Recap: Simon Williams Struggles to Obtain Stardom While Hiding His Superhuman Abilities in Marvel's "Wonder Man"

The Marvel Cinematic Universe has seen all kinds of heroes over the years. We've seen everything from super soldiers and gods to vigilantes and spies. And yet, Marvel's Wonder Man presents us with something completely new: a superhuman who wants nothing to do with being super.

Wonder Man follows Simon Williams, a struggling actor who is trying to make it big in Hollywood. However, on top of all the reasons most people struggle in Hollywood, Williams is also hiding superhuman abilities that could end his career before it even begins.

Warning - Wonder Man spoilers ahead.

The series opens with a look at the old "Wonder Man" in-universe film. The sci-fi/superhero movie sees its titular hero sport a suit very similar to the classic green and red one worn by Wonder Man in the Marvel comics. We pull away from the movie to see a young Simon watching it in the theater with his father.

Jumping to present day, we find Simon working as an actor in a small role in American Horror Story, which, yes, is. Disney-owned series. (Synergy!) Despite only being in one scene, Simon asks the director several questions about the details of his character and scene. At first, this seems to impress her, but his obsession over every last detail eventually becomes annoying and she has him fired from the show.

A frustrated Simon returns home as we see more and more that his life is not exactly going according to plan. He gets to his apartment to find his girlfriend moving out. She tells him he "never lets her in," telling us that Simon has some trust issues. Of course, we know this is likely due to the fact that he is hiding superhuman abilities. Guarding that kind of secret would certainly make it difficult to form meaningful relationships. Simon tries to compose himself in his bathroom and we see that his frustration is slightly shaking his toothbrush and some of the other things around him.

In an attempt to cool off, Simon goes to see a screening of Midnight Cowboy. He hears a man talking loudly on his phone about an audition he has coming up and approaches him to ask him to stop. When he does though, he sees that the man is none other than Trevor Slattery, former famed actor best known for playing the terrorist known as The Mandarin during the events of Iron Man 3. When Simon points out that he recognizes him, Trevor immediately becomes defensive. Simon stops him and says he actually enjoyed his performance as The Mandarin (an odd take in this situation) but also that he recognized him from a prior roll.

After the two enjoy the movie, they begin talking again as they make their way out of the theater. Simon eventually asks Trevor about the audition he mention and Trevor tells him he's auditioning for "Wonder Man," and that legendary director Von Kovak is directing.

Simon goes to meet with his agent about getting an audition for the remake of his childhood favorite film. She tells him it's impossible and leaves him in her office. Determined, Simon snoops in her email and finds the audition information for the film. He proceeds to fake his way into an audition.

Simon arrives at the audition where he is asked to sign an NDA and a "Door Man waiver." Much more on that later. He heads in to find dozens of people lined up for the audition. He begins running through his lines in his head and starts to become visibly frustrated as we see a slight red glow in his eye before he calms himself.

Simon snaps out of it just in time to hear Trevor charming the casting director and assistants during this audition. Trevor comes out into the hallway to find him looking stressed and tells him to follow him to the bathroom. Trevor offers to help him and Simon eventually reluctantly accepts. Trevor tells him to get out of his own head and act on instinct. Simon gets called into his audition and, thanks to Trevor's help, seemingly crushes it.

Afterwards, Simon and Trevor share a drink. As he accepts a virgin Bloody Mary, Trevor proudly lets the bartender know he is 13 years sober, meaning he hasn't had a drink since the events of Iron Man 3. They discuss the psychology of acting we see the differences in their approaches. Simon takes a much more intellectual approach, to his own dismay to this point in his career. Trevor argues that the "real work is living," a good analogy for Simon, who struggles to simply live his own life.

Simon starts to head out and tells Trevor they should keep in touch. Before he leaves though, Trevor tells him he has a good feeling about the day, citing fate. Trevor later takes a call and we see he is speaking with Agent Cleary from the Department of Damage Control. While the name may not be familiar, the face probably is as we have seen him in both Spider-Man: No Way Home and Ms. Marvel. Their conversation reveals to us that the DODC is aware of Simon's superhuman abilities and that Trevor is working with them to prove it. Meanwhile, Simon happens upon Von Kovak's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He sends Trevor a picture with the caption "maybe it's fate." Unfortunately for Simon, we now know that very little in this episode was actually coincidence.

The second episode begins with a flashback to Trevor returning to America for the first time, after the events of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, during which we learned he was being held as a prisoner by the real Mandarin - Wenwu. Upon his arrival, though, Trevor is taken by the DODC and given the option to either work with them to bring in Simon Williams or go back to prison. Trevor, of course, chooses the former but tells Cleary he needs an audition for a movie as bait.

