Wonder Man Is A Wicked Winner

The eight-episode series Wonder Man premiered on Disney+ on Tuesday, Jan. 27, with all episodes available to binge in a rare release schedule for the streaming platform. When it was announced that Yaya Abdul Mateen II would star as Simon Williams and Sir Ben Kingsley would return to the MCU as Trevor Slattery, I was very hopeful for the show. When Daniel Destin Cretton of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings was named as creator and one of the directors, then Andrew Guest of Hawkeye and Community was named showrunner, my excitement stayed strong.

Then came the reshoots after the SAG-AFTRA strike in 2022. And the decision to label it as a “Marvel Spotlight” property, which has only one other title under its banner, the weak show Echo, caused me to start to worry. Then the decision to release the show in a very rare bingeable “all eight episodes at once” schedule implied that Disney and Marvel Studios wasn’t happy with the final product.

Turns out, I had nothing to worry about.

Below, without spoilers, is my review of Wonder Man including why I used the words in the title above (aside from the fact I love alliteration).

Wonder Man tells the story of struggling actor Simon Williams, who runs across Trevor Slattery who is trying to recover his own acting career after the troubles caused by his role as The Mandarin in Iron Man 3, as they both try to land roles in the planned remake of a 1980s action movie about a space-faring superhero named Wonder Man. Simon, as it turns out, has superpowers he keeps well hidden, because a catastrophe years earlier has caused Hollywood to ban all powered people from working in the industry.

That secret is one of the two primary dramatic tensions driving the show. The second comes in a reveal at the end of episode one, so I won’t spoil it here.

The show is very much an inside Hollywood character comedy-drama that pokes wicked (title word No. 1) fun at the entertainment industry while also portraying with compassion the challenges and struggles people in that industry face. The writing reflects both of these quite well. I laughed heartily at many of the industry jokes and was moved by the sincere depictions of Simon’s struggle with confidence and Trevor’s struggles with his troubled past of addiction and criminal behavior.

While the writing was quite good, it was the performances of Mateen II and Kingsley that elevate this series from good to a winner (title word No. 2) for Marvel Studios — a victory it sorely needed. Making Kingsley’s Slattery the co-lead in a series was a brilliant move, and his acting allows Mateen II to elevate his game above his already impressive levels. Both of them are absolutely magnetic every moment they are on screen — which is most of the series, thankfully.

The rest of the cast deliver solid performances, particularly X Mayo as Simon’s agent Janelle, and Zlatko Buric as Von Kovak, the director of the remake movie. And there are two important “as themselves” celebrity roles that I won’t spoil because they are fun reveals.

The direction, shared among a handful of directors, ranges from solid to excellent, with the Cretton-directed first episode as a standout.

I really have only three criticisms for Wonder Man. The first is that the writing doesn’t always rise to the peaks of quality. And I probably wouldn’t notice if not for the fact that much of the discussion of acting by the characters focuses on what makes quality dialogue. So, when something actually written for the characters to say seems clunky, it stands out even more than it otherwise might.

The second is the odd choices for bumper music, at the beginning and end of the episodes. The series is set in 2026, with flashbacks to around 2013, about a remake of a 1980s movie. But most of the bumper songs are from the late 1960s or early 1970s. They just seemed out of place, although I guess they were mostly California-sound rock classics, so maybe they were chosen to evoke that Hollywood feel.

Finally, the pacing. Most of the episodes flew by on a tight 30–40-minute run time. But the last two episodes seem to rush the story to its conclusion. That might be because the series was originally planned for 10 episodes, cut down to its current eight before filming resumed after the strike. Wonder Man could have used at least one more of those excised pair.

Overall though, Marvel Studios has created one of the best series since WandaVision. You don’t need to have seen any previous MCU movies or shows to get Wonder Man, but Iron Man 3 and the short Marvel One-Shot: All Hail the King would both add to your enjoyment of Trevor’s story.

I give Wonder Man (Marvel Studios; TV-14; 8 eps.) a 4 out of 5.