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Marvel’s 2026 slate kicks off on January 27th with the eight-episode streaming series Wonder Man. Revealed to be in development in the summer of 2022, Wonder Man was shrouded so heavily in mystery that some fans questioned its existence. Developed for Disney Plus by Shang Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings and Spider-Man: Brand New Day director Destin Daniel Cretton and Hawkeye and Brooklyn Nine-Nine writer Andrew Guest, the series will see Yaha Abdul-Mateen II step into the role of Simon Williams, a longtime Avenger in the pages of Marvel Comics whose jump to the MCU took a little longer than expected after Avengers and Avengers: Age of Ultron director Joss Whedon divulged he could never “figure out what he was for.”

You know it’s a two-hander between two amazing characters. There’s this odd couple of Simon Williams and Trevor Slattery and you get a little bit of glimpse of that in the trailer. I don’t wanna go too much into story details, it’s very fun to see people speculating about what the plot will be.

With Whedon long-since out of the loop, the Marvel Parliament determined that the best way to use Simon Williams was to satirize Hollywood. Marvel Television top dog Brad Winderbaum has said that the Marvel Spotlight series “is a love letter to Hollywood in a lot of ways,” including providing the audience with “a peek behind the curtain of the entertainment industry.”

As the viral and meta marketing for the project has revealed, the series will follow Williams as he attempts to land the role of a lifetime as the lead in a remake of the classic, in-universe superhero film Wonder Man. However, with super-powered folks not allowed to work in the industry, Simon will be forced to try to hide his powers from not only those in Hollywood but also the Department of Damage Control, the organization first seen on screen in Spider-Man: Homecoming and the de facto villains of the series

 

That is part of the fun of it. If you’re a fan of West Coast Avengers and know a little bit about Simon Williams you’re going to be… I mean, I hope if you’re anything like me, you’re going to be very excited to see how much homage to the source material there is.

-Brad Winderbaum

Unlike Ironheart, which followed up on Riri Williams after her MCU debut in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Wonder Man marks the first MCU appearance of the character but that doesn’t mean there’s not a little homework to do before checking out the Marvel Spotlight series. And so we bring you the Ultimate List of What to Watch Before Wonder Man!

Iron Man 3 (2013)

🍅 79%

Though Simon Williams is making his MCU debut in Wonder Man, the other half of the show’s odd couple, Trevor Slattery, has had plenty of screentime over the last decade and change.

When we look back at the Infinity Saga, few moments caused quite the seismic divide in the fandom as the “Mandarin Twist” in Shane Black’s Iron Man 3. At the center of that controversy? A washed-up, drug-addled British actor named Trevor Slattery. To understand Slattery’s role, you have to separate the marketing from the movie, because that was the genius—and for some, the betrayal—of the character.

It kind of has this trilogy feeling. After ‘Wonder Man’ Season 1 you can map out…

-Brad Winderbaum

For the first half of the film, Slattery (played to perfection by Sir Ben Kingsley) was presented as The Mandarin. He was the ultimate boogeyman, a classic warlord broadcasting lessons of terror to the United States. Then came the scene in the Miami stronghold. Tony infiltrates the headquarters, expecting a final showdown with a mastermind. Instead, he finds Slattery fresh out of the bathroom, popping open a beer, and rambling about his drug supply in a thick Liverpudlian accent.

Slattery wasn’t a warlord. He was a struggling stage actor with a substance abuse problem and a history of failed pilots. Aldrich Killian, the film’s real villain, hired Slattery to be the face of his Extremis experiments. Killian needed a terrorist narrative to cover up the volatile explosions caused by his unstable super-soldiers.

Despite the hate, Slattery’s role was crucial for Tony Stark’s character arc. It forced Tony to stop chasing ghosts and face the reality that his demons were of his own making, not some foreign mystic.

All Hail the King (2014)

If Iron Man 3 was the movie that divided the fanbase, All Hail the King was the olive branch Kevin Feige and crew extended to bring us all back together. Released with Thor: The Dark World‘s home media, this 14-minute short film is arguably one of the most important pieces of canon in the Infinity Saga, fundamentally retconning the MCU to make room for the real Mandarin.

