Wonder Man Season 1 Review

This is a DynaMic Network Podcast. 

Hi, welcome back to the Dynamic Duel Podcast, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved show that reviews superhero films and series through the lens of the DC and Marvel fandoms. I'm Jonathan. You're not Johnny DC anymore? Heck no, I'm so sick and tired of calling you Marvelous Joe. Okay, I'm Joseph. If people haven't figured out that Jonathan is Team DC and Joseph is Team Marvel after 10 years, I don't know what to tell them. Well, maybe people are listening to the show for the first time with this episode. 

They're going to want to know things like, I'm your twin brother and we had a show where we pit Marvel and DC characters going up against each other for 10 years and then we retired that show and that we're bringing it back as a monthly podcast reviewing Marvel and DC projects. Yeah, it's been just over a month since we reached this semi-retired phase. I got to say, I really missed it. It's hard to get back into this now. I feel like I'm so out of practice. I don't even know what a podcast is anymore. 

But thank you to our listeners for sticking with us as we transition into this new phase. In this episode, we're going to be reviewing season one of Wonder Man. Jonathan, did you watch it? 

I tried to. I think I got a little bit more than halfway through the first episode. Well, that's okay that you didn't watch it because we're going to be doing non-spoiler reviews from here on out. Those of you who are used to listening to our earlier reviews, you know that we typically dive deep into the plot and we break down basically everything that happens and discuss spoilers. But in this brand new era of dynamic dual, we're going to be taking a more traditional approach to our film and TV criticism in that we're not going to be doing full story breakdowns. We're not going to be discussing anything that would be considered a spoiler, hopefully. Instead, these reviews are going to serve more as an overview of our thoughts on the project and whether or not we as longtime Marvel and DC fans would recommend it. I think our new aim here is really to provide that superfan perspective among the whole sea of other types of film and TV critics who may or may not have familiarity with these characters. So our format's changing a little bit. Hopefully you still enjoy it. But first real quick, our artificially intelligent co-host, AJ9K, is also backing you as a quick message for our listeners. So listen up. 

Thanks, AJ9K. Before we get into the review, since this is a Marvel and DC review podcast, one of the new things that we'll be doing is going over the comic book characters that appear within the projects that we're reviewing, giving people a refresher or an introduction to the source material, origins, and powers. This is a new segment we're calling Who's Who. So let me go over the comic book characters that appear in Wonder Man Season 1, starting with Wonder Man. A competitor to Tony Stark, Simon Williams was an industrialist who lost his munitions company and was imprisoned after being caught in bezeling funds. Baron Zemo freed Simon from prison and exposed him to ionic radiation, transforming him into Wonder Man. He infiltrated the Avengers as a mole for the Masters of Evil, but later had a change of heart and ultimately sacrificed himself to save his new heroic friends. Though believed dead, Simon survived in a death-like coma and was eventually revived. He rejoined the Avengers and became a prominent member of the team. 

Simon later co-founded their West Coast branch in Los Angeles, where he also established a semi-successful acting career. Powers-wise, Wonder Man's ionic form grants him vast superhuman strength, near-total invulnerability to physical and energy attacks, and flight. On rare occasions, he'll expel his ionic energy in the form of eye blasts. You can learn more about Wonder Man in his dual episode against Captain Adam. Now, it was going to go into the backstory of the Mandarin, but I don't think that will be helpful to people watching Wonder Man. 

The backstory of Trevor Slattery is more important there, and Trevor is an original character to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So let's dive into another character that appears in Wonder Man Season 1, called Dorman. Damar Davis was a mutant whose ex-gene granted him the ability to act as a living doorway. Adopting the name Dorman, he joined the unconventional and unsanctioned Great Lakes Avengers, quickly becoming the team's primary means of transportation and tactical repositioning. By merging his body with solid surfaces, Dorman can go intangible and open a portal through himself, allowing others to pass instantly from one side of an object to another. You can also access the Dark Force dimension using the realm as a conduit for longer-range travel. 

