A Case for Wonder Man
&
Wonder Man Pitch
One of the major reasons we should go for Wonder Man, aka Simon Williams:
His origin would be
perfect If we want to establish that these characters can interact with each other, rather than having them be siloed into their own things awkwardly (see the MCU Iron Man trilogy, for example), earlier than when the original MCU started feeling confident enough to do it. This would also make the setting feel like it's progressing and enhancing the worldbuilding.
We would do this by adapting his backstory where his family's company, Williams Innovations, slowly went bankrupt due to fierce competition from Stark Industries. We could show how Stark's exit of the weapons industry and entrance into "whatever industry I can throw my genius and money into" having implications in the overall setting, plus serving as a way to introduce a more lower-tier threat into the world through his brother's connection to one of the families in the Maggia.
His brother, Eric Williams (who in the comics is known as Grim Reaper and wields a high-tech scythe and other gear supplied by the Tinkerer) fell onto rough times and ended up joining one of the families that make up the international crime syndicate Maggia, a collection of many independent families with their finger in many pies (legal and less than legal operations) but definitely not as evil as groups like Hydra or AIM. At some point, perhaps out of a feeling of brotherly guilt (Eric had a worse off childhood than Simon despite living under the same roof) and of economic desperation with his family's company falling apart around him, he agrees to use his company to launder money for the Maggia... eventually getting caught and convicted while the rest of the Maggia agents continue to successfully subvert his family's company into nothing more than a front for the Maggia, selling off the toys to the other branches to increase their own standing in the organization as a whole.
From here, he was offered a chance to "get revenge on Stark" by being broken out of prison and becoming a test subject for an "ionic ray" treatment, enhancing his body and giving him the superpowers he will eventually use to become the superhero Wonder Man. In this iteration, the device could simply be a prototype that was developed in-house at Williams Innovation but discarded for not being too costly to complete the research and development of. His brother Eric, out of family loyalty and guilt, could have used some other equipment developed by the company to break his brother out and and to undergo the procedure.
Quick aside: There is another powerful villain in the Maggia known as Count Nefaria who is prominently in Europe and also uses Ionic powers, so having the Maggia get ionic powers from Simon letting them infiltrate his family's company could make Count Nefaria a kind of long-term nemesis for him (in addition to the Maggia at large, once his misdirected anger towards Stark fades away and he does the right thing). This would also establish more threats in other parts of the world besides just America, and give a potential large threat for SHIELD to take on in the shorter term that isn't as powerful or as evil as HYDRA, something where their skills as a spy organization rather than a "superhero organization" would take focus.
But this is all potential future implications, so let's continue with the proposal.
Simon, with his newfound Ionic powers, decides (after being heavily guided/partially manipulated) to get revenge on Stark. Perhaps earlier in the movie when Simon was convicted Stark testified at Simon's trial to serve as an expert witness into his potential motivation ("his tech sucks" kind of way) which served as the final straw, so Simon tries to track him down to take revenge as the climactic action piece for the movie.
But during the fight, once he has a chance to defeat Tony. He stops himself. He knows this isn't right. This realization could be spurred on by him seeing the terror he's causing for the civilians around Stark in his quest for revenge, or maybe Stark himself is able to convince him, perhaps with data that he's hacked showing how bad the Maggia are and what they are doing to his family's legacy, using the innovations for evil and so on... even his brother is in it, causing them to have a falling out, no longer seeing each other as brothers. That realization and fallout that proves Simon has what it takes to be a hero could happen in multiple possible ways (thanks to King crimson):
I think the script could be reworked in two potential ways if you wanted to go for it. Option one is to have Eric steal tech from Stark Industries during the fight between Wonder Man and Iron Man using the chaos as an opportunity to lift things. Thus Wonder Man's redemption isn't just "I didn't kill Tony Stark" but rather actively undoing the damage he's done and fighting the actual villains of the movie. As for why Tony isn't helping Wonder Man damaged his suit bad enough that he can't follow and so Wonder Man becomes the only person capable of stopping them from gaining Stark Tech.
Option two that I thought of would be to bring in a different antagonist to act as the third act climax. Have a version of the Living Laser who's another businessman screwed over by Stark's shift who underwent the same treatment and gained powers. Where Wonder Man stopped and reevaluated his actions and realized he was in the wrong, Living Laser didn't and doubled down on his position, planning to wipe out Stark in an action that will ruin even more lives as collateral damage.
Another alternate way to introduce him as a hero is that Wonder Man comes across the Maggia using his family's company and technology for evil himself and putting a stop to whatever scheme of theirs is, which may or may not involve them planning to steal technology from Stark.
Simon decides to make things right by helping Tony start taking down the Maggia, beginning by writing a detailed report with everything he knows about both his old company and the Maggia itself, and in return Tony doesn't press charges. Maybe he even decides to hire Simon and the "clean" employees from Williams Innovation that Simon identifies not only to save their careers but so he doesn't have to focus on the company part of his company, giving him more time to be Iron Man.
However, it's not all sunshine and rainbows for Simon yet: there is one man who is
extremely interested in his past dealings with the Maggia and his newfound ionic powers...
Thoughts? I realize this could arguably be seen as an Iron Man 2 pitch as well, which if Wonder Man isn't chosen I would like to adapt this general story for that movie, although there would have to be a shift on focus and subject matter, probably more towards the overall industries that Stark has left behind and is entering with a larger scope on the overall market, maybe incorporating Justin Hammer or other CEO characters as well, and would probably leave off Wonder Man's story with just the conviction part with the rest being followed up in a future solo film, so I think it works much better and the scope is tighter as just a Wonder Man movie.
In conclusion, Wonder Man:
- Brings Wonder Man, a character with many interesting foibles and character defects into the limelight.
- Has a solid and interesting connection with Tony Stark that would enrich the worldbuilding
- Introduces the Maggia as a criminal enterprise that would need SHIELD's subterfuge to deal with, giving SHIELD agents more to do that matches their training and skill set, as opposed to being babysitters for the superheroes.
- Allows us to show more about how the in-universe public reacts to the changes that superheroes bring, setting the stage for future societal change.
