Wonder Man: Yucca Valley

Marvel Comics has been around in one form or another since 1939. The MCU has been weaving together a huge narrative of heroes ranging from Daredevil and the Punisher up to the likes of Thor, Hulk, and Captain Marvel since 2008. Their cast has grown incredibly large, and they’ve definitely used some characters who are lesser known to the general, non-comic reading public. Wonder Man is one of those, and this show has been an interesting mix of lore from the comics, nods to other movies, and original work. “Yucca Valley” is the conclusion to Wonder Man’s first season, but they’ll be back at some point for season two. EDIT: In the time between I wrote this and published it, Marvel has inexplicably cancelled season two. Since this is the end of the season and it’s been out for a while, there will be some spoilers below.

Last episode ended with a lot of surprises, including reporter Kathy Friedman revealing Trevor’s arrest to Simon, leading to a falling out between the two actors and Simon seriously losing control of his abilities. There are a lot of pieces to pick up, literally and metaphorically, and they cover a lot of ground in this season finale. The episode opens with another flashback of Simon and his father at the movies, and we see where Simon got at least some of his early inspiration to be an actor. In the present, Simon drives around alone, clearly upset; Trevor examines the ruins left over from Simon’s loss of control, and Agent Cleary hears about the incident and scrambles a team to investigate.

 Not sure what else to do, Simon drives around for a while, has an understandable freak out moment, and then goes home and calls his mom. She’s worried about him, like always, and he tries to reassure her, even while he’s sure his world is about to come crashing down around him. While Department of Damage Control agents swarm the studio, Trevor calls Simon and says some cryptic things. Personally, I’m surprised Simon picked up after seeing Trevor’s name on the screen. I’m not sure I would have. We shortly see what Trevor is up to when the news plays a video they have just received, which is Trevor, in full Mandarin mode, taking credit/blame for the explosion at the studio. We see reactions from various parts of the cast, which is amusing to watch. After Trevor gets very publicly arrested, Agent Cleary is caught between getting a high-profile arrest and not believing Trevor’s story for a moment.

Simon gets a knock at his door, but not the one he was expecting. Instead of law enforcement and/or Damage Control, it’s an invitation to set, since Kovac doesn’t like missing a day of filming, even with a terrorist attack on his movie. Simon has a very strange conversation with Kovac, which is par for the course, and then we get to see him with Wonder Man’s shades, and one of the comic book costumes, which was a nice moment for us fans.

With the magic of a time jump, we skip ahead to what seems to be the movie premier. Trevor, of course, was replaced, and the choice is an amusing one that’s a nice callback to an earlier episode. The movie goes over quite well, and we get to see the Williams family enjoying the show. Kovac and Simon have a very Hollywood conversation, and Simon gets some advice from another actor about how to invest some of his large earnings. It seems like just about all of Simon’s dreams have come true, and he’s getting the full, A-list movie star experience. Where does he go from here?

Well, we find out, as he approaches a man about researching a role, and wants to make sure it’s kept very quiet. I had my suspicions right away, but it’s fun watching Simon interact with this man, Chuck Eastman, and his family. Simon is very different now, calm and self-confident, not at all the neurotic mess we were initially introduced to. Simon is also clearly doing more than just research; we see him doing his best to make a few things better for Chuck. There’s some fun banter between Chuck and Simon, and it’s clear Simon does actually care about the man. Which is good, because he’s about to horribly take advantage of him.

What we eventually learn is Chuck is a guard at one of the Damage Control SuperMax prisons, and Simon’s “research” is actually a way to infiltrate the place and free Trevor. There are background mentions of a change in fortunes for Chuck’s family, and Agent Cleary and his team talk about “ionic energy” from the set disaster. In the comics, Simon’s powers are vaguely described as ionic energy. Finally, Simon finds Trevor, and shows us that he has a much better command of his powers than he ever has. Simon gets Trevor out, leaving behind a very confused and angry Agent Cleary. Hopefully, not too much gets blamed on poor Chuck, who really didn’t know what was coming.

What I Liked: Trevor showed surprising depth of character by taking the fall for Simon, and it was kind of fun to not only see the Mandarin again, but everyone else’s reactions to him. Tony Stark is dead, of course, but I do wonder what Rhodey makes of all this, since he knows the truth about Trevor. The story throughout the season was fun, and Simon has certainly grown as a character. Simon was clever about how he got Trevor out. It was nice to see a kind of reconciliation between Simon and Eric. Maybe another part of the comic book lore they are ignoring is Eric becoming a supervillain hell-bent on killing Simon.

What I Didn’t: As I said, I’m a bit worried about Chuck. Even if Simon did something nice for him financially, there’s a lot of crap that might be coming his way. The payment might even make things look worse for him. I believe Simon has now become the only MCU character to go through his initial appearance, indeed an entire season, with absolutely no hint of his origin. We don’t know how he got his powers, although it seems like they were from a very early age. He might be the youngest powered person we’ve seen in this universe so far.

I will give this final episode a 4.5 out of 5, and a 5 out of 5 for the season. I don’t know when season two might come out, or if Wonder Man will be in Doomsday (I’m betting not), but I look forward to the further adventures of Simon and Trevor, whatever shape it takes. Edit- Or not…