We never did a duel with Dorman, but you can learn more about the Dark Force dimension in our Cloak and Dagger dual episode where we pit the two characters against the Wonder Twins. The final character that I'll get into in Wonder Man Season 2 is called the Grim Reaper. This is Eric Williams, who is the elder brother of Simon, who refused to join their family munitions business and instead joined the mob. When Simon became Wonder Man and seemingly died saving the Avengers, Eric blamed the team for his brother's fate. Consumed by grief and instability, he adopted the identity of the Grim Reaper, outfitting himself with advanced tech. Eric became obsessed with avenging Simon and later fixated on the android Vision, whose mind was patterned from his brother Simon's brainwaves. He became a recurring enemy of the Avengers and West Coast Avengers, although Simon eventually returned to life. 

Eric's fractured psyche prevented their reconciliation. The Grim Reaper is an experienced hand combatant with a cybernetic arm ending in a scythe-like blade capable of projecting energy blasts and whirling as a shield or helicopter blade. He has a genius level aptitude for electronics and robotics, and after he died in battle once, he was resurrected as a zombie-like being and gained the power of Necromancy, able to reanimate the death. That is Wonder Man's brother. We did not do a dual episode with Grim Reaper, but if you guys come up with a good idea on who he could have gone up against, go ahead and let us know on our Discord, which is linked in our show notes and maybe we'll run the stats on them. 

Yeah, him or doorman. Now that you know all about the comic book characters that appear in this series, let's go ahead and get into our main event, where we review Wonder Man Season 1. Alright, Wonder Man Season 1 was released by Marvel Television in January of 2026 on Disney Plus. The series stars Yaya Abdul-Mateen II and Sir Ben Kingsley. It's showrun by Andrew Guest and was co-created by Shang-Chi and the upcoming Spider-Man: Brand New Day director, Dustin Daniel Cretton. The series follows struggling actor Simon Williams, who tries to land the role of Wonder Man in a remake of the 1980 superhero film of the same title. He learns about the role after running into Trevor Slattery, an actor trying to make a comeback after being imprisoned and disgraced in Hollywood for impersonating a terrorist known as the Mandarin. 

And of course that happened in Iron Man 3 and we saw the fallout of that event in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Simon and Trevor befriend each other in their pursuit of the roles of Wonder Man and his sidekick Barnaby, respectively, while Simon struggles with the fact that his Ionic super abilities make him ineligible for the role under an industry wide ban on superpowered beings. Now is Barnaby a character from the comics? 

No, Barnaby is original to this particular series. They needed something for Ben Kingsley's character, Trevor Slattery, to try out for. Obviously he couldn't be Wonder Man, they needed somebody that was close to the character that would be like a lead role that they were both going for. So Barnaby is like Wonder Man's Alfred in this series? 

Exactly, yes. All while this is happening, Simon is under investigation by the Department of Damage Control who is seeking to arrest him for potentially harboring dangerous powers. Now my biggest takeaway from the show is that it is not anything like the comic book character. It's not faithful in any way, it's not a satisfying adaptation of Simon Williams from the comic books. And in fact this might be one of the poorest translations of the source material and certainly Marvel televisions for this departure, even more than like Moon Knight, which was a pretty far departure. I might even label Wonder Man season one as Wonder Man in name only. Now if you're not a fan of the comic book character, the fact that Simon Williams in this show is almost nothing like his comic book counterpart isn't going to mean anything to you. 

And if you are a fan, I'm going to say that it's not going to mean anything to you either. Because despite the fact that we have a poor adaptation situation going on here, what we also have I think is one of Marvel Studios most interesting and approachable experiments that they've ever produced. Yeah it was shocking to see that this was produced under the Marvel spotlight banner. 

I didn't realize that until I started the first episode. Of course Marvel's other spotlight series was Echo, but I know spotlight is specifically used to highlight projects that are tackling lesser known characters or unconventional stories, I believe. Well it's for projects that are more standalone. I don't know what to think about the Marvel spotlight banner as it pertains to this particular series. But the lack of adherence to the source material as a Marvel purist, it did raise difficult questions for me about the trade off between seeing faithful and exciting interpretations of the characters that I know and love and seeing quality projects in general, even those perhaps entirely outside of the superhero genre. Oftentimes when I'm watching something that is being adapted for film in a way that completely deviates from the source material, I often find myself realizing different ways they could have incorporated different elements from the source material into the series or the film, but just didn't. 

