis of the Vision’s personality, was in a cool love triangle with Vision and Scarlet Witch, and had a cool friendship with Hank McCoy, the Beast. I thought for sure once Vision was a thing we’d see him, but like many things, that was not the case here. Wonder Man, the Marvel Television miniseries, focuses on Simon Williams Hollywood career more than anything else. Here we have Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Simon, a struggling actor just waiting for his big break while also carrying a big secret – he has superpowers. After a chance meeting with disgraced actor who the world knows as The Mandarin, Trevor Slattery – played by the excellent Sir Ben Kingsley, takes him under his wing so that Simon can land the lead role in the new superhero remake WONDER MAN.

So this show is a meta show. The series will feel familiar if you’ve watched recent series The Franchise on HBO Max or The Studio on Apple TV. The show focuses very much on Simon’s struggles in LA as an actor and his desire to be a big movie star, and it’s very relatable. Abdul-Mateen II is great in this role and efficiently controls the focus when he’s on screen. The show does well to make you very empathetic to Simon and his journey and his ambition to get at this opportunities to live his dream even as it affects his personal relationships. We see Olivia Thirlby very briefly as Vivian, his ex-girlfriend, and we see how his relationship with his brother Eric (Demetrius Grosse) is not the best.

Making Simon and his family Haitian immigrants is an interesting angle as well. This detail, along with how Abdul-Mateen II portrays Simon as very controlled and reserved, with what people know about him and how he acts in public. Connecting this to his hidden abilities and working in Hollywood, the show highlights how people, especially people of color, have to shrink themselves to be more relatable to the decision-makers at the studios, no matter how talented they are.

The core relationship in the show, though, is between Simon and Trevor and how they become friends. Kingsley has grown into Trevor quite well from a pretty lacking joke character way back in Iron Man 3 into an interesting original character in the MCU. Kingsley and Abdul-Mateen II have great chemistry, and their episodic hijinks are never not entertaining. I could’ve watched them for a lot longer than the eight episodes of this series. I guess he’s our replacement for the Beast. I feel this is the most entertaining part of the show, even more than Simon’s goal and the whole idea of the Wonder Man movie in the story. There’s more going on with Trevor and Simon that I don’t want to spoil, but it adds a nice wrinkle for both characters and their performances.

X Mayo plays Janelle Jackson, Simon’s agent, and steals every scene she’s in with her comic timing and perfect reaction expressions to whatever Simon has planned. Josh Gad plays himself in a bottle episode that ended up being pretty surprising. I did like Zlatko Burić‘s Von Kovak, the highly esteemed director of the Wonder Man remake. Joe Pantoliano plays himself as an old friend of Trevor, and he and Kingsley are great going back and forth with each other. Arian Moayed returns as P. Cleary, the Department of Damage Control Agent, who is suspicious of Simon. While initially interesting, this take on Damage Control is losing its draw with me as I miss the workplace comedy aspect of what Damage Control was. He’s just continuing to be a terrible government agent, filling the Henry Peter Gyrich role that was in a lot of Marvel Comics in the 80s through 90s. Byron Bowers plays DeMarr Davis / Doorman, a deep cut character pull that is used quite well in this series. I was very surprised, and most of that is due to Bowers performance, he’s very likable.

The series is short, with only eight episodes, each around half an hour in length. It’s a show that’s very easy to binge, which, while enjoyable, I don’t know if it’s something that will get people to go back and watch again or drive much conversation beyond its initial few weeks on the service. While a lot of people feel this show isn’t being promoted well or at all, the more meta stuff they have done with Abdul-Mateen II and Kingsley doing promotion in character and with a lot of TV influencers and YouTubers. It’s interesting and works with the show’s premise, but I don’t know if it helps the show. Let me tell you, if you’re watching this show to see where things are going regarding Avengers: Doomsday, you’re not going to get it; that’s not the point of this show. Wonder Man is about Simon Williams, and it’s a very well-made, quirky series that works better without all the MCU trimmings. I do wish it were longer, and I do hope we see Simon sooner rather than later.