Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is Marvel’s Wonder Man on Disney Plus

First he was Black Manta in Aquaman and then he was Doctor Manhattan in Watchmen, but Yahya Abdul-Mateen II is jumping from DC Comics adaptations to Marvel Comics adaptations. According to Deadline, he’ll be starring as Wonder Man—a.k.a. Simon Williams—in Disney+’s upcoming Wonder Man series from producer/director Destin Daniel Cretton (of Shang-Chi fame). He’s the second big-name cast member to sign on to the show, with the other being Ben Kingsley, who will be reprising his Iron Man 3 and Shang-Chi role as trained theatrical actor Trevor Slattery.

We don’t know much beyond that, but Wonder Man has a long and weird history in the comics. He was an arms dealer like Tony Stark at one point, but then he got energy-blast powers that made his eyes all red and he briefly became a bad guy before joining the Avengers (and then the B-tier West Coast Avengers, where readers were originally introduced to the white version of Vision, so: Hmmmmm). He was also an actor, like Trevor Slattery, so that might be a fun way to bring the two of them together. (Also: No relation to Wonder Woman.)

One other thing to note about this casting that it officially renders the various Simon Williams Easter eggs in the Guardians Of The Galaxy movies non-canonical. They already were anyway, since those references only ever happened in scenes that were ultimately deleted or cut down, but this means that Nathan Fillion definitely is not the MCU’s Wonder Man.

Or maybe he was, and the Avengers broke something by going back in time, or Loki created a Simon Williams variant when he did all of that stuff in Loki. It’s just a superhero movie, believe whatever you want to believe. Nobody is going to tell you you’re wrong, except everybody you interact with online.