Maybe because they weren't knowledgeable enough or I don't know, just missed it. Which makes me respect it less. Well like let me raise a quandary for you. 

Okay you're a DC fan. That's the quandary. What? 

No, no. Okay, so take the character of Booster Gold, who's not only a superhero, but also a football player, right? Now, what if DC Studios released a Booster Gold show that was 95% not about him as a superhero and rarely showed his powers, but was still one of the better and more interesting sports shows that you've ever seen? 

What do your opinion of the show as an adaptation affect your judgment of the show as a quality project? That's not the best example because Michael Carter, Booster Gold, was not a football player for very long. He was caught making sports bets and of course became a janitor in a superhero museum. That doesn't matter because Wonder Man wasn't an actor for very long either. Oh. 

You know, in bits and pieces here and there. But the fact is that regardless of that, because he has this history as a comic book character as a football player, they decided to make the entire show about that. I would hate that because Booster Gold is not about football. He's about time travel. Really Wonder Man, the comic book character is not about acting, but yet they made the entire show about that. I'll say this. I do have issues with Wonder Man, but nearly all of those issues stem from the series as an adaptation and not as a show in itself. But I ask myself, what does that mean? Does that mean I have to be like an apologist for the comic fandom? 

I don't know. Like really, I defer to your struggles, Jonathan, with the Joker film. Like the first Joker film, Joaquin Phoenix's Joker was really Joker in name only. The movie evoked the best of Scorsese's films, though. It also was not a superhero film. 

It's also not a great example because it was tackling something that we really had no prior knowledge of, which was the origin of the Joker. In the comics, it's sort of intentionally left ambiguous. There's multiple versions, but we're not quite sure which one is the real one. The Joker film tried to sell us on a specific version. So I guess maybe that's how you're approaching Wonder Man. 

This is a very specific version. I guess all I know is that the Joker film was good. Wonder Man season one was good. 

And what I don't want to do is make your mistake of coming down on a project for not being what you expected and failing perhaps to fully praise it for the transcendent project that it was. I think in hindsight, you yourself would have rated Joker the first Joker higher than the four stars that you did. Yeah, maybe. 

Yeah, though I rated it low not because it was a bad adaptation, but because it was just disturbing. Right. Right. The project as an adaptation didn't matter to you was more about the story. 

Yeah. I don't want to get too far into the weeds here because Wonder Man is not Joker, but I'll say that Wonder Man did evoke some other great Hollywood projects. Like I watched it and found myself drawing comparisons to films like Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Midnight Cowboy, or even dialogue heavy two-handers like Before Sunrise. There is some action in the series. 

Don't get me wrong, but I'd say it's like less than two minutes total of runtime in eight 30 minute episodes. Say no more. It's pretty crazy. Say no more. 

I'm not watching it. It is pretty crazy for a superhero project. And I do wonder if people will find that appealing. I do think people will need to check their expectations going in and not necessarily expect your standard Marvel fare, but really expect something entirely different. Did you find instances as you were watching where they could have inserted more action? No. 

I feel pretty organic. I think what Marvel Studios has in the Wonder Man series is basically an attempt to venture beyond the standard formulas, tropes and plot beats of good versus evil superhero fare and do something unique. I've come down on Marvel projects for straying outside the comics in previous reviews. 

I liked Moonlight, but I'm convinced it would have been better as a crime thriller. There was She-Hulk, which tried to be a legal comedy, but failed as both a satire of superhero tropes and as a legal procedural. Wonder Man is definitely its own thing. 

I would define it as an American buddy comedy. And it succeeds at being that, which makes all the difference in the world. You know, if something is done well, it makes me forgive what it could have been, or maybe what I would have wanted as a comic book fan. 

