It’s a good thing when the MCU gets meta. Remember when She-Hulk busted out of her own Disney+ icon, complained to Marvel Studios about the proposed ending to her own show, and took it up with the machine known as K.E.V.I.N.? Well, Marvel’s next live-action series is about to get self-referential too. In Wonder Man, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II doesn’t just play Wonder Man. No, he’s Simon Williams, an actor going for a role in a ‘Wonder Man’ movie, having grown up a big fan of the old ‘Wonder Man’ movie; except, he also might have some Wonder Man-esque powers of his own. Keeping up?
Off the back of this year’s trio of movies – the politically-themed thriller Captain America: Brave New World, anti-hero team-up Thunderbolts, and retro-futurist adventure The Fantastic Four: First Steps – it represents another flavour of Marvel. “We’re doing something that, tonally, feels much different than really any other Marvel show, or any other films,” the actor – Abdul-Mateen, not Simon Williams – promises Empire. “We’re doing something that’s fresh, and a bit tongue-in-cheek, a bit self-aware.” Get ready for a series that nods to all the machinery of Hollywood, the state of the superhero genre, and what it takes to be a leading man.
Still underneath all the fourth-wall-breaking fun, there’ll be real character work anchoring the show, as Williams teams up with Sir Ben Kingley’s recurring MCU favourite, actor Trevor Slattery. “The show is self-aware, without looking directly into the camera,” Abdul-Mateen explains. “There’ll be commentary about superhero fatigue and things like that, but to me, it’s just dressing. That’s not really the aim of the show. The focus of the show is about an actor’s journey. It’s about a journey of friendship.” Get ready to feel the wonder, man.
Read Empire’s full Wonder Man story in The Odyssey issue, on sale Thursday 20 November. Pre-order a copy online here. Wonder Man streams on Disney+ from 28 January.