Born to die in a single issue, Wonder Man nevertheless ended up spawning four enduring Marvel Comics characters.
Introduced in The Avengers 9 (Oct. 1964), Wonder Man was Simon Williams, Tony Stark’s failed business rival, who, in desperation, agreed to let Baron Zemo subject him to an ionic ray.
As I write this, it occurs to me that just as the most heroic rank is “captain,” the most reliably evil title is “baron.”
“Endowed with super strength and endurance and named Wonder Man, he turns to crime — having no choice, as it turns out since Zemo informs him that without regular doses of an ‘antidote,’ Simon will die,” recalled comics historian Jeff Rovin.
Used by Zemo’s gang to infiltrate and betray the Avengers, Simon instead ends up sacrificing his life to save them.
“Stan Lee just killed him,” Heck recalled in an interview. “That was the first story I’d done on The Avengers, and it had all these characters and oh, sh*t (laughter).”
Although Jack Kirby did the cover for Avengers 9, Heck designed the Wonder Man costume.
“This was one of those ‘terribly frustrating’ comic books (that happens occasionally) whereby an appealing, exciting new character is introduced only to have the creators/publisher snatch said character away from us,” recalled comics historian Johnny Williams. “This was just such a comic containing just such a character.”
I remember that I too wanted Wonder Man to continue, as he was intriguingly the most “DC” of the Marvel superheroes. But then that was the very thing that killed him (at least for a while).
Why couldn’t he live on? Well, for one thing, a 1939 Fox Publications character called Wonder Man was sued out of existence by DC Comics after only one appearance. But DC Comics wouldn’t bother to threaten any legal action against Marvel because this character would live and die in a single issue.
But Wonder Man’s brief existence echoed through the pages of later Marvel Comics. Like gourmet cooks, the Marvel team learned how to reuse basic ingredients in new and appealing recipes.
So although Wonder Man was born to die, he ended up spawning four longer-lasting characters — Power Man, the Grim Reaper, the Vision, and Wonder Man himself, resurrected from a swamp, first as a zombie, then as a fully functional superhero
— Power Man (The Avengers 21, Oct. 1965). Erik Josten, a criminal mercenary empowered by the same ionic ray machine that created Wonder Man, also converted to the side of right and virtue, but it took him a lot longer. He became the Smuggler, then Goliat,h and finally Atlas of the Thunderbolts.
— The Grim Reaper (The Avengers 52, May 1968). Simon Williams’ irresponsible older brother Eric sought vengeance against the Avengers for the death of Wonder Man, employing a multi-purpose high-tech scythe to that end.
— The Vision (The Avengers 57, Oct. 1968). The popular Marvel superhero was created by the humanity-hating robot Ultron using the android body of the original 1930s Human Torch and Simon Williams’ brain patterns.
“Having been a fan of comics before becoming a professional, (writer Roy) Thomas always enjoyed bringing in elements from the past, expanding on them, introducing them into current continue, ty and then exploiting them for story possibilities,” wrote Pierre Comtois in Marvel Comics in the 1960s. “The new Vision came with the ‘brain patterns’ of Wonder Man, which were recorded by the Avengers just before his death (Why? ‘Perhaps he’ll live again, another day, in another form!’ says Iron Man without addressing any of the possible ethical questions involved).”
The original android Human Torch also eventually reappeared, but that’s a story for another day.
— The resurrected Wonder Man. The Grim Reaper had taken his brother’s body to New Orleans, hoping that voodoo masters might revive it. And they did — as a mindless super-zombie. But Wonder Man gradually recovered his mind and became a trusted member of the Avengers (and a movie star!).
Simon Williams was an example of what was to be a recurrent theme in Marvel Comics: redemption (not infrequently at the cost of the character’s life).
Beyond Wonder Man, other sketchy characters who got four-color absolution early on included Hawkeye, Quicksilver, the Scarlet Witch, the Vision, the Gargoyle, the Swordsman, the Crimson Dynamo, the Sub-Mariner, the alien Captain Marvel, the Black Widow, and the Black Knight.
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