Just yesterday, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II addressed the uncomfortable optics surrounding Marvel’s treatment of Black-led projects, telling Vanity Fair that the pattern encompassing the cancellation of “Wonder Man” and the seemingly endless troubles facing “Blade” was “obvious.” Now, the Emmy-winning actor, also Emmy-nominated for his role as Marvel’s Simon Williams, is doubling down—and putting his concerns in considerably stronger terms.
Speaking to NPR’s “Fresh Air,” Abdul-Mateen expanded on those comments, arguing that when Marvel’s recent record with Black-led projects is considered collectively, the results are difficult to defend.
“When you look at the history of those projects and when you put them all together, there’s no way around it,” he said. “It does not look good. It does not look like good business. And it looks like it’s certainly not favorable to its Black creatives. That’s what it looks like.”
Asked specifically about the perception that Marvel doesn’t adequately protect its Black-led projects—with “Wonder Man,” “Blade,” “Ironheart,” and the long-gestating “Armor Wars” cited as examples—Abdul-Mateen stressed that he wasn’t rejecting that interpretation. In fact, he said ignoring the pattern would require looking the other way.
“So I’d be ignorant if I didn’t—or I’d be, you know, willfully blind if I chose not to make that observation,” he said. “I’m always interested in the truth, and I’m always interested in what is true for me. And what is true for me is that in the case of ‘Wonder Man,’ I actually don’t know what happened [other than] I heard things about viewership.”
That last point echoes what Abdul-Mateen told Vanity Fair. As we reported yesterday, Marvel told the actor that the decision to cancel “Wonder Man” after previously renewing it for a second season had “something to do with the viewership numbers.” However, Abdul-Mateen said he was never shown any hard data or numbers, leaving him without any concrete explanation for why the well-reviewed series was abruptly abandoned.
But in the NPR interview, Abdul-Mateen went further, suggesting Marvel’s expectations for a relatively niche Black-led series may themselves deserve scrutiny. If viewership really was the determining factor, he believes “Wonder Man” needed more runway to reach the audience most likely to embrace it.
“When it comes to Black-led projects, especially Black-led niche projects, I think [that audience] need a little bit more time to cook because I think Black audiences usually find out and gravitate to the niche projects a little bit slower,” he explained, noting that such projects aren’t always marketed directly to those audiences. In his view, “Wonder Man” needed more time if Marvel expected Black viewers to help provide “buoyancy” to its audience numbers.
It’s a sharper extension of what Abdul-Mateen said yesterday about the larger situation. In that conversation, the actor said, “the optics are obvious,” and argued that Disney and Marvel should prioritize changing the narrative around their Black-led projects, such as the recently canceled “Blade,” starring Mahershala Ali. He also maintained that “Wonder Man” had delivered the quality, resources, performances, and audience response Marvel should want from one of its series and therefore deserved “some real, hard information” about why it was canceled.
And while Abdul-Mateen is clearly frustrated by the circumstances, he isn’t disowning Marvel or his experience making the series. He told NPR that he remains “thankful and blessed” to have made something that audiences connected with, citing the affection he continues to receive from viewers as evidence that the show has found a passionate following.
More significantly, Abdul-Mateen also made clear this time that he hasn’t given up on Simon Williams entirely.
“I do hope that I get another chance to step back into that Wonder Man character,” he said.
Whether Marvel gives him that opportunity remains to be seen. But after initially calling the optics surrounding Marvel’s Black-led projects “obvious,” Abdul-Mateen is no longer merely pointing to an unfortunate perception. He’s openly saying the studio’s record “does not look good” and appears “not favorable to its Black creatives”—and challenging Marvel to provide a better explanation for why “Wonder Man” became part of that record.
Listen to the full conversation below.
