“Wonder Man” (read the film review here) introduces Simon Williams (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II) to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The MCU’s Disney+ series trend began with 2021’s “WandaVision,” and the three leads from both series have, in the pages of Marvel Comics, shared a long-running love triangle. It’s even stranger because Vision’s synthezoid brain is modeled after Wonder Man’s – they’re almost the same person.
Wonder Man debuted in issue #9 of Stan Lee and Don Heck’s “Avengers.” Baron Zemo and the Masters of Evil gave superpowers to bankrupt businessman Simon Williams so he could infiltrate and destroy the Avengers. Instead, Wonder Man gave his life to save his new friends. (A young reader who was inspired by the story of Wonder Man? George RR Martin.)
But that wasn’t the end for Wonder Man. “Avengers” #58 (by Roy Thomas and John Buscema) recalled that the Avengers copied the character’s brain patterns in the faint hope that one day they could revive him. The evil android Ultron used Wonder Man’s mind to create Vision and set him on the Avengers – but like Wonder Man, Vision turned against his creator and chose good.
Wonder Man would eventually return for real. Revived in 1977’s “Avengers” #160 (by Jim Shooter and George Pérez), Simon became a permanent Avenger. Over time, he and Vision more or less accepted each other as brothers. But since Vision was based on Wonder Man’s personality, it makes sense that Simon would share Vision’s affection for Wanda.
Superhero comics, especially team-up books like “Avengers,” are serials, and this is a great example of that. Wanda spent time in love with Vision and Wonder Man, but her relationship with Vision came first; for her, which man is truly the echo of what?
The Intertwined History of Vision and Wonder Man in Marvel Comics
Roy Thomas and then Steve Englehart wrote Wanda and Vision’s slow-blooming romance through “The Avengers” issues of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Wanda’s overprotective brother Quicksilver disapproved of Vision, and Vision himself thought Wanda deserved better than a facsimile of a man. But if even an android can cry (as stated in “Avengers” #58), then surely he can love too.
Eventually, Wanda and Vision threw caution to the wind and got together. In 1975’s “Giant-Size Avengers” #4 (by Englehart and Don Heck), they married and remained together for over a decade by the time of publication in the real world. But it all comes crashing down in John Byrne’s “West Coast Avengers,” when Vision is wiped of his emotions and an envious Wonder Man refuses to let his brain patterns be used to fully restore Vision. Like Byrne explain in the magazine “Comic Interviews” n°71:
“[Wonder Man] came out of being dead and here was this woman who was everything he had ever dreamed of, and she was married to a toaster. So he held back and behaved like a gentleman, but now he’s chasing her.”
In Kurt Busiek and George Pérez’s 1990s “Avengers” series, Wonder Man and a now-restored Vision had traded places; Wonder Man was with Wanda, while Vision – due to the disastrous end of their marriage – silently loved her from the shadows. “Avengers” #23 concerned a confrontation between Wonder Man and Vision, who admits his pain that his entire existence is just an echo of Wonder Man’s.
“[Wanda’s love was] something that belonged to me – that was part of my life, of myself, without having first been part of yours,” Vision says. Now Vision understands, even that derived first from Simon’s soul.
Why the MCU May Not Feature a Vision, Scarlet Witch, and Wonder Man Love Triangle
Like most superhero love triangles, there was no permanent resolution here – although Wanda and Vision recently teamed up for a new one. “The Vision and the Scarlet Witch” series (by Steve Orlando and Lorenzo Tammetta) commemorating their 50th anniversary.
Still, don’t expect to see Yahya Abdul-Mateen II’s Simon Williams rival Paul Bettany’s Vision for Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen). When Vision debuted in “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” the MCU had not introduced Wonder Man. So his mind is instead based on Tony Stark’s (Robert Downey Jr.) AI assistant, JARVIS. This means there is no built-in tension between him and Wonder Man on screen.
Last we heard from Wanda in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness”, she was dead, crushed beneath Mount Wundagore. Granted, Olsen indicated he was open to returning as Scarlet Witch – She did return to play an alternate Wanda in the animated series “Marvel Zombies.”
“Agatha All Along” revealed that Wanda’s children Billy and Tommy have been reincarnated, while Vision is getting his own series, “VisionQuest.” I wouldn’t be surprised if a Maximoff family reunion is planned. However, Olsen also said she does it not I want the MCU to bring the love triangle of Scarlet Witch, Vision and Wonder Man after exploring a similar subject in his high-concept romantic film “Eternity.”
“I just made a movie about a woman who chooses between her two dead husbands in the afterlife, so I feel good about not making another movie about two men who want my love for a minute,” Olsen said at LA Comic-Con 2025 (via ComicBookMovie). The MCU has shown Wanda as a synthezoid woman who would rather throw away an illusion of the Dead Vision than move on, so why complicate that with a love triangle now?
