Wonder Man Showrunner Details Simon Williams' Three Core Powers

While the Wonder Man series was still upcoming on Disney+, we got something rare in a world of Twitter scoopsters and industry insiders: an official word on what Simon Williams can do. The show's showrunner, Andrew Guest, laid out three major powers for the character and hinted at more to come. My take is that Wonder Man might not be able to rival for the title of strongest Avenger yet, but there's a chance he may be just that in the future.

Andrew Guest confirmed super speed, super strength and massive explosions in D23 magazine

The update came from The Direct. I hadn't covered them in quite some time, but they're reputable and have a proven track record. They obtained an early copy of the winter 2025 issue of Disney's D23 magazine. That issue carried an interview with Andrew Guest, the showrunner on Wonder Man, and with Marvel Studios' director of production and development. Both men discussed Simon Williams' powers in the series. These people worked on the show, so this is as official as it gets.

Guest described Wonder Man as an incredibly powerful character and said he has three major powers: super speed, super strength and the ability to create massive explosions. He added that Simon is incredibly powerful in a way he may not even fully be aware of. Simon doesn't care, though, because he wants to be Daniel Day-Lewis. He is far more concerned with becoming a famous actor than with the superpowers he may or may not have inherited.

Guest also said Simon doesn't even know the extent of what his powers are. Simon has these abilities and feels a responsibility to help, but his main goal is to be an actor. That's complicated by the fact that he lives in a world where superheroes exist and aliens could come down out of the sky at any moment.

The three powers read like a Black Panther analog, but the comics Wonder Man goes much further

Guest didn't come out and say it, but you have to read between the lines. Super strong, super fast and able to create explosions is close to an analog of Black Panther. In the comics, Wonder Man is far more powerful than that, and his power set isn't limited to those three things.

He may start that way, unaware of his capabilities and maybe not caring what they look like at their highest level. He knows what he can do right off the bat. I think that's better suited for a television show. What Guest is saying is that Simon's powers go beyond those three. He's not aware of them and can't tap into them yet, but he will be able to down the road.

When he can, his powers go a long way. In the comics he can fly. He can go as far as to teleport. He can change his size at will. He has shot beams out of his eyes, he has a strong healing factor and he has been shown to shapeshift. He can do things more on par with Sentry than with a Black Panther analog.

Wonder Man could level up after his series, possibly by Secret Wars or the Mutant Saga

He may start on one power set and then level up substantially by the next time we see him after the television show. That could be Avengers: Secret Wars, or maybe even further down the road during the Mutant Saga.

For now, he starts maybe in the middle or toward the bottom of the Avengers hierarchy. There are many super soldiers on the teams. Then there's a huge gap between them and what should be the reverted form of a Savage Hulk, Sentry, Wanda Maximoff if she were still around, and Thor. It's hard to place exactly where Captain Marvel and Monica Rambeau sit on that list, but they're up there as well.

Power creep has widened the gap between the MCU's floor and ceiling

This leads into a conversation I don't think I have often enough, and it's probably as applicable as it's ever been: power creep. The Russos wanted to depower the Hulk so he wasn't a convenient catch-all for their storytelling in Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. Now we've entered a whole new stratosphere of power with characters like Sentry, Franklin Richards and eventually Doctor Doom.

Power creep describes the chasm between the floor and the ceiling. As the ceiling gets higher with omega level mutants and whoever the next most powerful character is, the floor stays relatively the same, with enhanced humans or super soldiers. They don't have a place side by side on the battlefield. In context they do, and that's why armies like the Chitauri and the Outriders make for perfect battles, because everybody can line up against them.

Heading into Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, some of that bottom level of power, like Red Guardian and John Walker, is a problem. It's hard to see what the collective super soldiers will be able to do against a Doctor Doom who's wielding not only magic but also formidable tech.

A variable Wonder Man suits the future of the Multiverse Saga

That's why a character like Simon Williams works. He can be variable: start him slow in a place that suits a TV show, then build his power set as he taps into it and becomes more aware of his capabilities. That will suit the character well going forward, because as we enter the Mutant Saga, power creep is going to continue. There will have to be a way to explain why some characters are still involved with the story.

That being said, I don't expect a lot of survival in Avengers: Doomsday for those who are underpowered. There will be a clearing of the floor. You're always going to have street level heroes, and they may or may not be involved in crossovers, but it has to make sense. That's what the armies are for. When it gets to the ultimate top level battles, you bring in the more powerful characters. That's what will suit Wonder Man, because Marvel can level him up into one of those and keep him involved as the power creep continues.

Franklin Richards and Doctor Doom show how hard power levels will be to manage

How this applies to the Russos and what they plan to do with any of it, I have no idea. With Franklin Richards, it's hard to explain why he doesn't just defeat Doctor Doom and fix the multiverse. Yes, he's still a kid, but he can project as an adult, and we don't know the limits of what he understands even at his young age. There will have to be some admissions about power levels.

This will be an interesting trick, and I'm curious to see how they line it up. Yelena Belova can't go running at Doctor Doom; she's powerless in the face of that character. They can work together as a team, but there's an undeniable chasm between the lower level heroes, essentially the super soldiers, and new arrivals like omega level mutants.

In the comics, this has been handled as a triangle where A beats B, B beats C and C beats A, with no clear winner. In some cases, that won't work. A character like Spider-Man can outthink Doctor Strange in the Mirror Dimension and beat him. But let's face it, Ghost isn't beating Doctor Doom, Sentry, Franklin Richards or any of these guys.