Wonder Man is a bit of a strange Marvel series. It does have connections to the past with references and Trevor Slattery, but for the most part, this is a standalone story. It tells the tale of Simon Williams, a struggling actor looking to be more than just background characters who die in American Horror Story movies or other projects. As the series unravels, there’s plenty of mystery surrounding just why Trevor Slattery is so interested in Simon and why Simon is wanted by the government.

There’s a meta aspect to the series that feels similar to something like The Studio. There are several actors playing fictionalized versions of themselves, including Josh Gad and Joe Pantoliano. For people who know the entertainment industry, there’s extra fun here or for people who live in Los Angeles. Hearing about this show and that it features a remake of an in-universe Wonder Man movie with an acclaimed Oscar-winning director, it was an interesting turn for Marvel. It stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen as Simon, Ben Kingsley as Trevor Slattery, Demetrius Grosse as Eric Williams, Byron Bowers as Doorman, and Zlatko Buric as Von Kovak.

I’ll start off with the biggest thing that detracts from Wonder Man for me, because this series is overall excellent. But the biggest problem that rears its ugly head every single time we have a new Marvel series is the 6 or 8 episode format. We get such a small amount of time to gel with these characters, by the time episode 7 rolls around, you know the end is near. Then in episode 8 they have to tie everything up in 30 minutes, and it feels like the whole thing is cheapened. They also fall for the same thing that plenty of these shows go for where the final episode becomes a jumbled mess of new superpowers and characters finding out their true purpose.

That would normally sink Wonder Man for me. But the journey to get to that point is so goddamn good, that it makes up for any sort of structural issues that the series runs into. The story of Trevor and Simon coming together, and ending up as the stars of a new Wonder Man movie is fascinating. The one episode that explains why there’s a “Doorman Law” in this fictionalized version of Hollywood is also a major highlight of the series.

The one scene that stuck out to me the most was later in the series, where Trevor and Simon are doing callbacks for Wonder Man, and they’re performing an incredibly meta scene that fits with how their characters are going. I had to stop watching for a bit to kind of recover from it. Kingsley and Abdul-Mateen are electric together, and there’s so much great stuff from these two.

The show is also hilarious at points where some of the situations that Trevor and Simon get into are outrageous. Arian Moayed as Agent Cleary from the Department of Disaster Control is great in his short time on screen as well. The work he does with Kinglsey is gut-busting, including one scene where he’s trying to push Trevor to text Simon in a timely manner.

The thing that really makes Wonder Man stand out from the rest of the Marvel TV shows, though, is that it doesn’t feel like those other shows. There are references, yes, but for the most part, this is a self-contained story. This is all about the characters. It’s not about furthering some narrative to the build to Avengers: Doomsday or building up Simon Williams to be a member of some team. It’s a character study of these two actors and how outside forces like family, work, and other factors affect them.

At the end of the day, that’s why this show works so well and why we as an audience resonate with these characters. They might be superpowered, but they all face the same things we do.

Wonder Man releases on Disney+ on January 27th, 2026.

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