What to Watch Before Wonder Man

 

The newest instalment in the Marvel Cinematic Universe is set to release on Disney+ in mere days, so I’ve put together a list of the most relevant previous MCU entries of both the movies and shows to watch before the Wonder Man series hits our screens.

 

 

For this first entry, I recommend starting with Iron Man 3 (2013) which (kind of) introduced the armoured Avenger’s comic book arch-foe, The Mandarin. Controversially, the movie instead delivered a rug-pull moment and revealed ‘The Mandarin’ to be (SPOILERS!) actor Trevor Slattery (Sir Ben Kingsley) playing the role of the terrorist villain in propaganda material for the real mastermind of the film.

 

 

The fallout from the controversial decision was mitigated somewhat with the release of the short film All Hail the King, first released on the 2014 home release of Thor: The Dark World and now easily found on Disney+. The short focuses on the incarcerated Trevor Slattery being interviewed by a reporter who reveals there is a real Mandarin who is very much angered at his title and Ten Rings organisation being co-opted. The ending is ambiguous, with Trevor being broken out of prison to meet his namesake…

 

Next up, 2017’s Spider-Man: Homecoming introduced the Department of Damage Control, who were responsible for cleaning up in the wake of the Battle of New York seen in the first Avengers movie.

 

Notably, they grow and take on more responsibilities, collecting advanced technology and policing those with superpowers as we would see in Spider-Man: No Way Home (2021), Ms. Marvel (2022) and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law (2022). The most relevant DODC member is Agent Cleary (Arian Moayed) who will return in Wonder Man, pursing Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II).

 

Meanwhile, Trevor Slattery returns in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021), having been kept almost as a court jester by Wenwu (the real name of ‘The Mandarin’) to entertain members of his Ten Rings organisation. I’m curious to learn how Trevor made it back from mystical Ta Lo and headed to Hollywood for Wonder Man…

 

Hopefully that’s all the background you might need before Wonder Man releases this week.

 

Until I go full method and gain superpowers requiring cool shades, I remain

 

frogoat

 

 

 

 

MC2 in the TASM-Verse

 

Following on from the recent Spider-Man: No Way Home villain posts, my post about the various Sam Raimi Spider-Man movie trilogy references, easter eggs and connections in the MC2 got some nice responses so I figured I should attempt a modest sequel of sorts. This one detailing the (admittedly far fewer) connections between the MC2 comics and the Marc Webb directed The Amazing Spider-Man duology of films. Since both Amazing films were released after the MC2’s published history ended, the references and connections (intentional or otherwise) will obviously only flow in one direction. Let’s look at the MC2 in the TASM-Verse.

 

 

This first one is probably just an unintentional similarity but one I can’t get away from. Not only does Andrew Garfield’s Peter Parker have amazing hair, when he tries on his father’s old glasses early in the first film, he resembles May ‘Mayday’ Parker in her own debut appearance in What If #105.

 

 

Ever since the first time I watched The Amazing Spider-Man in the cinema I’ve felt the scene where a newly empowered Peter takes a basketball from Flash Thompson and slam dunks it through the hoop and destroys the backboard looked awful familiar. This can only be swiped from the aforementioned debut of Spider-Girl in What If #105 where the emergence of Mayday’s powers is heralded by her leaping high into the air during a basketball game and performing a slam dunk which shatters the backboard. Even if this was not an intended reference, it’s an extremely unusual coincidence as Peter was notoriously unathletic and isn’t associated with basketball whereas Mayday is by contrast an athletic high school basketball star well before her powers developed.

 

Jumping from the films to the games now, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 game features a very small cameo by Spider-Girl in the form of a comic glimpsed on the shelf of a comic shop you can visit in-game. I included this cameo appearance in my updated Evolution of Spider-Girl in Video Games YouTube video. The cover depicted in the game is Spider-Girl #39. Just a nice little easter egg inclusion.

 

 

That might be it, if I’ve missed anything please let me know! Hopefully you’ve seen how much crossover and recycled concepts different adaptions utilize from the MC2 Universe. Not sure if I should try and turn out more of these sorts of posts. Let me know what you think!

 

Until I realize far too late that I’ve missed a super obvious reference or connection, I remain

 

frogoat