In the pages of Marvel Comics, Simon Williams has gone through a lot. As Wonder Man, he gets duped into fighting the Avengers in his first appearance, he dies sacrificing himself as atonement, regularly becomes an incorporeal creature of ionic energy upon his resurrection, has an acting career filled with disappointment, and often serves on junior leagues like the West Coast Avengers or the Uncanny Avengers.
The MCU version of Simon Williams may not have gone through any of that yet, but it’s clear that he’s seen some trouble. In the latest clip for the Disney+ series Wonder Man, Simon goes into his depths to audition for the part of Wonder Man, a fictional character from a superhero film in the MCU. As Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) delivers lines about his suffering, he makes a change to the script that will surely have Thunderbolts* fans raising their eyebrows. Where the script reads “Well, I’ve been to Hell,” Simon says, “Well, I’ve been to the Void,” calling up the name of the Sentry’s dark alter ego.
As viewers of Thunderbolts* recall, the Sentry is Bob Reynolds, an unassuming nice guy played by Lewis Pullman, who gets caught in the middle of a black ops mission orchestrated by Valentina Allegra de Fontaine. When White Widow, U.S. Agent, and Ghost rebel against Val by refusing to kill each other and deciding to rescue Bob, they inadvertently help her cause by proving that he has survived the experiments she put him through. Although Val intends to make him into her own superhero called the Sentry, her plan backfires when his dark thoughts overtake him, transforming him into the Void.
In both Thunderbolts* and the Marvel Comics series The Sentry, by Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee, the Void is not just Bob’s evil alter ego. It’s also a representation of the loathing he feels inside of him, stemmed by a drug addiction in the comics and depression in the movie. In fact, Thunderbolts* shows that each of the members of the team have their own darkness inside of them, such as Yelena’s (Florence Pugh) guilt over what she’s done or John Walker’s (Wyatt Russell) feelings of failure.