There are three things that Wonder Man gets exceptionally right. Probably more than that, but I'm going to narrow it down to dialogue, performance, and cinematography. Starting with the former two, like, never in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined Yaya Abdul-Mateen and Sir Ben Kingsley as a quintessential buddy pairing. But I am convinced that their chemistry is exactly why Yaya was cast. Now, Trevor Slattery has always been an out-of-left-field gem of a role for Ben Kingsley, and to see Yaya match him line for line reminds me of just how incredible Yaya is as an actor. Like I remember thinking back to his amazing delivery in the HBO Watchmen series, that bar scene that he had with Regina King, that was an iconic scene. And like between that series and Wonder Man now, I'm entirely convinced that Yaya Abdul-Mateen II is one of the best actors of this generation. Not only can he act, he can act about acting in this series. It's so meta that it feels like you're watching a real behind-the-scenes process when you see him do his thing. He is good. He is really good. And it's funny because I think I first heard about him when he was cast for Black Manta in Aquaman. I don't remember hearing about him prior to that. 

Yeah, same. In the course of the series, Yaya convincingly lays out the arc of a man who was alone and emotionally isolated from the world around him due to feeling different, and begins piecing together through this newfound friendship that he retreats into acting as a means to have any sort of semblance of emotional connection with the world around him. Yaya took this insecure over-thinker character and made him endearing, while also making him the perfect partner to Kingsley's infinitely quirky and charming Trevor Slattery. The two leads are so good together, just in their acting, that they can take something as mundane and simple as discussing their favorite movie monologues and make that worth watching. It's those personal interactions that are so low stakes for a Marvel project, but they're like some of the best parts about the show. The more toned-down, personal approach to the story is definitely reflected in the look of the show. I don't think I've seen another MCU project with this type of cinematography, this very naturalistic style, which serves to highlight that this is not only not a superhero adventure with super saturated visual effects, it makes it feel like a documentary almost, like a day in the life of an aspiring LA actor. 

It's really different, but it works, and it makes you feel like you're watching some kind of art house fair. What's really interesting is that the naturalistic cinematography makes it really fucking shocking when on the very rare occasion that something does go down. Like, I don't think this is a spoiler, but I will say that Wonder Man has one of the most violent single shots out of any Marvel Studios project, and because of that documentary feel to it, I remember my jaw dropping at the moment. Like it was very real and uncomfortable. And I'm talking like this is more violent than any of the playful ultra-violent stuff in Deadpool and Wolverine. I remember going like, what the fuck? I was surprised to hear you say that you thought the cinematography was good, just because I didn't really notice the documentary style you're alluding to. 

Oh really? It definitely looks different than any other Marvel Studios project. There's even an entire episode that's shot in black and white. It's fucking gorgeous. 

It's in the middle of the season. It was really done well. Regarding the story of the season, I really have to say it was so hard writing this review and deviating from a spoiler format because I just want to talk about everything that happens. But at the end of each episode, there's a decent turn that makes you want to watch the next one. And the series plots along pretty nicely, even though not a whole lot happens in a couple of episodes. Like this could have been a six-episode season. But at least nothing meanders for too long, like it would in an hour-long episode show because each episode was only about 30 minutes. At the end of the day, the show is less about the plotting or having characters reach the next goal or resolving any single conflict. It's more about the relationship between the lead characters. And more so than any other project, the story is about the journey. Not really the end. 

Although I will say that the end will still leave you with a smile on your face. And still gets me really excited for what comes next for these characters. I think we'll definitely need a season two, the way this season ends before we see Wonder Man crossover with any other MCU characters. I would really love to see Wonder Man join the Avengers though at some point. Even though it wouldn't be entirely necessary for this version of the character, I think it would be fascinating. Yeah, maybe they'll have him decide to join the Avengers as part of some study in Casper View for a role he wants to audition for in playing Tony Stark or something. Who knows? 

I don't know. There's your Tony Stark connection. He seems like he'd be more at home with the Thunderbolts team. Maybe that's just commenting on the cinematography of the series. But I guess the Thunderbolts aren't really a team anymore. 

They are the Avengers. So who knows? When the time comes for you to write your first review in this non-spoiler format, Jonathan, I know you're going to have a hard time. There's so much more I want to discuss about what happens here. The plot does raise some interesting points regarding superhero ethics. And you know how much I love discussing superhero ethics. 

