Wonder Man's showrunner confirmed that Marvel Studios discussed giving Simon Williams an unexpected X-Men connection by making him a mutant. The MCU's Phase 6 Disney+ series brings a fresh face to Earth-616 with Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Simon Williams, a super-powered actor best known to comic readers as Wonder Man. Williams may already have at least four key superpowers in the MCU, namely his ability to manipulate ionic energy, but that is about where his superheroics stop for the time being. While he made waves on the in-universe big screen as the fictional superhero Wonder Man, Williams isn't suiting up to fight crime (beyond a few drug dealers) for the time being.
The Direct's Russ Milheim spoke exclusively with Wonder Man showrunner Andrew Guest, who touched on Simon Williams' mysterious super-powered origins that went unexplored in the eight-episode Disney+ series. Without making any definitive confirmations about whether the superhero actor got his ionic abilities, Guest did confirm that Marvel Studios discussed him being a mutant.
When asked outright whether the MCU's Simon Williams could be a mutant, Guest said the question was "one [they] discussed" and "decided [they] weren't" going to answer, passing those duties off to other MCU creatives:
The Direct: "Could he possibly be a mutant?"
Guest: "You know, it's a very good question. And it's one we discussed and it's one we decided we weren't going to answer. So I'll leave it up to the people who make those kind of mutant questions."
When pressed on the possibility, Guest admitted that there is a definitive answer behind Williams' genealogy lingering behind the scenes at Marvel Studios:
The Direct: “The answer's out there, though, isn't it?"
Guest: "It is."
When asked how the team decided on the amount of backstory to communicate to audiences, Guest noted that everything tied back to Williams' character:
The Direct: "Yeah, I thought it was also really interesting how the show never explains how Simon gets his powers. In fact, he doesn’t really even seem to know himself, which is incredibly unique for the MCU. What were the conversations like behind the scenes in just figuring out those powers, how he might’ve gotten them, and then how much you were going to tell the audience at the end of the day?"
Guest: "So one of the things, we wanted to do was making sure that the powers for Simon Williams served his character."
It seems the 2000s' original X-Men movie somewhat inspired Wonder Man in how the kids' powers "felt so psychological." Beyond that, it was important that, much like the mutants, his powers were more something that "happened to him:"
"And, to me, I look back at that first X-Men movie and how those powers that all those teenagers [had] felt so psychological. They felt like it was about all these life changes we go through. And Simon, felt like it was it was some part of him that sort of happened to him as opposed to something that he was A., excited about, or B., wanted to even get to know. He doesn't have any curiosity about them. They're just really kind of a hindrance."
Funnily enough, seven (possibly eight) actors from X-Men will be back in Avengers: Doomsday, only adding to the mutant-related themes appearing across the MCU this year ahead of Phase 7's upcoming reboot.
Guest noted how it was important that Wonder Man didn't include Williams' first super-powered experience to approach things "through a little bit of a different lens" and make it clear that the MCU newcomer isn't defined by his abilities:
"And that felt like it helped us tell the story we were trying to tell about Simon. So, I wanted to make sure we didn't do the first moment of seeing superpowers when he was a kid that we might have [done]. We kind of work our way around it and try to tell it through a little bit of a different lens and I wanted to make sure that, when it came to these powers, that they weren't what Simon was about."
Marvel Studios may not have directly mentioned mutants or Simon Williams' mysterious origins in the Disney+ series, but Wonder Man may have set up the MCU's X-Men arrival as anti-superhuman attitudes begin to grow on Earth-616.
Could Simon Williams Actually Be a Mutant in the MCU?
Simon Williams isn't a mutant in Marvel Comics; he instead got his powers from chemical and radiation experiments with ionic energy conducted by Baron Zemo, who hoped to turn him into a supervillain to fight the Avengers. Clearly, this tale wouldn't work for the MCU adaptation and required some changes, so it's not surprising that Marvel Studios opted to keep quiet on Williams' origins for now.
Williams' powers, as Andrew Guest described them, being something that "happened to him," work well for the MCU adaptation. The origins certainly have all the hallmarks of a mutant story, having first surfaced during childhood in a freak, uncontrollable accident that set his family home ablaze.
While fans once thought the X-gene wouldn't surface on Earth-616 until after Avengers: Secret Wars soft reboots the MCU, that hasn't been the case. For the time being, Iman Vellani's Ms. Marvel and Tenoch Huerta's Namor are the only confirmed mutants living on Earth-616, but there could be more out there.
Marvel Studios was more than willing to adapt Kamala Khan's superhero origins from Inhuman to mutant for the MCU, and it seems possible Williams could get the same treatment. It's unclear when Wonder Man will actually be seen again, as fans remain hopeful for a Season 2 renewal on Disney+, but the studio has been clear that "anything’s on the table" for Williams' next adventure.
Even if Williams were to be revealed as a mutant in the MCU, that's not to say X-Men membership would immediately be on the cards. But if the next three sagas were truly to be the Mutant Saga, as has been rumored and speculated, there would be no harm in having one more mutant on the board.
Find out what Andrew Guest teased to The Direct about Wonder Man Season 2's potential story.
