Simon Williams, I knew you well. As well as anyone can know a fictional character, anyway.
While I wasn’t born in time for your debut and untimely death, I did have a front-row seat for your Lazarus-like rebirth in the pages of Avengers #152. Ah, but those were mad times. Readers were treated to stolen brain-pattern drama, zuvembies, and a case of sibling rivalry to beat the band. Your return was shocking and a tad unsettling, your twisted corpse revived at midnight in a fetid New Orleans swamp. Ah, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s turn back the clock for a moment and quickly review the life and times of Simon Williams, from weak-willed blue collar criminal to Man of Wonder.
Simon Williams first appeared in Marvel Comics’ Avengers Vol. 1 #9 (October, 1964). Mismanagement of his family’s munitions factory leads an increasingly desperate Simon to take his brother Eric’s advice and embezzle funds before the company stock is worthless. Simon is caught red-handed and thrown in jail, where he tells anyone who will listen that it was competitor Tony Stark’s fault his family’s business failed. His ravings catch the attention of no less than fugitive Nazi mad scientist Baron Heinrich Zemo, who takes Simon to his secret lair in South America (natch!) to undergo a dangerous new experimental procedure.
To no one’s surprise, Simon not only survives but has developed incredible strength and durability. As Wonder-Man, Simon joins the Avengers, but he is forced to betray the team by Zemo, who will otherwise withhold the treatments he needs to keep his new powers from killing him. Simon is able to beat the Avengers single-handedly, but he can’t bring himself to finish the team that had so recently accepted him. He turns against Zemo and is slain for his troubles . . . or is he?
In Avengers #58, readers learn that Iron Man managed to copy the dying Williams’ brain patterns. These were later stolen by Ultron and used for a template for his own creation, the Vision. Unsurprisingly, Vision betrayed his creator in the same way Williams had Zemo. But while the Vision went on to join and later lead the Avengers, Simon remained dead. Mostly. He briefly returned as a member of Kang’s Legion of the Unliving, but it wasn’t until Avengers #152 that his story truly started up again.
Over the course of the next ten issues, readers learn that Eric Williams blames the Avengers for his brother Simon’s death. In the guise of the Grim Reaper, Eric has been plotting his revenge against the team: with the help of the evil voodoo hogun Black Talon, the Reaper steals Simon’s body and has it resurrected as a “zuvembie.” What the heck is that, you ask?
The term was Marvel’s way to side-step strict Comics Code regulations that prevented supernatural and horror imagery to be shown in comics. It also gave them a way to return this one-time Avenger to life, albeit in one of the most visually nauseating costumes to ever grace a Marvel Comic. Note: the Beast’s secondary mutation is NOT fashion design:
Ugly and over-complicated, with a color scheme more suggestive of a traffic light than super-heroics, this look mercifully only lasted for a few issues. After the suit was trashed battling Count Nefaria, Simon shifted gears and showed up for work one day wearing this.
If the other Avengers noticed, they chose not to say anything. Me? I’d have to ask. Where does one even get a red safari jacket? I like to imagine this was all Simon could find after waking up the morning after some weird Studio 54 orgy and he just ran with it. “What do you mean, zookeeper fetish gear? No, this is my superhero outfit.” And while it’s fun to make jokes now, 8-year-old Anthill thought this look was the bee’s knees. I pestered my poor mother forever to buy me a red safari jacket, and no matter how patiently she tried to explain they didn’t sell those at K-Mart, I would not be swayed. And neither would Simon. He’d finally found a look that, no matter how unusual, was instantly identifiable to any comics fan. I’m not saying everyone liked it, but it passed the all-important “silhouette test” for a comic character.
Simon sported the safari jacket for key events, like the Korvac saga and the battle with Ch’thon on Wundagore Mountain. After the events of Avengers #211, Simon heads out to California and joins up with the newly formed West Coast Avengers. What follows is a schizophrenic period for Simon, who begins to cycle through a series of highly forgettable costumes. Even worse, Simon’s characterization begins to drift; he goes from being a likable everyman sort of hero to an egotistical dunderhead. Eventually Marvel’s writers realized they’d written themselves into a corner, so, in a bid to make the character interesting, they killed him. Again. Simon is inadvertently resurrected thanks to Scarlet Witch’s chaos magic and spends his time fluctuating between a black T-shirted greaser-type and a being of pure ionic energy.
And here we are. With the announcement of Wonder Man appearing in the Captain America Marvel Legends Abomination Series, long-time fans could be forgiven for hoping for the character they’ve been waiting a decade to see produced in what many consider to be his iconic costume. Instead, we ended up with this swollen muscle-dummy:
I know, you think this is just sour grapes on my part. But honestly, I’m already over it. What I can’t get over are the advance photos of the figure we are getting. Simon here has the aesthetic of one of those low price-point wrestling figures. Between the oversized expressionless head, the minimal paint apps, and the overall softness of the detail, the figure comes off as lame and uninspired. Would the figure have been improved by including a rubber jacket overlay and new arms? Ehhh, possibly. I just see too much wrong to feel like it would have made much of a difference. It’s clear this version of Simon wasn’t chosen because it was a fan favorite, but because it was the cheapest possible reuse of pre-existing molds. It’s not meant to honor the character; it’s meant to be filler so Hasbro can crank out another wave of figures. And hey, I get that. But it makes me wonder what Simon did to deserve it . . .
