The MCU’s New Mutant is a Decades-Old Avengers Deep Cut

Marvel’s newest TV series, Wonder Man, is a rare beast in that it has united fans and critics alike in praise. Wonder Man debuted to a near-perfect Rotten Tomatoes critic score, and general audiences agree; in fact, at time of writing, the audience score is currently highly than that of the critics. Starring Yahya Abdul-Mateen II as Simon Williams and Ben Kingsley as Trevor Slattery, Wonder Man is an unusual superhero TV series that doesn’t focus on action and adventure; instead, it’s a character piece that criticizes Hollywood (and even Marvel Studios itself).

And yet, for all that’s the case, the real standout is surely Wonder Man episode 4. A flashback story featuring Byron Bowers as DeMarr Davis, it tells the story of an enhanced individual who became known as the Doorman after he developed a form of teleportation powers. This episode is all about Hollywood, showing the twisted and transitory nature of fame, and the way the industry chews up and uses people of color. It also features one of the most delightfully obscure comic book characters to ever grace the MCU.

Doorman’s Comic Book Origins Explained

The Thunderbolts* post-credits scene teased a clash between different Avengers teams over who even gets to use the name, with Sam Wilson going so far as to trademark it. Hilariously, that idea has been seen in the comics, and there’s one team of loser-heroes the Avengers tried to get to cease and desist; the Great Lakes Avengers. They debuted in West Coast Avengers #46 as a group of heroes who didn’t quite make the cut, described by Dan Slott as “the bottom feeders” of the superhero world. Doorman, whose power is simply to become a door to any place, was a founding member of the GLA.

To give an idea of how deep a cut Doorman is to Marvel lore, the character has only appeared in 37 issues to date. That’s despite one Great Lakes Avengers writer, Zac Gorman, describing him as a would-be “breakout star” in his run. “He’s got an interesting story, with some of the stuff built into his backstory in regards to his relationship with these cosmic forces. There’s a lot of potential when you have a guy who is a complete screw-up, who is very self-involved and doesn’t take his job seriously, but is also kind of responsible for the fate of the universe,” Gorman explained in an interview with Nerdist.

In the comics, DeMarr Davis was a mutant (ironically, Wonder Man implies Simon Williams is a mutant in the MCU, while Doorman has an origin story). A true hero who was nevertheless something of a screw-up, he actually died on a mission for the GLA but was resurrected as a servant of the cosmic entity Oblivion. He became something of an angel of death, responsible for ushering souls into the afterlife (hence Gorman’s hopes for his run), and remained as much a screwup as ever.

The MCU’s Doorman is Very Different to the Comics (& It Doesn’t Matter)

The MCU’s version of Doorman has pretty much the same powers as the comic book version, but the similarities end there. This version of Doorman gained his abilities after he was exposed to mysterious black goo dumped in the trash by one of the oldest MCU “villains”, a corrupt energy company called Roxxon. He gained access to what’s clearly the Darkforce Dimension, but initially chose not to use these powers, instead continuing his career as a doorman at a Hollywood club. Doorman only revealed his abilities during a fire.

From there, Doorman’s life becomes a parable for fame and the Hollywood life. He became a celebrity, a film star, and then everything went badly wrong. Down on his luck, Doorman made one last desperate cash grab (for a film called, appropriately enough, Cash Grab 2), but his powers malfunctioned and Josh Gad was left stranded in his doorway. “Josh is very much alive,” Wonder Man co-creator Andrew Guest confirmed. “He’s just in Doorman. We’ve got to get him out. As long as Doorman is alive, Josh is alive.”

Doorman’s legacy in the MCU is a sad one; apparently Hollywood studios have now enacted a “Doorman clause,” forbidding super-powered individuals from working on stage and screen. We don’t hear what happened to Doorman after the Josh Gad tragedy, and there’s no indication the story will be revisited anytime soon in the MCU. As far as Josh Gad is concerned, then, he’s encountered a fate worse than death… ironic given it’s through a character who became an angel of death in the comics.

Wonder Man is now streaming on Disney+.

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