Simon gets a call from his agent who tells him the casting director liked him and is putting him up for another role. She needs him to send in a self tape audition that day and Simon fails miserably at hiding his excitement. Simon tries again and again to shoot his audition but nothing is working and he begins to get frustrated. Everything around him begins to shake as he tries to contain his anger, but eventually an explosion of energy erupts from his apartment.

Trevor meets with Cleary in a restaurant as the agent tries to dig for some information on Simon. Cleary lets Trevor know the DODC considers Simon to be a significant threat, which given what we just saw at his apartment, makes a lot of sense. Their conversation is interrupted when Trevor gets a text from Simon asking him to come help him with an audition. Cleary gives Trevor a ring and instructs him to put it on Simon's laptop so they can hack it and dig for more information.

When Trevor gets to Simon's place, Simon informs him they're actually heading out to a self tape studio. Before they head in, Trevor takes a call from Cleary and informs him he couldn't get into Simon's apartment. Things don't go well at the studio and the pair continues to search for a place to shoot the audition. They try to shoot at Trevor's apartment, but a noisy neighbor makes that impossible. Eventually, Trevor says he has a friend he could ask for a favor and brings Simon to Joe Pantoliano's house. Things are friendly at first, but Pantoliano's condescension toward Trevor eventually pushes Simon to snap at him. Simon standing up for Trevor seems to strengthen their relationship, but Simon is still left without his self tape. So, Simon finally decides to head back to his apartment.

Before entering, Simon tells Trevor to ignore the mess. They shoot the audition and are both finally happy with it. Simon steps away and Trevor takes his opportunity to place the ring on Simon's laptop. He then decides to investigate a sheet Simon has hanging up on the wall and pulls it down to reveal a massive whole left by Simon's explosion of power. Simon finds Trevor and the men pause before both deciding to play it off as nothing.

The third episode opens with another flashback, this time to a young Simon. We learn that Simon somehow started a fire in their home and was trapped before being rescued by firemen. The doctor inspects him but finds no injury or sign of smoke inhalation, much to his mother's relief. The doctor tells him to be more careful and questions if the fire was really cause by the stove, seemingly a bit suspicious. This is also our first time meeting Simon's brother, Eric. In the comics, Eric eventually takes on the villainous role of the Grim Reaper.

The the DODC, deputy secretary Heyerdahl leads a meeting about supernatural threats. He points out that they have a new high security prison that is half empty, which is forcing the department to face budget cuts. This super prison most closely resembles The Vault, a superhuman prison in the Marvel Comics. Putting pressure on Cleary to bring in Simon. He meets with Trevor to go over what they found on the laptop, mentioning both record of the kitchen fire from his childhood and a porta-potty explosion on the set of The Rookie. (More synergy!) Cleary tells Trevor he needs to get himself invited to Simon's mother's birthday party and to wear a wire while he's there.

Trevor does eventually manage to get himself invited and the two head to the party. They arrive to find Simon's very proud mother, who is seemingly very supportive of his acting career. They also meet Eric however, who is decidedly not so much. It appears Eric is, in fact, an antagonist of sorts in Simon's life, though perhaps not an evil super-powered one. At least, not yet.

Guests arrive and the party gets going. Trevor digs for information, talking to various guests, but gets nothing. A conversation about Simon's career reaches a boiling point. Eric questions Trevor's presence at the party and he sneaks away to the bathroom. Alone in the house, Trevor snoops for more information before being interrupted by a call from Cleary, who threatens to send him back to prison.

Trevor speaks with Simon's mother, who reveals that Simon really never made a friend before. She shares a story about Simon falling off his bike when he was younger, explaining that Simon's father passed when he was young. Her point though was to explain that she always though Simon was happy being alone and that she's happy to see he's made a friend. The story visibly moves Trevor.

Later, Simon and Eric get into an argument that makes Simon reveal to his family that he was fired from American Horror Story. It also leads to Simon's frustration boiling over as he slams his fists through her kitchen island, causing it to explode. Simon and Trevor leave and park at an overlook. Simon explains to Trevor that he can't let anyone know about his abilities because of DeMarr "Doorman" Davis. Trevor asks who that is and Simon brushes it off. Don't worry, we'll get to that.

Before they leave, Trevor steps away to secretly break the recording device he had been wearing and toss it out. As he returns to the car, Simon reveals he got a call from his agent and that both of them were getting a callback for "Wonder Man."

What comes next is maybe the craziest episode of television Marvel has ever given us. The fourth episode tells the story of DeMarr "Doorman" Davis. This is an adaptation of a much lesser known Marvel Comics character. Doorman is essentially a human portal and a member of the comically useless Great Lakes Avengers, lead by Mr. Immortal, whom we have also seen in the MCU, in an episode of She-Hulk: Attorney at Law.

