Yahya Abdul-Mateen II Will Be Marvel's Wonder Man

After having already done about as much as they could with the most popular superheroes in Marvel Comics, the Marvel Cinematic Universe now seems to be moving on to second-tier and lesser-known characters. One of these characters is Wonder Man, whose new Disney+ series was announced in June (per THR). Wonder Man was originally introduced in the comics in 1964 in "The Avengers" #9 as a villain named Simon Williams, a young, failing businessman who was caught embezzling money from his company and blamed Tony Stark for his misfortunes. Baron Zemo gave him superpowers making him nearly invincible, so he could fight The Avengers but also poisoned him so Zemo could control the newly made supervillain. After Wonder Man finds The Avengers to be so kind to him that they try to find an antidote to the poison, he turns on Zemo, helping The Avengers win the battle. Later on in the comics, starting with "West Coast Avengers" #1, he moved out to Los Angeles to become an actor and a stuntman, using his invulnerability to his advantage and also joined the West Coast Avengers.

While fans were excited about the announcement of the Wonder Man series, many wondered if the show would suffer from certain limits within the MCU. In the r/comicbooks subreddit, u/android151 pointed out that the best characters he interacted with in the comics are not going to be available in the MCU. A few other people raised the same point, such as u/GodFlintstone, who worried that the X-Men won't be introduced in time to team Wonder Man up with Beast, a close friend of his in the comics.

Initial concerns aside, there's good news now as Marvel has now announced the actor who will be playing Wonder Man.

According to Deadline, Marvel has cast actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as the MCU's Wonder Man in the upcoming Disney+ series. The actor is no stranger to superhero projects, having played Dr. Manhattan in HBO's "Watchmen" series, for which he won an Emmy. Abdul-Mateen also played Black Manta in "Aquaman" and will be returning to that role in the upcoming "Aquaman" sequel "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom."

Most fans celebrated the casting choice on social media. In response to Variety's tweet about the casting decision, @weeskwee tweeted, "I like this guy as an actor. The character Wonder Man from the comics was the most boring generic character of all Marvel so maybe this guy can bring something cool to the role. Great casting decision!" Some found it a very pleasant surprise, with @masontheawesom2 tweeting, "Ok! This is not who I was expecting at all! Should be interesting to see how he takes on the character. I'm all for it!"

Fans on Reddit shared similar excitement over the news of Abdul-Mateen's casting. "Anyone remember that Netflix show The Get Down?" wrote u/FictionFantom. "That was the first time I saw him and I instantly knew 'this guy is gonna be a huge star someday.'" Similarly, u/The_Iceman2288 called the casting choice "a HUGE get for Marvel." A number of other users, like u/IronMan_MarkLXXXV, talked about the possibility of Wonder Man and Scarlet Witch having a romantic plotline in the MCU as they did in the comics, considering that Vision is now dead in the MCU. So it looks like this casting announcement has excited a lot more people and allowed them to put aside their initial misgivings about the series.