Wonder Man

• 1. Introduction

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  Wonder Man, whose real name is Simon Williams, died in the very comic book that introduced him. That issue was The Avengers #9, cover-dated October 1964 and published by Marvel Comics. Writer Stan Lee created him with artists Don Heck and Jack Kirby. He arrived as a supervillain charged with "ionic" energy, and he fought the Avengers. Then he was reborn as a superhero and joined the team he had attacked. How does a man built to betray a team end up dying for it? Why did readers wait years to see him again? And what does a hero do when he decides that his own team is the problem?

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• 2. Zemo's Weapon

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  Sanford Williams owned Williams Innovations, and when he died, his son Simon inherited the company's munitions factory. Profits fell, and Simon blamed his biggest competitor, Tony Stark of Stark Industries. His brother Eric advised him to embezzle funds from the company. Simon was caught and jailed.

  Heinrich Zemo offered a way out, and the Enchantress paid Simon's bail. In return, Simon agreed to serve as a pawn in Zemo's plan to infiltrate the Avengers. Zemo transformed him into an ion-powered superhuman. Tests showed great strength and durability, and he even defeated the Executioner.

  Zemo named him Wonder Man and sent him to join the Avengers. His orders were to betray them at a critical moment, so that the Masters of Evil could destroy them. To keep Simon obedient, Zemo claimed the treatment now required periodic doses of a serum that only Zemo could supply.

  The Avengers were lured into a trap and captured. Then the plan collapsed, because Wonder Man chose to save the team, apparently at the cost of his own life. Hank Pym recorded his brain patterns in the hope of reviving him someday. In truth, Simon had slipped into a catatonic state rather than dying.

  His brother Eric did not know that. Grief-stricken, Eric blamed the Avengers and took the identity of the Grim Reaper to destroy them. Pym's recording of Simon's mind would not stay private for long.

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• 3. A Death That Would Not Stick

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  Four years passed before The Avengers #58, cover-dated November 1968, returned to the events of issue #9. Wonder Man then vanished again until The Avengers #102 in August 1972, where he made a cameo appearance in a comatose state.

  During those years of suspended animation, Ultron, the evil robot created by Hank Pym, stole the recorded brain patterns. Ultron used them as a template for the synthezoid Vision.

  Then came a run of revivals, each by someone with a motive. Kang the Conqueror briefly revived Wonder Man to fight the Avengers as part of his Legion of the Unliving, in The Avengers #131-132 from January and February 1975. In The Avengers #152, from October 1976, the Black Talon and the Grim Reaper raised him as a zombie. The Living Laser then fully restored him in The Avengers Annual #6, also from 1976.

  With his faculties back, Wonder Man joined the Avengers full-time in The Avengers #160, cover-dated June 1977.

  Stan Lee, by then Marvel's publisher, recalled the character's name causing legal trouble in a 1978 remark. He said: "You know, years ago we brought out Wonder Man, and DC Comics sued us because they had Wonder Woman, and... I said okay, I'll discontinue Wonder Man. And all of a sudden they've got Power Girl after Marvel had introduced Power Man. Oh, boy. How unfair."

  In 1984, Wonder Man would become a founding member of a spin-off team.

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• 4. Teams and Solo Titles

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  A four-issue miniseries running from September to December 1984 introduced the West Coast Avengers, with Wonder Man as a founding member. The team then ran for 102 issues, and he stayed among its primary characters.

  When that team disbanded, he joined Force Works, whose series debuted with a July 1994 cover-date. After that group splintered, he rejoined the Avengers in The Avengers (vol. 3) #4, from May 1998. The Avengers collapsed in issue #503, cover-dated December 2004. Wonder Man then joined a splinter group called the Mighty Avengers, who starred in a series premiering with a March 2007 cover-date.

  He also carried books of his own. A self-titled graphic novel appeared in 1986. A 29-issue Wonder Man series followed, running from September 1991 to February 1994. The three-issue miniseries Avengers Two: Wonder Man and the Beast came out in 2000. In 2007, the five-issue miniseries Wonder Man: My Fair Super Hero arrived.

