If you didn’t know that Marvel just dropped eight episodes of an MCU series last night, I wouldn’t blame you. Wonder Man feels like the last of an era where Marvel shines a fleeting spotlight (literally, they call it that) on specific characters with little if any real connection to the rest of the ongoing MCU. And in this case, Wonder Man is the least-MCU show I’ve ever seen. I mean that as a compliment.
Wonder Man is the story of Simon Williams attempting to land the lead role in Wonder Man, a remake of a beloved childhood classic with…Williams’ Wonder Man being a real-life, superpowered Marvel comic hero. It’s a twisted web of meta-ness that feels like it could fall on its face, but it absolutely does not. Williams, played fearlessly by Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, is joined by Ben Kingsley’s Trevor Slattery, the actor who played The Mandarin in Iron Man 3. As in, Kingsley was playing an actor acting as The Mandarin. Again, stay with me.
The result is something most akin to The Studio, the Seth Rogen frenetic comedy about Hollywood. It’s not quite that intense or funny, but you’ll see the commonality. This is also a show that technically makes things like American Horror Story, Sons of Anarchy and Joe Pantoliano canon in the Marvel universe, something we almost never see outside of Deadpool fourth-wall breaking.
The MCU has simply never seen anything like this. It’s a miracle Marvel let this get made at all, as it’s just so off-brand. It’s not just focused on a “unique” hero like Echo or Ironheart have been, this feels like something from an entirely different universe, the least superhero show in this superhero universe, albeit yes, Simon having powers is the driving force of the plot. In some ways, it feels like a less gloomy version of Unbreakable.
In addition to stellar performances by Abdul-Matten and Kingsley, you’ll notice that it was co-created by Destin Daniel Cretton and Andrew Guest, with Cretton being the director of Shang-Chi and now, the upcoming, all-important Spider-Man: Brand New Day. At present, he’s one of Marvel’s brightest talents, and if that wasn’t clear before, Wonder Man should reiterate that’s the case. He directs the first two episodes, which were written by Guest.
Wonder Man is being well-received by both critics and audiences. It was at one point the third-highest-scored MCU project ever, but now at a 90% Rotten Tomatoes score, that makes it the second-highest-scored MCU show ever, just 1% behind WandaVision. It also has a stellar 88% audience score, tied for first among a few series like WandaVision, Hawkeye, and Moon Knight.
It’s great. It deserved better promotion, but at least it exists, and at least Marvel greenlit a concept this wild in the first place. That’s something, at least, even if we never see Simon again after this.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.