Wonder Man Cast, Plot, & Everything We Know

Marvel Studios has released casting news, a plot summary, and some other details about its upcoming 10-episode Wonder Man series for Disney+.

Marvel Studios’ upcoming Wonder Man series, which will bring the titular superhero into the sprawling ensemble of the MCU, has an announced cast, a plot summary, and a few other details to share. Produced by Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings director Destin Daniel Cretton, Wonder Man is set to premiere on Disney Plus with a first season consisting of 10 episodes — more than any other MCU series on the streaming service. Also, Wonder Man's vanity, dark backstory, and place in show business will make him stand out among the other Marvel superheroes in the franchise.

Wonder Man, whose real name is Simon Williams, debuted in the pages of Marvel Comics in the 1960s, initially as an ionic-powered supervillain who went toe-to-toe with the Avengers. Wonder Man was eventually reborn as a hero and joined the team he used to fight. Unlike most superheroes, Wonder Man is much more focused on his image than on fighting crime. He moved to Hollywood, where his fellow Avenger Hercules helped set him up with a career as a super-powered stuntman. With its movie industry setting and self-obsessed superhero, the Wonder Man series has the potential to be a unique MCU story.

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The Wonder Man series is expected to begin production in Atlanta in March or April under the working title Callback — a nod to the show business term and the world that Simon inhabits. Andrew Guest, who has been recruited as the show's head writer, penned episodes of 30 Rock and Community and worked on Brooklyn Nine-Nine as a consulting producer. He also previously worked with Marvel Studios on Hawkeye.

The series is the product of Destin Daniel Cretton's exclusive overall deal with Marvel Studios to develop new projects. In addition to executive-producing Wonder Man through his company Family Owned, Cretton will direct multiple episodes of the series before moving on to helm Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. Stella Meghie has also been tapped to direct a few episodes of the series, and James Ponsoldt will reportedly direct at least one episode (via ComicBook.com). Meghie directed the films Everything, Everything and The Photograph as well as episodes of Grown-ish and Insecure. Ponsoldt is known for directing such movies as The Spectacular Now and The End of the Tour.

The development of a Wonder Man series at Marvel Studios was initially announced in June 2022. When it was first reported that Destin Daniel Cretton was working on a Marvel series for Disney Plus, it was speculated to be a small-screen Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings spinoff possibly revolving around Xialing's takeover of her father's Ten Rings criminal organization. But it turned out to be an unrelated adaptation of the Wonder Man character — although his association with the Avengers could lead to a team-up with Shang-Chi later. With the creative direction of the series nailed down, and the cast lined up, it's ready to go into production.

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Marvel Studios has yet to announce a release date for the Wonder Man series. Showrunner Andrew Guest posted on his Writers Guild of America page that Wonder Man is scheduled to be released during the 2023-24 TV season, which would mean that it could theoretically arrive as early as the fall of 2023 (via CBR). But that seems unlikely given filming is beginning in spring 2023. Previous Marvel shows released on Disney Plus, such as Ms. Marvel and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, were released about a year and a half after production began. If Wonder Man follows a similar schedule, it may not be released until late 2024.

In the fall of 2022, Marvel Studios cast Yahya Abdul-Mateen II to play Wonder Man. This will mark the actor's debut in the MCU. Abdul-Mateen is best known for playing Doctor Manhattan in HBO's Watchmen series (for which he won an Emmy), Bobby Seale in Netflix's courtroom-set historical drama The Trial of the Chicago 7, and a hybrid of Morpheus and Agent Smith in The Matrix Resurrections. His other TV roles include Omar in The Handmaid's Tale and Karl in Black Mirror. Before being hired by Marvel, Abdul-Mateen had previously worked in the DCEU. He played the villainous Black Manta in Aquaman and its sequel, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom.

Wonder Man will also see some returning MCU actors. Ben Kingsley will appear in Wonder Man reprising his role as Trevor Slattery. Introduced as the Mandarin in Iron Man 3 before being unmasked as an impostor, Trevor is an actor who was reintroduced into the MCU in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. He will reportedly play a "major role" in the story arc of Wonder Man. The fact that one of the MCU's most prominent thespian characters has been cast in Wonder Man suggests its story will revolve around Simon Williams’ work in Hollywood. It could also point to an appearance by the Ten Rings criminal organization.

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Another one of Wonder Man's producers, Stephen Broussard, has said that the series will be "influenced by the comics." He added, "It's going to feel very unique. It's not going to feel like anything you’ve quite seen in the MCU before." Broussard said that "streaming, serialized storytelling is a totally different muscle" than three-act storytelling in a feature film. Some MCU shows have been one big story told in parts, like The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, whereas others have followed a more traditional episodic format, like She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. Based on Broussard's comments, it seems more likely that Wonder Man will fall into the latter category.

Simon Williams’ origin story turned him into a supervillain before he became a superhero, giving Marvel the chance to tell a redemption arc for a main character. Simon's father's company, Williams Innovations, lost profits due to competition from Stark Industries. Williams accepted an offer from the villain Baron Zemo to turn him into an ion-powered being to fight the Avengers to exact revenge against Stark. If the Disney Plus Marvel series follows this part of the character's origin story, he’ll be the latest in a long line of MCU characters to be motivated by resentment toward Tony Stark — see Obadiah Stane, Whiplash, Aldrich Killian, the Vulture, and Mysterio.

Instead of charting Williams’ transition from villain to hero, the Wonder Man series might start off in the middle of his arc as a superhuman stuntman living in Hollywood. It could explore what the film industry in the MCU looks like. The movie industry has been touched upon briefly in the franchise with the in-flight movies seen in Spider-Man: Far From Home and Kingo's three-generation Bollywood career in Eternals. But this is a chance to set an entire MCU story in Hollywood. In the real world, the movie industry is dominated by superhero fare. What would Hollywood look like if the world was dominated by real superheroes?MORE: 10 Wonder Man Storylines and Comics That Could Be Adapted