Wonder Man Season 1 review (2026)

Wonder Man Season 1 is not going to quiet the disgruntled Marvel Cinematic Universe fans that have largely been disappointed with the live action offerings on Disney+.

It’s not that Wonder Man Season 1 is a terrible series with uneven directing and shaky performances. Those aren’t issues at all. Instead, it’s a case of a show based on a superhero that desperately tries to be anything but a series inspired by a superhero.

Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (The Matrix Resurrections) is fantastic in the lead role with a compelling performance as aspiring actor Simon Williams. Simon’s dream is to be the lead in the upcoming reboot of Wonder Man. The role has a deeper meaning for Simon as the original film is tied to a core memory with his late father.

Abdul-Mateen II is exceptional in the role, playing Simon as a far too intense actor who takes his process like he’s a multi-time Oscar winner instead of a background supporting character fortunate to get any speaking lines at all.

Simon isn’t written as a particularly charming or likable underdog. It’s supposed to be enough that he really, really wants to be cast in the Wonder Man film, but it’s a thin connective thread to grasp onto for eight episodes. There are moments that show Simon’s potential as an actor, but he lacks the self-awareness to fake confidence. He’s a ball of shaky nerves and doubts that make him more frustrating than inspiring.

Sir Ben Kingsley (Iron Man 3) once again reprises his role as Trevor Slattery for a third time. It shouldn’t be a shock that Kingsley is also terrific as the former Mandarin now trying on a new role as a mentor/best friend to Simon.

While the bond between Simon and Trevor is a core admittedly enjoyable element of the series, it’s disappointing that Wonder Man’s showcase series devotes so much screen time to a one-note gag character who’s made more MCU appearances than Shang-Chi or Wonder Man.

Showrunner/head writer Andrew Guest and co-creator Destin Daniel Cretton aim to craft a solid underdog story about two actors going through some wacky scenarios all for the sake of landing that perfect gig to revitalize their careers.

The problem with Wonder Man Season 1 is that it could just as easily be a production from NBC, Netflix, HBO Max or Paramount+.

Outside of Slattery and some other more obligatory than essential to the story mentions of established MCU characters and organizations, Wonder Man Season 1 rarely feels like a show about a superhero at all. There is no big bad gunning for Simon. No big triumphant overcome colossal odds moment or scenario that makes Simon an aspirational character.

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That will likely frustrate long-term Marvel Comics fans who know on a power scale level, Wonder Man is an upper tier powerhouse capable of going toe to toe with Thor and famously betrayed the Avengers in one of their earliest outings only to see the error of his ways and ultimately aid Earth’s Mightiest Heroes.

For MCU critics, who happily proclaim disappointing box office returns as “superhero fatigue,” Wonder Man will be more their brand of comic book entertainment. This ignores the more obvious reason for diminished MCU fanfare — the quality took a massive hit in order to feed the Disney+ beast that demanded more and more content.

Wonder Man Season 1 isn’t really interested in being a superhero show. Simon has the occasional flare-up of powers — the source of which never gets adequately explained — that gets triggered when he’s emotional or angry. A black man who has to control his temper or cause massive destruction in his wake sure feels like an idea that needed a lot more workshopping.

Maybe in a show that wants to tackle the issue of a black man needing to code switch to play the Hollywood game while keeping his emotions in check, this could have worked. In a buddy comedy love letter to Hollywood, the acting bug and the behind the scenes look at the chaos involved in making a production there’s not much space for that kind of deeper exploration.

This behind the curtain look at actors and studios premise isn’t exactly groundbreaking after years of shows like Entourage and more recently, Seth Rogen’s The Studio. Good luck awaiting concerns of “Hollywood behind the scenes fatigue.”

An overall lack of direction with The Multiverse Phase led to Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige ringing the alarm and calling back Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans and The Russo Brothers in hopes of capturing some of that past Avengers magic most famously achieved with Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame.

It’s in this landscape that Wonder Man Season 1 arrives. If prior Disney+ offerings like Moon Knight, She-Hulk: Attorney At Law, Echo, Ironheart and Secret Invasion are any indication, Wonder Man fans shouldn’t count on seeing him again or for anything that plays out in the series to matter in the grand scheme of the MCU. The fact that Disney released all eight episodes at once like Ironheart shows the level of confidence isn’t exactly high.

Ironically, the best episode of the season barely focuses on Simon at all. It’s more of a precautionary tale of mixing superpowers and acting featuring Byron Bowers in an outstanding supporting performance. For comic fans looking for some superhero action, it’s all there in the trailer with the wink wink nod of Wonder Man’s classic 1985 costume as he battles some aliens. There are teases of Simon’s powers, but that’s the extent of their showcase.

Wonder Man Season 1 is a show that wants to have it both ways. Stripped of the Marvel decorations and diminished but still potent branding, Wonder Man would easily be just another BTS Hollywood show that could appeal to mass audiences. Yet even in the small-scale doses, the powers and barely there superhero “taint” will still keep some viewers away and drive off some of the usual Marvel target audience.

Rating: 5 out of 10

Photo Credit: Disney

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