There are plenty of characters in the Marvel canon that we’ve yet to see in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, either on the big or small screen. And with the way that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is heading, it isn’t a surprise that some of the lesser-known heroes are beginning to make appearances—like Simon Williams, a.k.a. Wonder Man, who first appeared in 1964 but has taken breaks and not been a focal point of Marvel comics. He’s certainly not the first character you’d think of when someone says Marvel, but he is important for where I think Marvel is heading.
And now the Marvel Cinematic Universe has announced a Wonder Man series that is heading to Disney+, from Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton. But fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe are probably wondering who Wonder Man is, and given what we know of Marvel’s upcoming plans, it isn’t that surprising for him to make an appearance.
Simon Williams is the son of Sanford Williams and the head of Williams Innovations. But more than that, he fell victim to his brother’s horrible advice and became part of the Masters of Evil when Baron Zemo saw the news that Simon blamed Tony Stark for his failing business. (Do you see how these characters work? Tony just exists, and somehow he’s to blame for their bad business moves …)
What happens is that Zemo convinces Simon to use his “ionic ray” to give him super powers, and that’s how Wonder Man is born. So how does this all play into the larger MCU?
Bring in the Thunderbolts
While Wonder Man is part of the West Coast Avengers, what he have brewing in the MCU currently is the Thunderbolts, a team that Baron Zemo is most likely a part of. So, we could be seeing the origin of Wonder Man there, or maybe it’s just a connection until we get to see something like the West Coast Avengers form.
But all of this is exciting for fans of the comics because we’re starting to move away from the more “iconic” Marvel heroes, and we’re getting to learn more and more about those characters who have been there from the start and where their journey ends up in the live-action form, greatly expanding Marvel’s onscreen universe to a wider cast of characters. A Wonder Man series was never really on my radar because I just thought that we’d get some other big hero before we’d dive into characters like Simon Williams, but then again, the MCU is changing (for the better), and it’s fun to know that characters like Wonder Man are getting their time.
Wonder Man and Wanda
What’s fascinating to ME is that Wonder Man has pretty heavy ties to my girl Wanda Maximoff, and after what happened in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, I wonder if Simon will get to meet Wanda at all, or if the Wanda of Earth-616 isn’t actually dead and that’s how we’ll get the connection between Wonder Man and Wanda/Vision.
I hope that Wonder Man brings us to the West Coast Avengers and we get to see him team up with Hawkeye, Mockingbird, and War Machine (and maybe get Tigra sometime soon as well), but until then, a show about Simon Williams is exciting, and I’m happy to have Destin Daniel Cretton bringing him to life. But this also means even more of Daniel Brühl’s Baron Zemo, right?
(featured image: Marvel Entertainment)
