Wonder Man in the MC2: Dead or Alive?!

 

Usually, I have a better grasp on what I’m writing when it comes time to break down a character’s counterpart in the MC2. Today will not be usual, but it will be wonderful. Today we are looking at the heroic, iconic ionic Simon Williams aka Wonder Man in the MC2.

 

The basic history before we get too carried away: Simon Williams first appeared in the pages of Avengers #9 by Stan Lee, Don Heck and Jack Kirby. Empowered by ionic ray treatments as Wonder Man, Simon agreed to lure the Avengers into a trap in exchange for regular treatments from Baron Zemo which would keep him alive but switched sides to aid the heroes and seemingly died as a result.

 

While apparently dead, Simon’s body was recovered by Hank Pym who preserved Simon’s brain patterns in hopes of perhaps restoring him in some form. Unbeknownst to him at the time, Wonder Man’s brain patterns were used by Hank’s creation Ultron to imbue the synthezoid Vision with personality (Avengers #58).

While the Vision visits the grave of Simon Williams in Avengers #66 it is revealed his body is not buried there when Simon’s brother Eric Williams aka the Grim Reaper deceptively offers to unite the Vision’s human brainwaves with Simon’s human body as part of a manipulative plot against the Avengers (Avengers #102, #107-#108).

 

The villain Black Talon seemingly reanimates Wonder Man as a zombie (no, I’m not spelling it ‘zuvembie’, we all know what they meant) only for it to be revealed Simon was already alive when Black Talon found him (Avengers #151-#152). Immediately afterwards, the revived Wonder Man is entranced by Living Laser using the Serpent Crown and sent against the Avengers, though is defeated by the mutant X-Man turned Avenger member Hank McCoy aka the Beast and deprogrammed (Avengers #153, Avengers Annual #6).

 

Staying with the Avengers, Simon is confronted by the Vision who had sensed Wonder Man’s feelings for the synthezoid’s wife Wanda aka the Scarlet Witch (Avengers #158). Given the two share the same brain patterns, the Grim Reaper puts Wonder Man and the Vision on trial to determine which one is his ‘true’ brother. However, when it is revealed Simon is no longer human anymore, Vision and Simon conclude they are akin to brothers (Avengers #160).

 

A thorough examination by the combined efforts of Tony Stark, Hank Pym, the Black Panther and the Beast concludes that the process that granted Simon Williams his superhuman abilities and seemingly killed him was actually a metamorphosis into a being of living ionic energy (Avengers #164).

 

After several adventures alongside the Avengers and beginning a career in acting, Simon became a founding member of the West Coast Avengers team and deepened his bond with his ‘brother’ the Vision. However, a major flashpoint occurred when the Vision was disassembled and his personality wiped in the process. Wanda approached Simon to ask him to contribute his brain patterns to restore her now emotionless robotic husband, but he refused, noting he did not consent to the original process. This created a rift between the Scarlet Witch and Wonder Man in addition to contributing to the ending of Vision and Wanda’s marriage. Simon confessed to Janet Van Dyne aka The Wasp that he was secretly in love with Wanda, making his situation far more complex, though he does soon after willingly offer Vision his brain patterns again, only for his offer to be rejected (West Coast Avengers (vol. 2) #42-#46, Avengers West Coast #47, #53).

 

An unhinged Wanda (having just lost her twin babies and husband in rapid succession) who’d fallen under the sway of her terrorist mutant father Magneto taunts Simon by telling him she is aware of his affection for her. Warning: this scene was edited just prior to publication and still has horrific implications (Avengers West Coast (vol. 2) #56).

 

Seemingly accepting Wanda wasn’t in her right mind at the time, the two reconciled somewhat and Simon attempted to update and inform his ‘brother’ the Vision of Wanda’s recent condition. The unphased Vision stated it was best he and Wanda have no contact given their situation, which greatly angered Simon who felt he was competing with a ghost for Wanda’s love (Avengers West Coast (vol. 2) #63).

