The upcoming Disney+ Wonder Man TV series will feature the return of a character who fooled the Marvel Cinematic Universe (and its fans), Sir Ben Kingsley's Trevor Slattery.

While details on Marvel's small screen take on the classic character Simon Williams, a.k.a. Wonder Man, have been scarce since the initial reports of its development this past June, the series can now point to its first cast member; a familiar one at that. Indeed, Variety has reported that Kingsley will reprise his role as Trevor Slattery on the upcoming Wonder Man television series, although the nature of the character's involvement on the show remains a mystery. Regardless, the series will mark a third run for the esteemed Academy Award-winning actor, having played the picaresque part in 2013's Iron Man 3, and, after a long hiatus, in 2021's Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

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The news still leaves Wonder Man without an official headliner. It's a rather odd dilemma for the project since actor Nathan Fillion is not only the choice of an increasingly loud fandom to play the part, but, incidentally, happens to be the existing de facto choice, having previously been cast for the role for 2017's Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 only to have it end up on the cutting room floor. Tellingly, Fillion's take on the character, whose original Marvel Comics counterpart has been known to dabble as a stuntman and movie actor, was clearly designed to accommodate the actor's comedic style, and director James Gunn -- who had to delete the scenes due to pacing constraints -- released some funny fake movie posters that would have adorned walls at a "Simon Williams Film Festival" shown in the film.

Wonder Man, a creation of Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, first appeared in The Avengers #9 (1964), and is an heir to an industrialist empire. After radiation treatments, he gained the ability to channel his body with glowing ionic energy, which also endows enhanced physical abilities and durability; things he would eventually use as a member of The Avengers. Yet, while Fillion's first attempt to play Wonder Man failed, there are already auspicious signs pointing to the idea that the Disney+ series will provide him with a belated mulligan. According to a June report from the same trade (and reporter) that broke the Kingsley casting, the plot of Disney+ Wonder Man series could align with director Gunn's nixed comical Guardians of the Galaxy rendition, reportedly manifesting as a "Hollywood satire" piece focused on "Wonder Man's backstory as an actor and stuntman in the comics."

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Given that context, the MCU return of Kingsley's Trevor Slattery -- a former film actor -- starts to make sense. While the character was introduced in 2013's Iron Man 3 as the MCU's terrorist-like take on the iconic comic book villain the Mandarin, the ominous videos he filmed turned out to be a performance by Slattery, who -- in his clueless, debauched state -- was simply a pawn hired by the film's actual villain, Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce), designed to distract from his real plot.

Subsequently, the 2014 short Marvel One-Shot: All Hail the King followed Slattery in prison, after which he was subjected to an involuntary jailbreak from a representative of the real Mandarin, who was upset about the imitation. While it was hinted that Slattery would meet a most gruesome fate, his eventual return in 2021's Shang-Chi showed that he was still alive, intact and even had a pet in the faceless winged hundun Morris. Of course, he was still a prisoner of the Mandarin, a.k.a. Xu Wenwu (Tony Leung), leader of the Ten Rings crime organization. However, the film saw the character escape his second incarceration, setting up more exploits for this new series, which will be under the executive producer purview of Shang-Chi director Destin Daniel Cretton.

Wonder Man is currently without a Disney+ release window.

Source: Variety