Main cast: Yahya Abdul-Mateen II (Simon Williams/Wonder Man), X Mayo (Janelle Jackson), Zlatko Burić (Von Kovak), and Ben Kingsley (Trevor Slattery)
Director: Destin Daniel Cretton

Hello, people! Yes, I am reviewing this show because I told my fellow TV show connoisseur Mrs Giggles that I needed a break from anything James Gunn after Creature Commandos.

So, we decided to swap assignments. I’ll review Wonder Man and she’ll tackle the second season of Peacemaker. That, and I get to watch the delectable Yahya Abdul-Mateen II for eight episodes, carefully analyzing his face and body for plot and acting abilities. What can I say? Everyone wins in this arrangement.

Much has been said about how Disney is once again at it, changing the lily-white Wonder Man to an African American, but come on, people, it’s 2026. We know the playbook of these studios by now, so I’m not sure why anyone is still surprised by the race- and gender-swapping going on.

Sure, it’s a very lazy way to make a show seem more “modern” without actually doing the hard work of creating new characters or telling genuinely diverse stories, but at this point, we’ll just have to accept that “Hollywood will Hollywood” and wait until they either come to their senses or go bankrupt.

Besides, this particular race swap actually makes sense within the context of the show.

• You see, this Wonder Man is not the original Wonder Man from the comics.
• Instead, the Wonder Man link here is to the 1945 movie, which has nothing to do with Marvel’s Wonder Man.

In other words, in this MCU timeline, there had never been a white Wonder Man. There isn’t even a Wonder Man, period, as in this episode, as our protagonist Simon Williams hasn’t put on a hopefully tight-fitting and skimpy superhero costume yet.

Instead, Simon wants to be an actor ever since he watched the original Wonder Man film as a kid, which inspired him to pursue his dreams in Hollywood.

Unfortunately, his tendency to want to take over every scene, rewrite dialogue to his liking, and override the director’s vision doesn’t work particularly well when you’re a wannabe actor and not, say, Tom Cruise with decades of box office clout and the ability to do your own stunts while dangling from helicopters.

So, when the episode opens, Simon’s antics got his character unceremoniously written out of American Horror Story, which is actually a good thing, considering how utterly wretched that show has become after the first four or five seasons. He’s effectively fired, his ego bruised and his career prospects dimming.

To add insult to injury, his girlfriend dumps him because he’s too emotionally closed off and places his career ambitions above their relationship. In other words, Simon undergoes the same humiliation ritual experienced by every struggling actor character in these types of shows. It’s practically a genre requirement at this point.

Simon’s luck appears to change when, while watching Midnight Cowboy — his favorite film, which tells you something about his taste and emotional state — he bumps into Trevor Slattery, an older actor who looks like he has serious hygiene issues and possibly hasn’t seen a shower in several days.

Yes, one is definitely sure that the parallel between a hot young guy meeting an older, hygienically challenged, and likely sickly gentleman in this show and that between Joe Buck and Ratso Rizzo in that classic film is entirely deliberate.

Although the poignant, heartbreaking friendship between those two characters is approximately 99.9% unlikely to be replicated by this show because come on, just LOOK at the MCU output of the last five years. They can’t even get the chemistry right between a potted plant and fertilizer, let alone two complex characters navigating loneliness and desperation in the American Dream’s underbelly.

Anyway, the two actors soon land roles in a remake of Wonder Man, which only makes one wonder whether the next episode will feature angry people on social media screaming about racebending and DEI initiatives ruining their childhoods.

Oh, and Trevor is actually not what he seems — shocking twist alert — as he’s secretly working with someone to catch Simon, who possesses, ta-da, actual superpowers. Because of course he does. This is the MCU, after all. Everyone gets powers eventually.

So far, this first episode is genuinely intriguing. The acting is solid across the board. The dialogue is nowhere near as “millennials trying desperately to be funny and relatable” cringe as some of the more recent MCU shows that shall remain nameless but rhyme with Shee-Mulk. And of course, the lead actor is absolutely lovely to look at, with a voice that could narrate audiobooks for a living and make a fortune. Sigh.

I’m not entirely sure how this show will tie into the rest of the MCU’s increasingly convoluted timeline and multiverse nonsense, but then again, does it really matter at this point?

One can only hope they don’t mess up the next few episodes with forced cameos, unnecessary tie-ins to movies nobody asked for, or sudden tonal shifts that derail the entire narrative. I’m cautiously optimistic about where this is headed, but I was also optimistic when that Daredevil: Born Again series started, and we all saw how that turned out, shudder.

Still, fingers firmly crossed, because Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is legitimately one of the hottest and most talented actors working on the big and small screen today, and he deserves a breakthrough role as fine as he looks. That and I will have more opportunities to admire what a beautiful human being he is.