Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) is the worst kind of actor one can be. Sure, he’s talented; he frequently blows casting agents out of the water on the strength of his auditions, with a mind that instantly catalogs every movie he’s seen and every performance within it. But all that means nothing if he can’t get out of his own way.
Simon’s a textbook overthinker, self-conscious to the point of self-obsession. He books small roles in big productions, but loses them just as quickly by requesting presumptive changes to the script. He can’t connect to a character without creating a convoluted backstory that hurts as much as it helps. And perhaps worst of all, he’s suppressing potent, energy-based superpowers, powers that — thanks to a discriminative stipulation called “The Doorman Clause” — legally prevent him from auditioning for most major Hollywood productions. A minor mood swing can trigger a seismic event to rival a baby earthquake. And as a guy who wears his emotions on his sleeve, Simon could probably level the city of Los Angeles without even flinching. In any other Marvel project, he’d be standing toe-to-toe with Thor, the God of Thunder. That his powers feel more like a pesky inconvenience is what plucks Wonder Man out of this franchise’s stuffy self-seriousness and into the realm of an absurdist sitcom.
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