While his origin differs from the comics, in the series, Davis fittingly works as a doorman at a popular club in Los Angeles. One night, he finds some kind of goo dripping from a dumpster, labeled Roxxon. This is a reference the Roxxon Oil company, an evil corporation that has been involved in dozens of Marvel Comics stories and been featured in various television series.

For Davis, touching this mystery goo gives him the ability to become, well, a human door. While he is confused by his abilities at first, they eventually allow him to save the patrons of the club after a fire breaks out. One of those patrons is none other than Disney Legend Josh Gad (playing himself, of course) who eventually hires Davis as an assistant.

After he works for Gad for some time, the actor realizes he needs to put Davis in a movie, turning him into an overnight star when the public sees his abilities on display. However, after his initial success, things start to dry up for Davis and he finds himself in a tough spot. Luckily, Gad calls with an opportunity to be in the sequel to the film they initially made. While shooting the film though, Davis loses control of his abilities. Gad tries to use him as a door, but instead of emerging from the other side, he simply disappears.

With a major movie star vanishing while shooting a film, Hollywood decides to keep all superhuman individuals out of the movie-making process. Hence the Doorman waiver and Simon's reluctance to let anyone know about his abilities.

The fifth episode opens with Simon and Trevor celebrating the news of their callbacks over a drink. Simon is apprehensive about the thought of celebrating and Trevor notices his drink starting to tremble. Trevor calms him down before ignoring a call. When Simon ask who was calling him so late, Trevor plays it off by saying it was a friend from the "pocket dimension he used to live in." This is of course a reference to the events of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. Of course, we know it was really Cleary who was calling.

Trevor is approached by a man in the bar before he and Simon are surrounded by three other men. We jump to the alley outside where the man punches Trevor before explaining that he owes him money for drugs from a long time ago. Another man holds Simon at gunpoint while the man continues to beat on Trevor. He points a gun at Trevor and Simon is forced to take action, making short work of all four thugs with his abilities. In the aftermath, Simon and Trevor see that a kid on a scooter is staring at them with a GoPro on his head. He rides off and Simon and Trevor begin chasing him.

Their chase is disrupted momentarily when they receive the "Wonder Man" script. As they're reading it though, the kid shows up and get them to follow him into a secret club. They find the boy waiting for them at a table. He proposes they help him get his motorcycle back from a guy named Esteban who stole it in exchange for him deleting the footage. Simon reluctantly agrees.

Simon and Trevor show up to Esteban's house and plan to pretend to be cops. However, when someone answers the door she immediately recognizes Trevor as the Mandarin. Simon tries to reason with Esteban to get the bike back and threatens to call the cops on his apparent drug ring. Esteban proves that it's actually just candy he's making and Jayden, the kid with the footage, actually used to work with him before they had a falling out.

Everything goes sideways when the thugs show up at the house and threaten to shoot Jayden. Trevor makes him give up his camera and they delete the footage. The police arrive at the house just in time to stop the thugs from killing Jayden and Simon gets a call from his agent to tell him the callback for "Wonder Man" is happening now and he and Trevor need to get to Von Kovak's house now. Shots are fired, screams ring out and Simon and Trevor scramble away.

Episode six opens with Trevor auditioning for the role of the Mandarin, an audition that would change his life forever. In present day, Simon and Trevor arrive at Von Kovak's home. Simon overthinks everything as usual while Trevor is seemingly completely prepared to step into the audition. They get inside to find four other actors waiting to audition.

Kovak brings the men to an office with a huge vision board for the film. On the board, we can see images of Captain America, Black Panther (both T'Chall and Shuri), Thor, Iron Man and even a Skrull. There is also some imagery from the iconic Alien poster. Kovak puts the actors through some unorthodox acting exercises and when Simon is up, rather than improvising a scene, he simply acts out a scene from Pretty Woman, much to the director's disappointment.

The group takes a break in the living room before Kovak enters to begin their next round. Simon volunteers and is partnered with another actor. As they begin to act out their scene, the other man calls Simon a freak and begins to make things very personal, seemingly showing that he knows about Simon's abilities. Simon grows enraged and punches a hole through the actor's skull, sending the room into a fit of shock and terror.

Simon then wakes up to Kovak calling his name, saving him from his own nightmare. Simon tells him he needs a minute and steps outside as Trevor follows. Simon begins to break down, explaining that Kovak is pushing him to show the real him but he knows he can't. Trevor again calms Simon down and gets Simon ready to go back inside. The two share a scene and Kovak stares at them blankly.

Simon and Trevor are led to the front door by Kovak's assistant, who leaves them without a word. As the two actors assume their journey is done, Kovak interrupts them. He informs them he is casting them both for the movie. They drive home, visibly in shock of the news they just received. Simon drops Trevor off at his apartment where he is quickly picked up by Cleary and the DODC. Cleary threatens to throw him back in prison but Trevor tells him he's right about Simon, he just needs more time to get proof. Cleary agrees.

