***SPOILER ALERT***
Disney+’s new series “Wonder Man” debuted last night, and it’s only just scratching the surface of its wonder.
The show, starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Simon Williams, aka Wonder Man, and Trevor Slattery (Ben Kingsley) as his unexpected counterpoint, reimagines the titular hero as a Haitian-American struggling actor in Hollywood, burdened by superpowers he doesn’t yet understand but must hide and a culture he feels like an outcast among.
Sam sets his sights on coveting the titular role in a new reboot of the 1980s “Wonder Man.” But there’s a twist, it’s a lure. Sam’s entire audition was set up by the Department of Damage Control to find someone with powers they can’t yet contain.
Across eight episodes (all of which dropped on Wednesday), “Wonder Man” unfolds not as an action-heavy superhero spectacle but as a meta-superhero drama that jabs at Hollywood, superhero tropes, and the cultural baggage actors bring to iconic roles. Along the way, it infuses the Marvel Universe with intimate Haitian cultural life and deep Black family drama. Much of the suspense for the viewer becomes about when the usual expected action is going to start.
After a moving flashback of a young Sam and his father watching the original “Wonder Man” in theaters, we meet Sam fully in the trenches of his failing acting career. He’s obsessively reworking his part on “American Horror Story” like he’s the showrunner, only for the audience to realize his character was meant to die early before his “edits” get him cut altogether. The patience of his agent, Janelle Jackson (played charmingly by X Mayo), is wearing thin. Despite that, Sam impersonates her assistant to secure an audition for “Wonder Man.”
He learned of the part from a curious stranger he met at a movie theater who turned out to be Trevor Slattery, who was initially sent specifically to lure Sam.
But Sam nearly blows the audition until Slattery, auditioning for the reboot’s sidekick role, appears and coaches him through it. Slattery’s pep talk in a bathroom helps reveal something very clear about the young superhero. This Wonder Man is seriously struggling to get into character. Not because he lacks the chops, but because of everything weighing on him, self-doubt, societal expectation, the legacy of iconic performances, and the double consciousness that comes with being both Black and raised in an immigrant family.
It’s what Sam is grappling with throughout the series, but it’s also hard not to read it as commentary on the pressure actors face when stepping into roles beloved by generations — especially at a time when culture feels politically binary, and pop culture figures are loaded with moral expectation. This isn’t just about playing a superhero. It’s about whether he feels allowed to be one.
That theme becomes louder in a standout, somewhat bottleneck noir-themed episode, titled “Doorman.” Here we meet a Los Angeles doorman who gains the bizarre super ability to let people and objects pass through his body after contact with a strange substance. After heroically saving clubgoers, including Josh Gad, from a fire, he becomes a fleeting celebrity and even a brief screen presence. But when a drunk Gad accidentally passes through him and is lost to another dimension, a new law is enacted banning people with superpowers from acting in movies or TV shows.
This cautionary tale becomes more than just a weird comic aside. It’s both an in-universe warning to Sam and a broader commentary on Hollywood’s exploitation of culture without actually employing the people who embody it. The fact that the Doorman is played by a Black actor makes that commentary even sharper. Black men in real life can be celebrated one moment and erased the next, the second they step outside of expectations.
Even after Sam wins the role, and it premieres to the delight of his family and fans, his struggles continue. The series’ emotional thesis lands in the finale, where Sam makes the choice that truly defines him. When Slattery (who Sam discovers was working with DODC and gets so upset he causes a massive explosion on the set) sacrifices himself to protect Sam and ends up in a high-security facility, Sam finally acts not out of self-interest but out of conviction. And he gives his best performance yet.
To save Slattery, Sam doesn’t storm the facility in a suit or superpowered burst. Instead, he tracks down a guard at the facility and successfully poses as though he needs to study his mundane Americana life, including shadowing him at work for an upcoming role. After he earns his trust, the guard gets Sam into the facility undetected.
He finds Slattery and breaks him out, revealing he’s at least starting to understand his character’s motivation.
All eight episodes of season one of “Wonder Man” are streaming now on Disney+.
