Wonder Man is Marvel’s latest attempt to launch a comic book character into the studio’s cinematic universe, but in spite of some committed performances and a few good laughs, it’s a muddled affair that fails to fully take flight until the very end.
We’re five years into Marvel crafting superhero shows for Disney+ and – for better or worse – the studio has experimented with their hugely successful formula by tackling new genres on a regular basis.
WandaVision was sitcom satire before veering into something more profound, Loki did time-travel action and adventure, Ms. Marvel was a coming-of-age comedy, She-Hulk a light-hearted legal procedural, Secret Invasion a serious spy thriller, and Agatha All Along musical fantasy that played like a road movie.
There have been as many hits as misses along the way, but Marvel’s commitment to mixing things up has been commendable. And the studio is at it again with Wonder Man, an MCU entry that’s as messy as it is meta; and one that’s ultimately more miss than hit.
Who is Simon Williams?
The show revolves around Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) an aspiring actor who’s approaching middle-age without a hit movie or show to his name. Not because he isn’t talented, but due to Simon being his own worst enemy.
In Episode 1 he lands a line in American Horror Story – just before his character gets his head bitten off. But due to a tendency to overthink things, Simon immediately annoys the production by requesting backstory and additional layers for his character, pleas that quickly get him fired.
It goes from bad-to-worse for Simon in this first instalment, as thanks to a refusal to open up to his girlfriend or even let her in just a little, he gets dumped, and cuts an increasingly isolated and lonely figure.
But as proceedings progress, it becomes clear that Williams has good reason to keep people at bay, and that’s because he’s a super-powered being who can harness huge amounts of energy.
Trouble is, that power tends to manifest itself when Simon gets angry, and stuff around him implodes, making him a danger to those in his vicinity, and putting Williams on the radar of Damage Control.
What is Wonder Man about?
Simon connected with his dad through a Wonder Man movie in the past, and his dream is to play the character in a film being made in the present. That wish comes true over the course of these eight episodes, but it comes at a great price to both Williams and the people he cares about.
One of those friends is Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley) the English actor introduced as fake Mandarin in Iron Man 3, who was last seen cutting a much more heroic figure in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.
The pair meet at a screening of Midnight Cowboy, audition for Wonder Man on the same day, and quickly form a close bond, with Trevor becoming something of a father figure to Simon, as well as a great source of wisdom (when he isn’t obsessing over Chaka Khan).
Their friendship turns Wonder Man into both a character piece and a tale of mismatched buddies, with Simon and Trevor trading barbs and getting into scrapes that spotlight the sparkling chemistry between Abdul-Mateen and Kingsley. But that’s only half the story…
A show that can’t find its feet
The eight Wonder Man episodes are all over the place in terms of story, with some instalments feeling insignificant, others head-scratchers, and too much of the series is just dull.
The show starts in promising fashion, with the movie established, the heroes introduced, and a potential villain hinted at (who amounts to very little). But then it meanders for far too much of the run-time.
There’s a birthday episode at Simon’s mom’s house that doesn’t progress proceedings in any meaningful way, an auditioning episode at a director’s house that delivers some character development but little else, and an episode situated at Joe Pantoliano’s house that’s just pointless, save for a neat payoff at the end.
There’s also a wild instalment about a bouncer who develops powers, lands a job working for Josh Gad, becomes known as ‘Door Man,’ and enters the entertainment industry; a standalone episode that barely connects to the central storyline.
But it’s frustrating watching a random character’s origin story before seeing Simon’s unfold, while by ignoring the protagonists entirely, those 30 minutes rob Wonder Man of momentum. And there wasn’t much of that to begin with.
Is Wonder Man good?
Superman series Smallville billed itself as a comic book show with “no tights,” and “no flights,” which worked as it proved to be a fascinating character study of both Clark Kent and Lex Luthor.
Wonder Man takes a similar approach to the Marvel hero, but in this instance, we never truly get a sense of what makes Simon Williams tick, and sometimes explode.
With no thrust to the narrative, and no engine driving the story forward, I found myself questioning why I was watching. The answer should be Simon, and seeing his transformation into a bona fide super-powered hero. But that barely happens.
Instead, Wonder Man is like the Marvel equivalent of Seth Rogen’s The Studio, to the point that I was expecting Matt Remick to storm into shot and complain about the lack of action in what’s billed as a superhero series.
But do comic book fans want their shows to be more Hollywood satire than action-adventure? Equally, do comedy fans want the drama of an unremarkable origin story getting in the way of jokes?
Whatever the intention, it works as neither, as there aren’t enough good gags for Wonder Man to function as a two-handed sitcom, while we don’t get genuine superhero thrills until the final few scenes.
That inherent contradiction makes Wonder Man feel less like a satisfying self-contained series, and more akin to an overlong and underwhelming pre-credits sequence.
Wonder Man score: 2/5
All eight episodes of Wonder Man will be available on Disney+ from January 27, 2026.
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