{"id":323090,"date":"2025-11-30T22:30:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-30T22:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/323090\/"},"modified":"2025-11-30T22:30:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T22:30:10","slug":"marvel-officially-confirms-a-huge-change-for-2026s-first-new-mcu-supervillain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/323090\/","title":{"rendered":"Marvel Officially Confirms A Huge Change For 2026’s First New MCU Supervillain"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Marvel Cinematic Universe<\/a> has made lots of changes to comic book villains, and that remains true for an upcoming MCU release. Since the start of the MCU, the studio has made some significant changes to villains, including the most popular of them all, Loki, who was made more sympathetic in the comics after his changes in the MCU. Villains like Klaw, The Mandarin, The Leader, and Grandmaster have also received monumental changes to their characters, some for the better and some that made them that much worse. For every positive change like that of Killmonger, there is a terrible one, with Malekith as a great example.<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen if the latest change will be positive or negative for the MCU. According to the Winter 2025 issue of Disney\u2019s D23 Magazine (via The Direct<\/a>), significant changes are coming to the character of Eric Williams in the upcoming Wonder Man Disney+ series. As Marvel Comics fans know, Eric is Simon Williams\u2019 brother, and while Simon becomes the superhero known as Wonder Man<\/a>, Eric becomes the villain known as the Grim Reaper. In the comics, Eric was often overlooked by his parents, and he ended up developing violent tendencies. According to Disney\u2019s D23 Magazine, that is not the case in the MCU.<\/p>\n

According to Marvel Studios\u2019 Director of Production and Development, Brian Gay, Simon will return to his childhood home for one episode, and that specific episode will introduce his family. \u201cWe will meet several members of the Williams family, including Simon\u2019s mother, Martha, and older brother Eric, as well as a few cousins,\u201d Gay said. \u201cWe will learn how Simon\u2019s relationships made him the person he is today.\u201d Interestingly, Gay then said this was to show how Simon got to where he is today, and said, \u201cEric is the stable one, while Simon went into the arts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wonder Man Will Clearly Change the Comic Book Characters<\/p>\n

\"SimonImage Courtesy of Marvel<\/p>\n

The first trailers for Wonder Man clearly show that the Disney+ series<\/a> is making some drastic changes to the character. It looks more like She-Hulk than other Disney+ shows, and that is a good thing for fans who like originality in their MCU releases. The trailer shows that Simon is an actor trying out for the role of Wonder Man, a classic sci-fi hero from the fictional world of the MCU. Simon is an actor in the comics, but the series\u2019 early trailers make no case that he will have powers in the MCU.<\/p>\n

That said, the show is based in the MCU, so there are superpowered heroes and villains around. Even if Simon doesn\u2019t look like he has powers, it doesn\u2019t mean that the show won\u2019t lead to that over the season. As for Eric Williams, he is not only \u201cstable,\u201d but he also works in insurance. This doesn\u2019t sound like the Grim Reaper from the comics, but just because someone looks stable from the outside doesn\u2019t mean he is hiding his darkness. Working in insurance is not as positive an occupation as one might think in today\u2019s society, and there is a good chance that he is a bad person, and one who might go over the edge if Simon suddenly becomes a world-famous actor. <\/p>\n

From the outset, it seems that Wonder Man is a low-key meta series that looks to poke fun at the superhero fatigue that people claim exists. Wonder Man added Tervor Slattery<\/a> (Iron Man 3, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings) to the cast, which compounds that since his entire character arc is poking fun at the acting industry. However, expect it to have a little deeper meaning, as She-Hulk did, and to add some superhero\/villain action to the series. Whether that includes Eric Williams turning into the Grim Reaper or not remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum<\/a>!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Marvel Cinematic Universe has made lots of changes to comic book villains, and that remains true for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323091,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,15077,206,125059],"class_list":{"0":"post-323090","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-movies","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-marvel-cinematic-universe","10":"tag-movies","11":"tag-wonder-man-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323090"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323090\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323091"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}