Wonder Man Quietly Doubles as a Prequel to a Major MCU Movie

Marvel is doing a very Marvel thing with Wonder Man: the new series is part Hollywood satire, part superhero story, and somehow, part prequel to a 2013 movie. Also, Trevor Slattery is back. Naturally.

What Wonder Man actually is

Wonder Man is a Marvel Television series created by Destin Daniel Cretton and Andrew Guest, starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Simon Williams, the title character. Ben Kingsley returns as Trevor Slattery, everyone’s favorite washed-up thespian who once pretended to be the Mandarin.

Disney+ has it slated for January 27, 2026.

The official setup: Simon Williams is an aspiring actor struggling to get anywhere until he crosses paths with Trevor. That chance meeting drops him into a new movie from legendary director Von Kovak — a remake of a superhero film called, fittingly, Wonder Man. The show plays with that showbiz angle while also digging into Simon’s origin story.

So how is this a prequel again?

Kingsley told Entertainment Weekly that parts of Wonder Man happen before Iron Man 3, which is where Trevor first entered the MCU in an Oscar-winner-in-over-his-head kind of way.

'This series does see Trevor before he got the role of Mandarin, and then of course after, so it's a real biography — it's a biopic of Trevor in four episodes.'

Translation: the show jumps around Trevor’s timeline. We get pre-IM3 Trevor (before he was hired to play the Mandarin), and we catch up with him after the whole mess, too.

Quick refresher on Trevor Slattery

• Iron Man 3 (2013): Introduced as the Mandarin, later revealed as Trevor, a washed-up actor paid to play the villain.
• All Hail the King (2014 short): A follow-up that shows where Trevor landed after IM3.
• Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021): Kingsley returns, this time under the direction of Destin Daniel Cretton, and Trevor becomes an unlikely ally.
• Wonder Man (2026): Scenes set both before and after Iron Man 3, with Trevor featured across four episodes.

The behind-the-scenes nudge

According to Kingsley, the idea to bring Trevor back for TV came up during Shang-Chi. Kevin Feige and Destin Daniel Cretton floated it on set, and Kingsley was immediately in — he says he loves playing Trevor because there are a lot of layers to peel back. Honestly, making Wonder Man partly a Trevor character study is a curveball, but it fits the show’s meta-industry vibe.

Wonder Man streams on Disney+ starting January 27, 2026.

Originally reported by Brandon Schreur at SuperHeroHype.