I think it would be an interesting conversation as to whether or not Simon should even be acting, but I can't really get into any of that without getting into spoilers. Oh, because with great power comes great responsibility? No, not at all. Okay, that's not what I'm talking about at all. It has more to do with the nature of his powers, which are not really like how they are on the comic books. But I do think that it's actually a pretty cool interpretation. 

Ultimately, the Wonder Man series I think is important for Marvel Studios. It's a really interesting first review out of the gate for our new podcast format in that the show made me question my own inconsistencies and my approach to criticism, which eventually made me land on the revelation that faithfulness matters to me. So one of the most important things out there when it comes to my approach to these reviews, but quality matters more. I think at the end of the day, I'd rather see a really, really damn good project like Wonder Man Season 1 over a faithful one. That being said, faithfulness is still important. Would you say that quality is more important to the survival of the genre than faithfulness? 

Because as a fan of the comics, I'm always like, just follow the comic book. It's there. Just do that. 

Like panel for panel and you can't go wrong because it's great. Right. But so many Marvel and DC projects aren't as good or at least as exciting as I feel like they used to be. So yeah, I'm not sure what's going to save the genre. Does Wonder Man save the genre in the way it kind of promised to in the marketing? Does it beat superhero fatigue? Was that a claim that it made in the marketing that it would beat superhero fatigue? Yeah, it was like, oh, yeah, this is the answer to superhero fatigue. 

Yeah, I think so. I would definitely say that I think an out of box approach is necessary in this era of alleged superhero fatigue. And that's exactly what Wonder Man does. Like this series is the once upon a time in Hollywood for Marvel Studios. Like no one does meandering character exploration like Quentin Tarantino. 

It isn't even until the third act of once upon a time that you even realize, oh, this is revisionist history on the Manson murder of Sharon Tate. But even that ending is secondary to the film's like meta industry commentary and the personal relationship between the two lead characters, Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt. And that's the exact same thing with Wonder Man, I think it's more about the relationship between these two characters. There is a story in Wonder Man Season One, but it's secondary. And that's pretty unique, I think, which is fascinating because I know there are films out there that don't have too much story. They're essentially just plot for you to say that a comic book project has no story and is just plot kind of has me a little intrigued, but also kind of has me a little disgusted. 

I'll say that in all, though Wonder Man Season One falters as a comic book adaptation, it succeeds as a worthy and unique experiment in dialogue driven chemistry fueled character study and rating Wonder Man Season One four stars out of five, a fresh rating on rotten tomatoes. Well, now that we know whether or not you recommend the project, you probably give us a few spoilers. How about some out of context spoilers? 

Sure. OK, some out of context spoilers. In Wonder Man Season One, you see Olaf enter another man. Also, you can see the most shocking head-splosion since the movie Scanners, I think. And you'll learn about Mandarin's Mandarins. Take from that what you will. I don't want to. I might go to dark places. All in all, guys, that was a review of Wonder Man Season One. AJ9K helped close this out. 

Thanks for listening to Dynamic Jewel. Visit the show's website at dynamicduel.com and follow us on Instagram at dynamicduelpodcast. Don't forget to listen to the other shows in the DynaMic podcast network, including Max Destruction, Senjoh World and Konsole Kombat. 

Well, Jonathan, what else is coming down the pike that you're looking forward to reviewing later on this year? Well, for DC, our next project is Supergirl, but that's not coming down until the summer. Honestly, the thing I'm most looking forward to, though, is Spider Noir. 

Oh, yeah, that looks really good. The trailer came out for that. I will not be watching it in color. I will absolutely be watching it in black and white. Nicholas Cage looks a little unhinged in it, but that doesn't come out until May. I know that Daredevil, born against season two, drops its first episodes in March, but we probably won't get to that until later when the entire series is out. 

That does it for this episode. We will see you guys in March. We don't know what we're going to review yet, so look forward to that surprise next month. Yeah, it'll probably be something DC. I'll find something. Thanks guys for listening. Up, up and away. True believers. 

Turns out I suck a fat sack at playing the blues, so glad to be back, guys.