Sure, it’s maybe a few years late, but Marvel’s first teaser trailer for its Wonder Man TV series really seems to understand how exhausted we all are by the last fifteen-thousand years of superhero film and TV. It also looks properly fantastic.
Wonder Man is certainly one of the more forgotten heroes of the Silver Age, yet another Jack Kirby and Stan Lee creation, originally cast as a supervillain for the Avengers to battle in 1964. By the late ’70s and after a bunch of rebirths, he finally changed his ways and joined the goodies, and has appeared in the comics here and there ever since. But until now, Simon “Wonder Man” Williams had yet to even be a twinkle in the MCU’s eye. He’s about to finally get his debut in what looks like an extremely meta Disney+ show.
The teaser is so meta, in fact, that it only reveals the man himself in its final moment, when we finally, briefly see Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s face. The rest of the time is mostly filled with the gloriously bonkers Zlatko Burić as Von Kovak, the director of a 1970s Wonder Man movie, returning to reinvent the character for a modern audience that has grown weary of superhero fiction. Layers.
We also get a glimpse of Sir Ben Kingsley (it’s funny to remember he’s a “Sir” when he’s in this ridiculous character) as recurring MCU buffoon Trevor Slattery, but there’s no sign here of Ed Harris as Williams’ agent, nor of Josh Gad in his secret role. Instead we get a lot of rather inexplicable moments, like people in the street reacting to what I can only assume isn’t the interview with Kovak, and a group taking bikini photos in front of the Hollywood sign. But my very favorite of the fleeting shots are the recreations of the (fictional) original Wonder Man movie, in glorious Technicolor, with crappy alien suits and a clunky spaceship on those over-used sandy rocks in L.A.
The premise of the show is that actor and stuntman Simon Williams is cast to play the new version of Wonder Man, but inadvertently gains genuine superpowers somewhere along the way. It’s been described by its creators as a “love letter to acting,” with its behind-the-scenes perspective on a film production offering a meta view of the whole process. Also, Kingsley will get to ham it up more than ever before.
Ironically enough, I think we’re now in such an odd desert of Marvel movies that the hero fatigue motif feels ever-so slightly off. Captain America: Brave New World was such a nothing event that I honestly forgot it even got a theatrical release, and Thunderbolts* felt like it was from an entirely different franchise. But after Fantastic Four and Superman did so well this summer, and didn’t have to fight for attention among a dozen other Marvel and DC outings, I’m actually feeling ready for it to all ramp back up again. Presumably this eight-part TV series will set up Wonder Man to be in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars mega-movies due in 2026 and 2027. In the meantime, there really is only Spider-Man: Brave New Day to come before them on the big screen for the MCU.
Even Wonder Man isn’t troubling the current year, as it’s not arriving on Disney+ until January. And that’s despite it having apparently been ready to go for a good few months now.
