Wonder Man Review

I have to say, when I was watching Iron Man 3 in the theater, I never imagined it would still be relevant within the MCU all these years later. And I imagine most Marvel fans felt the same – seeing as that film was polarizing at the time and certainly hasn’t aged much better. But here we are, with Trevor “The Mandarin” Slattery continuing to be a crucial character within the MCU. And you know what? I’m here for it. Because Wonder Man turned out to be one of the strongest Marvel projects in this entire messy Phase Five-Six experience.

If there’s one criticism I’ve had about the MCU for several years now it’s that the writing often loses sight of the characters while rushing to get to that final act showdown with whichever interchangeable villain our hero is fighting this time around. Because so much of these superhero tales gets wrapped up in juxtaposing our heroes against the villain, we often lose sight of the humanity that exists within both – even when our characters aren’t strictly human. At the heart of storytelling is the need to relate the characters – their hopes, dreams, failings, etc. – to the audience. We need to see ourselves in some form on the screen in order to empathize with the characters. That’s the connection needed to make a story resonate. And when the story devolves into a massive third act battle ripe with CGI, well, it’s easy to lose sight of that human connection in favor of the biggest and baddest special effects around.

Which is what makes Wonder Man such an outlier to the rest of the recent MCU schlock*. The series seems almost allergic to big set pieces, to super powers, and to reminding us that despite trying to get cast to play a superhero in a major motion picture, Simon Williams (the great Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is actually a super-powered individual (it seems he’s most likely a mutant in this version of the character – although the series never really gets too deep into his power set or the story of his powers manifesting). Instead, what we get with Wonder Man is the story of a man who is so consumed with his own craft that he’s pushed away everyone in his life and is still unable to get out of his own head until Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley, absolutely great once again) becomes the best friend he never knew he needed. Yup, Wonder Man is a story about the power of platonic male friendship. And it’s just wonderful.

*While I would argue there have been some good pieces in this last two phases of the MCU – Agatha All Along and The Thunderbolts* at the top of the list – most of the pure superhero tales have felt largely hollow rather than innovative, focused on filling in the next piece of a larger puzzle rather than opting to tell a complete story.

When you’re doing a buddy story, the number one requirement is chemistry between your leading men. And Abdul-Mateen and Kingsley have that in spades. Abdul-Mateen is tasked with being the straight man, the guy with the chip on his shoulder who doesn’t want to succumb to the considerable charm of Kingsley’s Slattery. And yet, it’s easy to understand just why this stoic man – who is struggling to hide his own superpowers (which are a necessary but not overly important element of the story) would latch onto the lifeline Slattery throws his way. And Slattery? Trapped in an impossible situation by the villainous Department of Damage Control*, we can easily understand why he makes all the moves he makes within the story – from befriending Simon, becoming his true friend, and how the story ends. I went into this series not expecting all that much, but by the end I found myself really hoping that this isn’t the last time we see either Simon or Trevor in the MCU.

*It’s hard not to see the parallels to our current situation here in the US and the overreach of the DODC in the MCU. A highly militarized government entity with very little oversight, trying to lock up anyone with a connection to superpowered individuals on the mere chance they might pose a threat to “regular” citizens? Yeah, I suspect those parallels are only going to get more and more obvious as the DODC becomes more prevalent in the MCU – presumably in the next Spider-Man film.

I’ve often written that a series works because the writers understand what it is and what it isn’t. And here, the team of writers knew exactly what they were doing in crafting this particular story. Keeping the focus on the relationship between Simon and Trevor helped to ground the more “Marvel-y” moments and make them feel a bit less jarring. The foundation of the story being told was the friendship between two seemingly very different men. That’s the through-line that kept things grounded when superpowers came into play. And keeping each episode to under 40 minutes? Genius. Wonder Man was a quick, smart, incredibly well-acted, and very well-written ride. Even if you’ve succumbed to MCU fatigue, this one is worth your time.

All eight episodes of Wonder Man are streaming on Disney+.