Will Yahya Abdul-Mateen II Be Simon Williams, The Wonder Man in the MCU?

MCU is introducing new characters left and right and new faces that will portray them. One such character is Wonder Man, a Marvel character with a rich, diverse history in the comics, which leaves a lot of wiggle room for the producers to play around. Now that the Wonder Man series is in development, fans wonder who will portray Wonder Man in the MCU?

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II will portray Simon Williams, aka Wonder Man, in the MCU, sources confirmed. It’s still unclear when the show will actually premiere and if Wonder Man will appear in the MCU before his show, but Abdul-Mateen II is a brilliant actor and a great choice.

Over the years, Wonder Man has gone from being a supervillain to a superhero to kid on being a douchebag, but he undoubtedly had a great influence on the entire picture of Marvel comics, both the main Earth-616 continuity and alternative universes (namely, the Marvel Ultimate, Earth-1610 universe. Let’s dig in to learn all you need to know.

Who is Wonder Man in Marvel Comics?

Wonder Man is the superhero name of Simon Williams, a character first appearing in The Avengers #9 in 1964. Interestingly, Williams was first depicted as a supervillain, a guy with awesome, ionic-energy-based powers, and he spent significant time fighting the Avengers.

However, after his defeat, Wonder Man was revived as a superhero, joining the Avengers instead. In fact, he was one of the founding members of the West Coast Avengers, where most of his important comic book history happened.

In the comics, Wonder Man’s brain waves were used in the creation of Vision, the artificial super-intelligence that fell in love with Wanda Maximoff, aka Scarlet Witch. After Vision was reassembled as the emotionless, White Vision, Wonder Man refused to give his brain waves again to get old Vision back – because he, too, was in love with Scarlet Witch.

They briefly dated as members of the aforementioned West Coast Avengers team but broke up due to Wanda’s lingering feelings for Vision. It’s questionable how much of this storyline would translate to the MCU continuity, but there are many alleys that could be explored. 

Wonder Man is an important figure in other Marvel universes, too, namely the Ultimate Marvel universe. His usual powers, as we mentioned, revolve around ionic energy, manifested in numerous ways, like superhuman strength, speed, agility, stamina, and reflexes.

Simon Williams also has enhanced vision and hearing, electromagnetic manipulation, shapeshifting, flight, invulnerability… You can see he’s simply an overpowered character. 

With Wonder Man’s comic book history, the director Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi) at the helm, and Andrew Guest (Brooklyn Nine-Nine) as the head writer, fans are excited to see what the show will look like. And, after we’ve heard who will portray the titular character, we’re even more excited!

Who will play Wonder Man in the MCU?

Multiple sources have confirmed that Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is set to portray Simon Williams, aka Wonder Man, in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The development of Wonder Man, the TV show, was officially announced not too long ago, with a date to be determined.

All the info that was available is that the show will be developed and likely directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, the main guy behind Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings – one of my favorite Phase 4 movies). Cretton will also direct the new Avengers movie, The Kang Dynasty, that’s set for release in 2025.

We also know that Andrew Guest (the writer of Brooklyn Nine-Nine) will spearhead the writing team, but that is about it – the release date is still to be determined. However, after the lead actor’s name has been announced, the date will likely follow soon.

As for Yahya, it will be his third comic book character role, though it’s the first role where he’s the lead. In DCEU’s Aquaman, Abdul-Mateen II portrayed Black Manta, the villain with the giant bug head that’s set to return in Aquaman 2. He was also Dr. Manhattan in HBO’s series, Watchmen, marking his second stint as a DC character.

Now, the actor will make the transition to Marvel and play a super important figure from Marvel Comics, Wonder Man. I can’t wait to see in which direction this show will go.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II: A brief biography

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is an incredibly talented actor who is as diverse as they come. He rose in popularity after numerous awesome roles in all kinds of formats and genres. 

He was in two comic book character roles, played the lead in a horror flick called Candyman, learned to Disco dance seven hours a day for his role in The Get Down, portrayed the now Morpheus in the new Matrix film, and went deep with parts in The Handmaid’s tale and Black Mirror – Yahya is as diverse of an actor as you can find.

As for Abdul-Mateen II’s life, he was born in 1986 in New Orleans and has five siblings. He had a mild stutter, which is why he studied acting in the first place. Yahya studied drama at Yale but also studied architecture at Berkeley and spent some time working as an architect and city planner before ever venturing into acting.

What will Wonder Man be about?

I’m not sure which plot lines from the comics will translate to the MCU from Wonder Man’s comic book counterpart. Nothing has been announced or hinted at yet, so it’s hard to see the direction where the MCU will go. 

Even more so because we don’t even know the date for the show yet, so there will be a ton of projects between now and Wonder Man’s release, so the landscape of the MCU will likely change dramatically until then.

At first glance, though, I can see Wonder Man is a bad guy in the beginning and then turning to the good side, as it was in the comics. I can also see the writer tying his story to Wanda and White Vision, as we saw in the comics.

Wanda survived the Multiverse of Madness almost certainly, and White Vision is still out there since the end of WandaVision. I just wonder how that story could tie together with what happened in the comics. Maybe Wonder Man and Scarlet Witch fall in love, but then White Vision returns to mess things up for Wanda mentally.