 

After a date together as friends (Avengers West Coast (vol. 2) #65) Wanda decides she can’t be with someone so similar to her former husband, telling Simon they should instead remain friends (Avengers West Coast (vol. 2) #69). After some time, Wanda and Simon were on speaking terms, though awkwardly so (Avengers West Coast #74).

 

Skipping forward now to the disbanding of the West Coast team, Simon signed up with their unofficial replacement team, Tony Stark’s independent group Force Works, only to die on their first mission in rather spectacular fashion, heroically flying the very ionic cannon the Kree had bombarded him with to a safe distance from Earth before it overloaded, tearing apart his ionic-powered body beyond his ability to reconstitute himself.  (Force Works #1).

 

Wonder Man’s status is a point of contention within the MC2. In the Main Marvel Universe, Simon Williams’ death greatly affected Force Works teammate, fellow Avenger, the Scarlet Witch. However, Wonder Man was revealed to remain lingering in some form in Avengers (vol. 3) #2 and was eventually full restored to corporeal form by Wanda’s powers in Avengers (vol. 3) #11. 

As the History of the MC2’s Avengers mostly diverges prior to this point, Wonder Man may have simply remained deceased in the MC2. Either he was already dead long ago, thanks to the shared history of the MC2 and the Main Marvel Universe diverging, or he was restored under similar circumstances. To further confuse the matter, when I asked A-Next co-creator and artist Ron Frenz about Wonder Man’s status in relation to his resurrection in Avengers (vol. 3) he had this to say:

‘As we’ve discussed, anything we could use, we’d use. Anything else we’d ignore. We wanted to acknowledge current continuity but, as you remember, Jarvis says everyone who was EVER an Avenger was gathered for that meeting and assault so we didn’t really feel we were committing to any single moment in specific continuity.’

Then, when asked if Wonder Man was still dead:

‘Dead or “Missing in Action,” I guess’

 

And using the Wayback Machine, a look on Alvaro’s Spider-Girl Message Board from November 2002 reveals a similar question and response from MC2 co-creator Tom Defalco:

 

Antiyonder: In A-Next #7 when a lot of the reserve Avengers Assemble to fight that threat Wonder Man’s nowhere in sight. Wonder Man wasn’t resurrected in MC2 Universe right? (As he was in Avengers #10-11 Volume 3)

 

Tom D: Right!

 

I therefore would like to suggest that perhaps Simon Williams is dead and Wonder Man is alive…or both. Perhaps he’s in a state of flux, like Schrödinger's cat. While Wanda’s powers have demonstrated the capacity to resurrect Simon (on more than one occasion, I might add) the probability is equally likely that events unfolded differently. Either way, we see the comatose Wanda Maximoff manifest multiple fully corporeal ‘phantom’ Wonder Men’ of comparable strength to protect her once she felt herself threatened. Additionally, her close connection to Simon Williams was notable enough that Thunderstrike was aware of it, suggesting their relationship might have been romantic in nature, much as it was in the Main Marvel Universe or Universe-616 after she resurrected him in Avengers (vol. 3) #11 (A-Next #8). 

This relationship ended amicably in Avengers (vol. 3) #41, after several hurdles including the restored Vision’s own complicated emotions surrounding his and Wanda’s past and feeling like a (pardon the pun) pale substitute of Simon, the ‘real deal’ (Avengers (vol. 3) #22-#23).     

 

As an aside, I personally suspect this added wrinkle might have informed the Vision and Scarlet Witch’s only direct interaction in the MC2, which was cold to say the least. I may be reading into it too much (Last Hero Standing #3). 

 

So, is Wonder Man alive in the MC2? Currently, no. But death isn’t as big of a deal for the ionic hero whose debut was meant to be his swansong. Perhaps the better question is ‘did Wonder Man come back to life only to die in a different universe?’ Is that the reason he can’t be brought back?

 

Until I manage to grasp quantum superpositions and how they might relate to MC2 Family Trees, I remain

 

frogoat