We pick up with Trevor Slattery living his absolute best life inside Seagate Prison. He’s not being treated like a terrorist; he’s being treated like a celebrity. He has his own “butler,” a fan club, and he’s still completely oblivious to the gravity of the crimes in which he was complicit.

The narrative frame is a documentary being filmed by a journalist named Jackson Norriss, played by Scoot McNairy. Norriss is digging into Trevor’s past, looking at his failed pilots and his childhood. Trevor thinks this is just another puff piece to stroke his ego. He’s rambling about his acting method, completely unaware that the vibe in the room is shifting. Norriss isn’t there to celebrate Trevor; he’s there to bury him. In the final act, Norriss drops the act. He pulls a gun, kills the guards, and reveals his true allegiance. He isn’t a journalist. He is a member of the Ten Rings.

The Ten Rings are furious that a drug-addled British actor made a mockery of their leader’s name. Norriss isn’t there to kill Trevor in prison. He’s breaking him out to take him to the boss. As Norriss puts it, the boss “wants his name back.”

By revealing that Killian merely co-opted the iconography of a real ancient warlord, they satisfied the comic purists without invalidating the events of Iron Man 3. It was a brilliant bit of retroactive continuity that kept Trevor Slattery on the board as a comedic pawn while setting the stage for Wenwu’s eventual debut in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)

🍅 92%

While everyone was busy watching Tom Holland stick the landing as the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man in Homecoming, what appears to have been a massive piece of world-building was also taking place with the introduction of the Department of Damage Control (DODC).

A construction company that cleans up after superhero battles, in the comics, Homecoming rebranded them as a federal executive department that’s part of a joint venture between the U.S. Government and Stark Industries. After the Battle of New York in 2012, the city originally hired Michael Keaton‘s Adrian Toomes for the cleanup. But then, in swooped Anne Marie Hoag and the DODC, flashing federal badges and ultimately forcing Toomes and his crew into the choice to become weapons dealers.

It’s a brilliant narrative flip for the MCU where organizations like S.H.I.E.L.D. or the Avengers are meant to be the “good guys.” Here, the DODC represents the cold, corporate side of heroism. They locked down the alien tech not just to keep people safe, but to hoard it.

The DODC’s debut in Homecoming set a dark precedent. They started as a cleanup crew, but as seen No Way Home and Ms. Marvel, they’ve evolved into a much more aggressive, enforcement-heavy agency.

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2022)

🍅 92%

After being dragged out of Seagate Prison by the Ten Rings, presumably to face a gruesome execution at the hands of the real Mandarin, Slattery disappeared from the MCU for nearly a decade. Rather than killing him, Wenwu kept Trevor as a sort of “court jester” to perform Shakespeare recitals whenever the warlord needed entertainment. In a hilarious twist, the terrifying terrorist from Iron Man 3 saved his own skin solely by doing acting improvisations of Macbeth and Planet of the Apes.

He manages to escape from the real Mandarin and from Shang-Chi land, and he flies back into Hollywood to give his career a second chance and to prove to his dear mother Dorothy, who always had faith in him and his talents, that he was truly the actor his mom always hoped he would be and that he always aspired to be.

-Ben Kingsley on Trevor Slattery’s role in Wonder Man

Slattery’s inclusion here isn’t just comic relief; it’s narrative utility. He is the only person who can communicate with Morris, the mythological Dijiang, who knows the safe path through the dangerous bamboo forest to reach Ta Lo. During the final battle against the Soul Eaters, Trevor pulls off his greatest performance yet: playing dead. He survives the chaos by pretending to be a corpse, a meta-commentary on his cowardly nature that somehow ends up saving him.

Trevor sees in Simon a friend, a colleague, but he also sees Simon as someone he can absolutely exploit for his own ends,” Kingsley teases. “It’s quite a classic, basic human condition story. You are associated with somebody and you have an affinity with that person, but at the same time, you know that you’re going to have to exploit that person to get to where you need to be.

-Ben Kingsley

Director Destin Daniel Cretton pulled off a magic trick. He took a character that half the fanbase hated because of the “Mandarin Twist” and made him undeniably lovable. By pairing him with Morris and stripping away the drug-addled malice of Iron Man 3, Slattery became a sympathetic, wholesome uncle figure, setting him up for his role in Wonder Man, which Cretton co-created.

Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021)

🍅 93%

Though Spider-Man: Homecoming introduced the DODC as a bureaucratic nuisance, Spider-Man: No Way Home took the gloves off. In No Way Home, the DODC stopped being the janitors and started being the cops. The moment Mysterio outed Peter Parker’s identity, the DODC was on the scene—and not to help. The DODC, led by Arian Moayed’s Agent Cleary, took lead on the investigation, seized Stark Industries’ assets, putting Happy Hogan in legal limbo, and dragged Peter, MJ, Ned, and May into interrogation rooms.

Beginning with No Way Home, the DODC has absorbed massive legal authority regarding “enhanced individuals.” They aren’t just managing the tech anymore; they are managing the people connected to it. The DODC is no longer the “Stark Joint Venture” trying to do good. With Tony gone, the checks and balances seem to have evaporated. They are now a government entity with access to the most dangerous tech on Earth and a mandate to police superheroes without oversight. If you are looking for the bad guys in the post-Endgame world, look no further than the windbreaker-wearing DODC.

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022)

🍅 80%

While She-Hulk was lighter in tone, the implications for the DODC were arguably the most dystopian yet. They aren’t just investigating “enhanced” individuals anymore; they are now the primary jailers of the MCU.

She-Hulk gave us our best look yet at the DODC Supermax Prison. This facility, located in the middle of nowhere, is where they were holding Emil Blonsky. This is a massive shift in power dynamics. A long way from cleaning up rubble, the DODC now manages long-term incarceration for high-threat assets.

Taking it a step further, She-Hulk showed the weaponization of bureaucracy via the inhibitor chip. When Jennifer Walters “hulked out” at the Gala, thanks to Intelligencia’s provocation, the DODC was on the scene instantly to detain her. But they didn’t just lock her up; they forced a plea deal that required her to wear an inhibitor device preventing her transformation.

This is a game-changer for the MCU:
the DODC now possesses the legal and technical ability to strip a superhero of their identity. They aren’t just arresting villains; they are regulating heroes. They turned She-Hulk into a monitored civilian with the stroke of a pen.

Ms. Marvel (2022)

🍅 98%

No Way Home and She-Hulk acted as a bridge for the DODC’s portrayal in Ms. Marvel. The aggressive tactics we saw Cleary use against a teenager (Peter) were dialed up to eleven when they went after Kamala Khan. In Ms. Marvel, the DODC officially crossed the line from antagonists to straight-up villains and the Jersey City incident wasn’t just an investigation; it was a witch hunt.

The DODC’s good cop/bad cop bit in Ms. Marvel gave a closer look at the agency’s internal friction. While Agent P. Cleary, represented the bureaucratic, “by the book” side of the agency, Agent Sadie Deever represented the radicalized arm of the DODC—agents who view enhanced individuals not as assets to be managed, but as threats to be neutralized. This dynamic is crucial because it shows the DODC isn’t a monolith; it’s a volatile organization struggling to control its own power.

The most disturbing aspect of the DODC’s role in this series was the targeted harassment of the Muslim community. The DODC is now effectively the MCU’s version of the Sentinel program’s early days—a government body driven by fear and prejudice against the “other” and it’s clear that will be further explored not only in Wonder Man but also in Spider-Man: Brand New Day.

About Marvel Television’s Wonder Man:

The eight-episode series is created by Destin Daniel Cretton (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Spider-Man: Brand New Day) and Andrew Guest (Community, Hawkeye) and stars Emmy Award winner Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Simon Williams and Academy Award winner Ben Kingsley, who reprises his role as Trevor Slattery following appearances in Iron Man 3, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and All Hail the King.

Aspiring Hollywood actor Simon Williams is struggling to get his career off the ground. During a chance meeting with Trevor Slattery, an actor whose biggest roles may be well behind him, Simon learns legendary director Von Kovak is remaking the superhero film “Wonder Man.”
These two actors at opposite ends of their careers doggedly pursue life-changing roles in this film as audiences get a peek behind the curtain of the entertainment industry.

-Official synopsis for Wonder Man

All eight episodes will stream exclusively on Disney+ at 6pm PT January 27.