Despite its branding as the greatest shared universe franchise in TV and film, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has a bad habit of leaving storylines and characters by the wayside. Since Avengers: Endgame, the MCU has seen a steep drop-off in the frequency of its crossover connections between different TV and film projects. Moreover, certain characters who were supposed to be major players in the MCU (Shang-Chi, Moon Knight, Shuri) have instead lingered in limbo for years, while other key characters (Kang the Conqueror) have been benched and replaced.
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Strangely enough, there’s been one MCU character who has actually gotten more screen time and crossover exposure in the post-Endgame era. Trevor Slattery (Sir Ben Kingsley) posed as international terrorist “The Mandarin” in Iron Man 3 and got a button-scene epilogue in the Marvel One-Shot “All Hail the King”. Slattery popped up again in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, where he was revealed to be a prisoner of the real Mandarin, aka Xu Wenwu. He was freed and helped Shang-Chi and his allies defeat the evil entity called the Dweller-in-Darkness, ultimately choosing to hang out in the mystical realm of Ta Lo. But Trevor Slattery’s story will soon continue in the upcoming Wonder Man Disney+ series, and it’s been revealed that part of that continuing saga will actually be a long-awaited origin story for the eccentric actor.
Wonder Man stars Abdul-Mateen II as actor Simon Williams, who tries to earn the lead role in a remake of a classic in-universe superhero movie, Wonder Man. But Williams has a secret weapon: actual superpowers.
Trevor Slattery Is Getting An Origin Story In Marvel’s Wonder Man
Ben Kingsley was doing an interview during EW’s sneak peek of Wonder Man and spoke about where we find Trevor Slattery in the show. “He manages to escape from the real Mandarin and from Shang-Chi land, and he flies back into Hollywood to give his career a second chance and to prove to his dear mother Dorothy, who always had faith in him and his talents, that he was truly the actor his mom always hoped he would be and that he always aspired to be,” Kingsley revealed. “And a series of extraordinary events place him exactly in that space, which crowns him and compromises him at the same time. He’s pulled in two directions at the same time.”
The award-winning actor went on to reveal that there will be a key period of Trevor’s life that we will finally get to see in Wonder Man: what led an aspiring actor to Aldrich Killian (Guy Pearce) and his A.I.M. organization, and made him agree to create the Mandarin persona. “[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.”
That reveal only leads to another question: will Guy Pearce’s Aldrich Killian be making an appearance in Wonder Man?
Wonder Man will premiere on Disney+ on January 27, 2026.
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