  During the 2010-2013 Avengers series he appeared only now and then. Still, he played an important role in the "End Times" storyline, from issue #31 in December 2012 through the final issue, #34, in January 2013.

  Comic book writer Rick Remender revealed in an interview that Wonder Man would join the Uncanny Avengers, starting with issue #5.

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• 5. Stardom and Stunts

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  For several months after his return, Simon suffered from a mild claustrophobia and a fear of dying in battle a second time. A fight with Korvac finally broke that fear.

  He then developed an interest in acting. After minor roles, he moved to Hollywood, where fellow Avenger Hercules used his contacts to launch Simon's career. Simon also worked as a stuntman, a fitting job for someone invulnerable to virtually all conventional weapons.

  On the page, writers cast him and the Avenger Beast as friends who loved nightlife. Readers adored the pairing, and it carried on even after both characters left the series.

  Success went to his head, though. Once he helped form the West Coast Avengers, new confidence turned into arrogance, and he developed a serious rivalry with Iron Man. A brutal battle with the Abomination made him see his mistake.

  His relationship with the Vision was just as tangled. Wonder Man eventually accepted the synthezoid as his "brother." Then a global conglomerate dismantled the Vision and rebuilt him as an emotionless machine.

  The Scarlet Witch, the Vision's wife, asked Wonder Man to provide his brainwaves again to restore the original personality. He refused, because he had feelings for her himself. She would later be the one to bring him back from destruction.

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• 6. The Disillusioned Avenger

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  Force Works lasted only until its first mission, when an explosion disintegrated Wonder Man. Many months later, the Scarlet Witch accidentally resurrected him in an ionic form. Several months after that, she revived him fully, and he now lived in an independent, more human form.

  During the Civil War storyline, S.H.I.E.L.D. blackmailed him. Charges of misappropriating funds in his non-profit organization pushed him onto the pro-registration side. He captured renegade vigilantes and criminals, and he made televised messages explaining the Registration Act to the public and to unregistered superhumans.

  After Secret Invasion, Norman Osborn formed a new team of Avengers, which effectively forced Wonder Man into retirement. On television he lamented his years as an Avenger. He called them a waste of time and said that using violence to uphold justice had brought only heartache and death. He ended by saying that Osborn in charge was exactly what the country deserved. He then joined the Lethal Legion, which opposed Osborn, to keep it from hurting civilians.

  In the Heroic Age storyline, Captain America asked him to join a new team of Avengers. Simon refused, saying the Avengers had caused more problems than they solved. He had been in jail until Steve bailed him out. After Captain America ignored his advice, Simon attacked the new team and damaged their base, then disappeared.

  Thor and Iron Man tried to reason with him. Simon refused to listen and pointed to the dead heroes as proof that the concept was doomed. Iron Man noticed that Simon was "leaking" ionic energy, suggesting that his state of mind might be tied to his powers.

  Then Wonder Man assembled the Revengers to stop the Avengers. He blamed them for Ultron's existence, for the damage caused by the Scarlet Witch and Hulk, for the Civil War, and for Osborn's Dark Avengers. His team beat the New Avengers and moved on to Avengers Tower, threatening to destroy it unless the Avengers disbanded. Iron Man trapped him in a prison built to contain his energy. Even so, the Revengers had spread real doubt about the team's worth.

  Wonder Man later escaped and told Captain America that he regretted his actions and wanted redemption. The Red Hulk attacked him before he could accept help, and Simon took him down. Looking at Avengers Tower, he vowed to "earn his way back."

  At the Wasp's urging, he joined the Avengers Unity Squad. He said he had no intention of fighting and offered his public relations skills to win over skeptical citizens. He and the Scarlet Witch rekindled their relationship.

  During a confrontation with the Celestial Executioner, he let Rogue absorb him so she could oppose the Celestial. His essence stayed in Rogue after the Scarlet Witch expelled her other absorbed powers. When the Unity Squad traveled to Counter-Earth, the Master Scientist, right-hand man of the High Evolutionary, captured Rogue and removed Wonder Man's consciousness from her body.

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• 7. Ionic Powers

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  Baron Zemo's chemical and radiation treatments gave Simon Williams his strength, speed, stamina, durability, agility, and reflexes. The process also laced Pym Particles into the ion ray bombardment, which Zemo had not planned.

