Will Marvel ever run out of superheroes to show on Disney+? It doesn't look like it: one of the latest superheroes to get their own show is Wonder Man, whose arch-enemy Baron Zemo features in the Disney+ series The Falcon and the Winter Soldier.
If you're not familiar with Wonder Man he's no relation to Wonder Woman; he's a former businessman turned superhuman by the aforementioned Baron. Created by the legendary trio of Stan Lee, Don Heck and Jack Kirby, he first appeared in The Avengers way back in 1964. Wonder Man was initially introduced as a supervillain who battled the Avengers, largely because he really hated Tony Stark, but he would later be resurrected to join the good guys instead.
The TV show will star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, who you may have seen as Black Manta in the two Aquaman films or as Morpheus and Agent Smith in The Matrix Resurrections. He also played Doctor Manhattan in the HBO Watchmen series, for which he won an Emmy award.
When is the release date for Wonder Man?
It's taken a long time for Wonder Man to make it to the screen – he's one of the very last Avengers from the 1960s to appear in the MCU – but unfortunately he's going to have to wait a little longer. Filming will run from April to August 2023 and then there's reshoots, post-production and visual effects to sort out, so realistically we're looking at late 2024 at the earliest.
There's also the issue of Disney's reorganisation to think about. With Disney+ subscription numbers falling for the first time in its most recent earnings results, Disney+ isn't immune to the restructuring and tighter purse strings that are happening across the Mouse House. At the turn of the year it emerged that several MCU series planned for streaming in 2023 have been delayed, and that some of the delays are having knock-on effects – so for example Deadpool is now planned for late 2024, pushing Fantastic Four back to February 2025 and Avengers: Secret Wars into 2026.
When the show does air, I'm hoping it lives up to producer Stephen Broussard's description. Speaking to Comicbook.com he said that "one of the things that we’re excited about it is that it’s going to feel very unique. It’s not going to feel like anything you’ve quite seen in the MCU before. And the kind of stories we can tell on Disney+, which has been fun. Like streaming, serialized storytelling is a totally different muscle.” With a comparatively obscure character free from the baggage of better-known superheroes and a first-class actor in the lead, Wonder Man could well be, well, Wonder-full.
