While DC Entertainment continues to remake its top superhero stories, Marvel Studios keeps looking past its key properties into the more obscure comic book pages. Its latest project dug into the archives among the likes of Kraven the Hunter or Morbius. And it found Wonder Man. It’s the approach this time to a “new superhero for the masses” that you may find more appealing than the normal fare. For the 17th Marvel TV series, the studio is bringing back Ben Kingsley’s actor Trevor Slattery. One of the most convoluted, but ultimately interesting breakthrough characters, Slattery first posed as the villain Mandarin in Iron Man 3. But Kingsley reprised the role and turned the character on end for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, where the actor was caught up in the real Ten Rings clan plot. Most importantly he was funny, and that sets the tone for the first trailer out of the gates from Marvel for Wonder Man.
Yahya Abdul-Mateen II must be the fiftieth actor to cross over between DC Comics and Marvel Comics characters, having played Black Manta in the Aquaman universe. He joins Chris Evans, Ryan Reynolds, Michael Keaton, Halle Berry, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tom Hardy, Zachary Levi, Ben Affleck, Christian Bale, Josh Brolin… the list is endless. Here Abdul-Mateen plays an actor competing against Slattery for the role of Wonder Man in a new movie. Have we seen anything like this since the wonderful superhero classic Hero at Large starring John Ritter? Let’s hope it has some of the heart from that movie.
From New York Comic Con 2025, here’s a quirky and fun trailer for Wonder Man:
The superhero was created by Stan Lee and artists Don Heck and Jack Kirby, and premiered in The Avengers Issue #9 in 1964.
The series includes Zlatko Burić, X Mayo, Arian Moayed, Demetrius Grosse, Olivia Thirlby, and Byron Bowers. An MCU Phase VI project under the Marvel Spotlight banner, the eight episodes of Wonder Man begin January 27, 2026, on Disney+.
C.J. Bunce / Editor / borg