  Zemo had hoped only to make Wonder Man "the equal of any Avenger." The treatment overshot, giving him strength comparable to Thor's. In Avengers: The Children's Crusade #3, Captain America described his strength as "Sentry-level." Zemo also supplied a rocket pack in his belt so that he could fly.

  When the Scarlet Witch resurrected him during Kurt Busiek's tenure as head writer, Wonder Man gained the ability to turn into pure ionic energy at will and back. His self-regenerating ionic energy lets him go without air, food, or water. His eyes glow a bright red. He usually wears sunglasses to hide this, although he has since learned to normalize their appearance.

  In his early years, he sometimes wore an ionic-powered apparatus for simulated flight. Over his career, he gained true flight without any thrust system, along with energy projection. He can emit force or flame beams from his hands and eyes and change his shape in ways not fully explored. He has grown taller than his adversary Goliath, turned a hand into a sickle, and taken on a more demonic look. He can also hold energy in his fist to hit harder.

  He can even give superpowers to non-powered people by imparting his ionic force, then absorb it back. He may want to, because lending it out somewhat weakens him.

  Since his resurrection, he has rarely used most of these abilities. He still shifts between human and energy states at will. In ionic form he continuously emits energy, which lets Iron Man track him by his energy signature. Later appearances show greater strength and power, and he has learned to teleport at will. He also has some limited effect on electromagnetic phenomena, allowing him to absorb radiological and ionic energy.

  Captain America trained Simon in unarmed combat as an Avenger, making him an excellent hand-to-hand fighter. Simon also holds an advanced degree in electrical engineering.

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• 8. Other Worlds, Other Screens

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  In Avengers Forever, an alternate Wonder Man belongs to a resistance against the Black Skull. In Exiles, a gamma bomb meant to kill the Hulk turns him into a Hulk-like creature. In Guardians of the Galaxy, he survives to the 31st century and is known as Hollywood. In Heroes Reborn, he serves in the Enchantress's Lethal Legion. In the MC2 universe, he is never revived after his first death, and robotic copies stand in for him. In the Ultimate Marvel universe, he is a bodybuilder in the West Coast Ultimates whose strength brought mental instability.

  Critics have ranked him often. In 2012, IGN placed him 38th in its list of the top 50 Avengers. In 2016, Screen Rant ranked him 7th among the most powerful Avengers and 13th among the physically strongest superheroes. In 2022, Newsarama ranked him 15th among the best Avengers of all time.

  On television, he appears in The Avengers: United They Stand, voiced by Hamish McEwan. In The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes, voiced by Phil LaMarr, he founds Williams Innovations before Tony Stark buys it out. Seeking revenge, he turns to his brother, the Grim Reaper, and A.I.M., who make him Wonder Man. The Enchantress later restabilizes his body and recruits him into the Masters of Evil. He seemingly sacrifices himself to stop a Norn Stone's destruction, though writer Christopher Yost said he survived and would have returned had the series been renewed. In an episode of M.O.D.O.K. titled "This Man... This Makeover!", Nathan Fillion voices him as an actor and self-proclaimed "pending Avenger."

  He also turns up in video games. He is a boss in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 2, voiced by Dave B. Mitchell, and a playable character in Marvel Super Hero Squad Online, voiced by Charlie Adler. Other games include Marvel Avengers Alliance, Marvel Heroes, Marvel Avengers Academy, and Lego Marvel Super Heroes 2.

  Nathan Fillion was also set to appear as Simon Williams on film posters inside Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2. He released a set photo showing Williams as an actor portraying Arkon. His scenes were never filmed, but director James Gunn acknowledged the character could return in later Marvel Cinematic Universe installments.

  He finally reached live action in the Disney+ series Wonder Man, from 2026, with Yahya Abdul-Mateen II playing Simon as an adult and Kameron J. Meadows as a child. Destin Daniel Cretton is executive producer and Andrew Guest is head writer. This Simon is an aspiring Hollywood actor trying to play Wonder Man in the remake of an in-universe film, and he has had his powers since childhood.

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