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Marvel Studios will kick off 2026 by releasing its Wonder Man Disney+ series at the end of the month. The show will introduce the character of Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), an actor who is hiding a secret: he has superpowers. And not just any superpowers: Simon may have abilities that make him one of the most powerful characters in the MCU – but one theory is that those powers may come from the last place Simon Williams should be channeling from.
The latest Wonder Man TV spot and teaser photo are an odd pair. The photo depicts a page of Simon Williams’ script, covered in his own acting notes. In one section of monologuing, the Wonder Man character (who Simon is portraying in a major Hollywood reboot film) drops the line, “Well, I’ve been to hell. I’ve lived in that screaming silence.” However, Simon crosses out the word “hell” in favor of theoddly-phrased mention that “I’ve been to The Void.” The accompanying teaser shows Simon auditioning the monologue, reciting the lines in accordance with all of his notes. We not only get to hear how Simon emphasizes “The Void” when he speaks, but also get to see all of the personal emotion and subtext he’s infusing into the words as the monologue goes on: “I know what it’s like. I lost whatever was left of me that makes a person… a person.”
Is Wonder Man Connected to The Sentry’s Void?
In Thunderbolts* we were introduced to Bob Reynolds, a troubled young man who inexplicably becomes the sole survivor of the government’s Sentry super soldier program. Valentina (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) built Bob into “The Sentry,” a public-facing hero as powerful as Superman. However, what no one knew was that Bob had a dark side – a sentient one, due to his own mental illness. That dark persona, “The Void,” attacked NYC, snatching up dozens of citizens (and the Thunderbolts) and trapping them in a living hell of their most traumatic memories and mental spaces. Even though the Thunderbolts were able to help Bob overcome his demons, the Void’s presence and effect were significant.
The monologue from Simon Williams definitely seems to convey emotional, if not physical, trauma – perhaps quite literally. In the comics, Wonder Man’s superpowers come from the mysterious”iocnic energy,” which transformed him into a superpowered being. The experiments that changed Simon were conducted by A.I.M., but it would be easy for the MCU to flip that into a Project Sentry connection, or simply make Simon, who was caught in The Void’s attack, only to absorb the strange (ionic) energies of the place.
