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With Wonder Man already having wrapped its first season, it's easy to see now why star Yahya Abdul-Mateen II would say yes to the titular role. The show is one of Marvel TV's best reviewed, in fact, and a second season is already confirmed to be in the works. But there was no way Abdul-Mateen could have been certain about the show's success when he originally got the offer, and as the Watchmen actor recently revealed, he approached saying yes with a very real possibility in the back of his mind:

Season one could be the only opportunity to be a part of the MCU he got.

The Watchmen actor and best part of the Aquaman movies (sorry, personal opinion slipping out there) was a recent guest on Josh Horowitz's Happy Sad Confused podcast, where he explained his trepidation in heading into the role. Knowing that director Destin Daniel Cretton was going to be handling the show "kind of differently," was intriguing to Abdul-Mateen, but heading in at all caused him no small amount of nervousness. Abdul-Mateen had, after all, missed out on playing M'Baku in Marvel's Black Panther saga, so you can understand why another shot at the MCU would be seen as so precious.

So what did the future Simon Williams do? Well, call up Kevin Feige, of course.

"I wanted to have a conversation with him," Abdul-Mateen told Horowitz, "To say — not necessarily, 'Where is this gonna go?' I didn’t flat-out ask that question — but I said, 'This sounds like a great opportunity, but I only get one Marvel dollar to spend, and I want to make sure that I spend it well.'"

"I wanted to have that conversation with him to say," he continued, "'Me saying yes is a huge gamble because I really, really, really like what you all do. So if this isn’t the time for me to say yes, let me know because I will sit to the side and wait until it makes sense.'"

Of course, Feige was quick to reassure the future Marvel incomer that the show was exactly the opportunity he was waiting for — "a dollar well spent," is how Abdul-Mateen put it — and years later, we know that he was right. Still, Abdul-Mateen's willingness to wait for the right opportunity where so many others would froth at the mouth for any opportunity at all is a sign that, even before the cameras rolled, Wonder Man was in the right hands. 

Wonder Man Season 1 is streaming now on Disney+.

Consider this a meta post-credits scene for Marvel fans - the four key articles you need to read next to continue the thrills:

• How to watch the Marvel Cinematic Universe in release or chronological order
• The best Marvel Comics stories of all time
• All the MCU movies ranked from best to worst
• Our weekly Marvel insider's column, Marvel Matters