Wonder Man teaser: Marvel pokes fun at superhero fatigue

Marvel Studios had released its official Wonder Man teaser, and I'm liking what I've seen so far. At the time, Marvel had shared a short on YouTube but released the full teaser on X through the Marvel Studios page. The teaser is very meta, it looks nothing like Simon Williams' comic origin, and it seemed to support some of the leaks about the show.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II plays Simon Williams, and Trevor Slattery, aka the Mandarin, is confirmed to be in it. The question for me is whether a story this meta can land, because Marvel has tried this kind of thing before.

The Wonder Man teaser opens with a filmmaker remaking Wonder Man

The teaser opens on a news report. A reclusive filmmaker, celebrated internationally, has sprung out of retirement to sign on for his first franchise film, a remake of Wonder Man. In the interview that follows, he answers the question he expects to be asked: why one more superhero film? "Everyone is tired of superheroes. Why go see them in the cinema?"

He says Wonder Man spoke to him on a deep level and that there's an opportunity to shock the audience and reimagine the whole genre. When he's asked about casting, I think we know who gets the role: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II.

This is Marvel talking about itself. Superhero fatigue has been the narrative in pop culture and superhero communities since Avengers: Endgame. Whether people will go to theaters is another hot topic, with talk that this is the first year in a long time that no superhero movie is in the global box office top five. When the filmmaker says this is a chance to redefine filmmaking, that's what Marvel Studios is trying to do by being this meta. They're going to try to tell a story in a way that hasn't been done in the MCU before.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II gave an interview as Simon Williams at the Fantastic Four: First Steps premiere

At the Fantastic Four: First Steps premiere, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II gave an interview as Simon Williams, Wonder Man's real name, acting as if he lived in the MCU.

In character, he said he grew up a big fan of Wonder Man and that it was the first movie he saw in theaters with his father, which left him wanting to be a superhero. He called the role a beautiful full circle moment. Then the interviewer said they'd heard he had become close with "problematic public figure Trevor Slattery," and he was hurried away with his publicist stepping in.

I love that they did this. It tells us something about the movie, and it fits Trevor Slattery, a character with a lot of controversy around him, being part of the story.

Wonder Man race swaps the character inside the MCU too

Wonder Man is white in the comics, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, who is black, is playing him. The show race swaps the character within its own story as well. It shows us the original Wonder Man actor inside the MCU, and he's white.

So the character is race swapped in real life and in the MCU. To me, that shows Marvel is going all in and not holding back.

Star Trek style footage and a Cash Grab 2 film clapper

Kevin Feige is known to be a huge Trekkie, and the Wonder Man footage inside the teaser looks like it came straight off the set of a Star Trek episode. I love it.

Taking the meta angle further, the teaser shows a monitor as a crew is about to film a scene. It could be Wonder Man or something else, but most likely it's Wonder Man. The title on the film clapper reads Cash Grab 2.

That's an accusation leveled at Marvel, DC, superhero movies in general and much of the movie industry over its sequels and remakes: that they make them as cash grabs instead of creating original stories. The teaser calls out the big opinions fandoms, critics and everybody else have voiced about superhero movies. It's clever.

Captain America, Thor, Black Panther and Iron Man appear on the Wonder Man inspiration board

When the filmmaker shows the board of inspirations for his Wonder Man movie within the show, the far left side includes superheroes we've seen in the MCU. There's Captain America, but you can't see Chris Evans' head. The same goes for Thor, a little to the right.

A little to the right of Thor is another Captain America photo that appears to show Steve Rogers from behind, again hiding his face. There's Chadwick Boseman's Black Panther in the mask, and above him to the right seems to be Letitia Wright's Shuri as Black Panther. At the bottom right of that board is Iron Man. Clearly, the old superheroes and Avengers were big inspirations for Wonder Man inside the MCU.

The leaks about how Simon Williams gets his powers

Part of what we'd heard about Wonder Man had been proven true. The leaks said the show would be very meta, and the teaser bore that out.

According to what we'd heard, Simon Williams is a down on his luck actor who wants to play Wonder Man and ends up getting sucked into the actual MCU. There he's given superpowers, and he keeps them when he's spit back into real life. That's about all we'd heard, and the teaser made it seem like those leaks about how he gets his powers might be true. It also reverses the comic idea of Wonder Man being a superhero first and an actor later. Here he's an actor who gets powers after he's already been acting.

Wonder Man's comic origin starts with a grudge against Tony Stark

In the comics, Simon Williams hates Tony Stark at first. He inherits his father's company, a munitions factory competing with Stark Industries. When Stark causes the company's profits to fall, Simon tries to embezzle money, gets caught and goes to jail. He doesn't take responsibility. He blames Tony Stark.

Enchantress bails him out and brings him to Baron Zemo, who transforms him into an ion powered superhuman. He joins Zemo's Masters of Evil to betray the Avengers. Zemo warns him that betrayal means death, because he needs constant doses of a serum to keep his powers and stay alive. Simon betrays Zemo anyway and saves the Avengers.

Then it gets wild. He seems to die but doesn't. His brother thinks he did, blames the Avengers and becomes the Grim Reaper to destroy them. Meanwhile, Hank Pym created Ultron, who steals Simon's brain patterns to create Vision. Since all of that already happened in the MCU, it makes sense they could bypass it, but it was a big part of Simon's origin in the comics. It doesn't seem like they're staying true to it, but we'll wait and see.

Scarlet Witch, Vision and the West Coast Avengers

Because Vision was made from Wonder Man's brain waves, Simon has an odd relationship with the Scarlet Witch. When Vision is dismantled and rebuilt without emotions, Wanda asks Simon to provide his brain waves again to bring Vision back. He refuses because he's in love with Wanda, and down the road the two become romantically involved. With the Scarlet Witch not in the MCU at that point, I don't think this will happen.

What I do think will happen is that he goes on to be part of the West Coast Avengers, as he does in the comics. With a soft reboot coming up and much of his origin already covered in the MCU, I can see why they might not stick closely to the comics. Perhaps once we get the reset, they can retcon him a little toward a more comic accurate origin.

My verdict on the Wonder Man teaser trailer

Either way, this looks like a fresh take on Wonder Man and a different kind of show, which I think is going to be funny and very meta. It could be good, but it also might be bad. They tried this with She-Hulk, and for me it fell flat. I didn't like it, and I thought the ending was one of the worst things ever.

So Wonder Man could be hit or miss. Still, from what I've seen and what we've heard so far, I'm liking it.