Episode seven opens with another flashback of Simon's childhood. His father lets him skip school and takes him to see "Wonder Man," a moment that clearly formed who Simon is as a man.

In present day, Simon goes to work on the set of "Wonder Man." He meets with Trevor in costuming before he is approached by someone who is working on getting hi the glasses for his costume, but Simon tells him he wants them to be closer to the original. Later, Simon meets with Kovak and a writer to discuss some dialogue he would like to change. He begins to find himself in a similar situation as the American Horror Story debacle before Trevor reels him in and they resolve the issue.

Simon and Trevor meet with his agent and a team of other agents to discuss future projects. Simon is presented with the lead role in a series but turns it down after getting advice from Trevor. he explains to his agent that he trusts Trevor on everything, showing us how far their relationship has come. They are both also informed that Kathy Friedman, a famed journalist, is coming to do a profile on them. Later, Simon explains that this particular journalist is a "character assassin" and they need to be charming and likable to avoid a disaster.

The next day, Simon meets Friedman on set. He tries to impress her by being friendly with the crew, resulting in one awkward situation after another. At the end of the day, Friedman reveals that she spoke with Simon's family and Vivianne, his ex girlfriend. Simon later meets with Vivianne to try and find out what she told Friedman. She reveals to Simon that she always knew his secret, which comes as a surprise to him. She also assures him she didn't tell Friedman anything about that and they share a moment that both lets Simon relax about the profile and gives them closure on their relationship.

The next day, Simon and Trevor meet with Friedman again and things go smoothly for Simon. However, when Friedman begins to question Trevor about being arrested upon his return to the country, he loses his cool. Of course, he can't tell her the truth because that would reveal that he's been spying on Simon, so instead, he storms out. Simon meets Trevor in his trailer to ask him about what she was talking about. Trevor tells Simon everything about the DODC and how he's been spying on him. Simon pieces together that their whole relationship has been a lie and leaves. Simon literally quakes with anger before heading into a soundstage and causing a massive explosion.

The finale opens with the continuation of the flashback from the penultimate episode, with young Simon and his father eating after seeing the movie. His father tells him he can't wait to see him be a movie star some day, another moment that formed Simon's life.

In present day, Simon drives home as Trevor finds the aftermath of the explosion he cause on the set of the film. Cleary is informed of the explosion and the DODC rushes to the set to investigate. The next day, the explosion is all over the news and Simon waits in his apartment for authorities to come and take him in. He gets a call from Trevor who says he's figured it out. Trevor is cryptic with his call and eventually tells him he's not going to let Simon lose his opportunity. We see the DODC storming the building, but we eventually learn it is Trevor's building, not Simon's. Simon turns to the news to see that Trevor has sent in a video as the Mandarin, taking credit for the explosion.

The DODC storms in and takes Trevor into custody. Cleary grabs him and tells him he is letting him take the fall but he knows he's covering for Simon. Slattery refuses to break character though, protecting Simon. Meanwhile, Simon is invited to set to continue shooting the movie. He gets to set and is met by the props guy, who has more glasses for him to try. Simon questions how close they are to the originals and he learns the glasses he is holding are the originals from the original film he saw as a boy. He puts them on and reveals, for the first time, his suit for the film. It's very reminiscent of a more modern Wonder Man costume seen in the comics.

Simon works without a scene partner for the scene he and Trevor rehearsed together and it transitions into the completed film at the premiere. The film seem to be a huge success and Kovak even brings up the idea of doing a sequel to Simon. Simon and Eric even share a moment that seemingly brings their relationship full circle. Simon is met by screaming fans on the red carpet and he tries to take in the moment. It's clear though something else is on his mind and he asks his agent if there has been any word from Trevor. She tells him there has been no contact with him before asking him what he wants to do next.

Some time later, we see Simon meeting with a seemingly ordinary guy in a bar. Simon explains that he wants to shadow this man to study for an upcoming role. We later find out this man is a security guard at the prison where Trevor is being kept. He eventually works his way into the prison, where he narrowly misses a run in with Cleary, who is there for a meeting with Heyerdahl to explain that Simon is capable of harnessing ionic energy, a character trait shared by the comic version of the character. For the first time, Cleary refers to Simon as "an extraordinary threat... or asset." Is the DODC going to look to use Simon as their own kind of superhero?

Simon finds Trevor and uses his abilities to break open his cell. After a brief pause, Simon takes a deep breath as energy begins to swirl around him. He has now found a way to control his power rather than unleash it in anger. He grabs Trevor and launches up, breaking through the roof of the prison as the series comes to a close.

While this eight-episode limited series falls under Marvel Spotlight banner, separating it from the larger MCU, the reaction it has received combined with this ending will almost demand we see more of Simon Williams in the future. After all, the character is an Avenger in the comics.

Marvel's Wonder Man is now streaming on Disney+.