Wonder Man is the best Marvel’s been in years – it’s a shame it no longer matters

The new series takes the much-criticised franchise in a winning direction, writes Louis Chilton. The problem is that it’s too little, too late

It’s faint praise indeed to proclaim that Wonder Man is the best MCU property in years. Better than the execrable, slipshod Thor: Love & Thunder, you ask? How could that be? Better than marvel-ryan-reynolds-b2587734.html">Deadpool & Wolverine, the obnoxious team-up hit that sought to break the record for most – and most gratuitous – surprise cameos ever stuffed into one two-hour blockbuster? Better than the succession of forgettable, little-seen straight-to-Disney+ TV shows that seem to arrive unbidden and unheeded, like water dripping from an unminded tap?

I’m being glib, of course, but at this point, it’s widely acknowledged that the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), the biggest film and TV franchise on the planet, has gone thoroughly to seed. The bar has been lowered so drastically that even middling efforts like Thunderbolts* (2025) seem to take on the glow of triumph, if only through sheer competent inoffensiveness. Wonder Man, though – the studio’s new six-part series, focusing on a struggling actor (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) with some hazardous and inconvenient superpowers – stands out as a rare morsel of actual substance.

Wonder Man is the first MCU property since the spoofy and unexpected WandaVision (2021), Marvel’s first foray into Disney+ originals, to really take the franchise in an interesting direction. Playing out in the tenor of Apple TV’s solid Hollywood-insider comedy The Studio, the series immediately feels nothing like anything Marvel has made before.

It’s character-driven, and the characters, particularly Abdul-Mateen’s Simon Williams and Ben Kingsley’s Trevor Slattery (a role he first played, with less nuance, in Iron Man 3), are brought to life with unexpected credibility. The great Joe “Joey Pants” Pantoliano plays a version of himself; that alone might justify tuning in. Wonder Man is a series about acting, and about movies – and if there’s something a little transparent about its attempts to pander to the whims of modern cinephiles, this nonetheless marks a welcome change from its MCU predecessors, which largely sought to tarmac over them.

And yet, the problem at this point is who cares? The damage has long been done: interest in the MCU is in sharp decline, whether what they’re making is any good or not. Of course, proclamations about the death of the superhero movie – or, in slightly less doom-mongering verbiage, “superhero fatigue” – are, to some extent, premature: Avengers: Doomsday, the ridiculously over-stuffed crossover movie out towards the end of this year, is almost certain to be a big, lucrative hit.

Marvel won’t stop making movies any time soon. But it’s also clear that the superhero boom is now over, that audiences are being pickier about which outings are worth the trip to the cinema. And this disillusionment has filtered down to the MCU’s streaming slate, where it seems that none of its offerings are now even sampled by those outside the core audience of superhero diehards.

It’s telling, perhaps, how many of the – roundly positive – Wonder Man reviews have highlighted just how little the series resembles a typical Marvel release: it seems the best way of selling a Marvel property has almost become a frantic assurance that it’s not a Marvel property at all, in anything but name. Whether this argument has any traction is another matter. The homogeneity of the shared Marvel universe was once its great strength (or, at least, its USP), but over the years, its labyrinthine lore has taken on a rather homework-like feel. It’s surely a good thing that Wonder Man requires almost no pre-existing franchise knowledge; at this point, however, you can’t help but think the presently unconverted are going to stay that way.

Marvel-lous work: Yahya Adbul-Mateen II in ‘Wonder Man’ (Marvel)

It’s a shame, becauseWonder Man is worth watching, and just a few years ago would have felt like a vital breath of fresh air for a series wallowing in creative stagnancy. But fresh air is a pleasure, not a cure-all, and can do little in the long term for a franchise whose rattly breaths are numbered.

‘Wonder Man’ is available to stream now on Disney+