"Wonder Man": Not-quite-gay struggling actor, superhero, or both? Plus Yahya's dick and a shocking reveal about Ben Kingsley.

 

Wonder Man (2026) has two contradictory premise descriptions.  On Disney Plus, it's  about "two actors at opposite ends of their careers" (Yahya Abdul-Mateen, Ben Kingsley), so we're expecting a wry comedy-drama about show business, like Entourage.  

On the IMDB, it's about a guy who gets superpowers and "is thrust into the world of superheroes," so we're expecting aerial battles with costumed baddies, like The X-Men.

Different types of viewers will be interested in each.  It's cute the way the try to rope in each.  But won't it backfire when half of the audience realizes that it's been tricked?

Plus Ben is gay in real life, Yahya displayed his dick in Watchmen, and both have played gay characters, so there's bound to be some representation.  And maybe some cocks.

Episode 1, "Matinee."  

Scene 1: A low-budget 1960s style superhero movie, with the caped crusader Wonder Man (Dane Larson) having a poorly-choreographed fight with some evil aliens.  Pull back to reveal a bored dad and fascinated son, Young Simon (Kameron J. Meadows). 

Cut to the grown-up Simon (Yahya) marking up a script, then doing shuddering and squealing warm-ups.  The production assistant (Talha Ehtasham) fetches him, and they walk across the entire studio, in a call-back to those backstage movies of the Golden Age of Hollywood.  

They reach a  university classroom set on American Horror Story.  The director describes the scene: Classes are over, and Professor Harpin (Simon) is packing up his desk, when Laura enters.  They discuss the Aztec God of Death. Then Laura turns into a monster and bites his head off.

Simon offers more and more nitpicking suggestions: "If I'm jealous of Laura getting tenure, should I be friendly?  Shouldn't I be packing up a copy of  Aztec Thought and Culture instead of Aztec Civilization?"   He researched the Aztecs for one line in a cheesy tv show? The director and gaffer get more and more annoyed, and finally cut the character.  Your own fault, buddy.

Scene 2: Establishing shots of the Hollywood Sign, highway traffic jams (I remember those!) and people waiting in a long line to audition.   Simon returns to his apartment to find guys moving everything out.  His girlfriend is dumping him, and taking her stuff.  Heterosexual identity established at minute 9:40. She explains that he is emotionally distant.  

As she leaves, the building shakes.  Earthquake, or is Simon getting superpowers? 

Scene 3: Simon goes to see Midnight Cowboy (1969), with Jon Voight as a gay-ish hustler.  Getting some tips for your new career, buddy?   A creepy old guy (Ben Kingsley) is talking loudly on his phone. To "Sweetie," presumably his girlfriend.  Heterosexual identity established immediately.  

Simon tells him to shut up, but he thinks it's ok because it's just the movie trivia and commercials. 

Simon recognizes him as Trevor, who played The Mandarin ten years ago, and Edgar Allan Poe in the 1970s.

Scene 4: They watch the movie, and are impressed by the gay-subtext romance between Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman.  "Touching... moving...powerful."  Afterwards, Simon annoys Trevor with his nitpicking trivia about the film; he would rather talk about Schlesinger's production of Timon of Athens.

Trevor has to leave, as he is auditioning for Wonder Man.  Simon's favorite movie as a kid!   

More after the break

Julian Hilliard: A gay superhero and two gay-subtext boyfriends, but is he gay in real life or just teasing? With some co-star cocks

 

I decided to research Julian Hilliard based on this photo. He asks "Who is Craig?" and answers: "really goofy, friendly, funny." Obviously his boyfriend.

As of this writing, Julian is only 14.  Few guys have figured out that they're gay by that age, and even fewer have the guts to post about it openly in their social media.  

But maybe his coming out process was facilitated by playing a gay character: Billy Maximoff.

In the Marvel comics tv series Wandavision (2021), Wanda Maximoff, the Scarlet Witch, is memory-erased and trapped in a series of sitcoms, along with her husband Vision (Wanda-Vision, get it?) and various residents of Westview, New Jersey.   Vision is dead in the real world, and their two sons, Billy (Julian) and Tommy (Jett Klyne), were created to maintain the illusion, so when Wanda learns the truth and releases the town from its curse, her husband and sons cease to exist.

Or do they?

In Agatha All Along (2024), the witch Agatha Harkness takes on a sort of apprentice, whom everyone  calls Teen because he  can't reveal his real name due to a sigil.  In a big reveal, we learn that he is Billy Maximoff, memory-wiped and moved into the body of Billy Kaplan, who died in an auto accident just as Wanda was releasing the town from its curse. 

Teen (Joe Locke) is gay, with a boyfriend who appears in two episodes.

In the comics, Billy came out in 2013, and  joined the Young Avengers as the superhero Wiccan, Marvel's first gay Jewish superhero.  He dated and eventually married Hulking (no relation to the Incredible Hulk).

Did the producers know that Julian was gay when they cast him as Billy in 2021?  Was he already out at age ten?  Or did he figure it out during his research into the role?

To determine the answer, I'll check his other acting roles and social media.  Julian was born in Dallas in 2011, into a show biz family: Mom is an actress, Dad a producer/director.  I didn't find anything of immediate gay interest in their works.

His first starring role was in The Haunting of Hill House (2018): A family moves into Hill House in 1992, and is forced to leave due to the haunting.  26 years later, the grown-up children must return. Gulp.  

Julian plays Young Luke. 

The adult Luke (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) is a struggling heroin addict, and the adult Steven (Michael Huisman, left) a writer whose book about the haunting became a best-seller, alienating his family.  Both are heterosexual, but their sister Theodora is a lesbian.  So some gay representation in Julian's first major acting gig.

 Julian next appeared in The Color Out of Space (2019), based on the Lovecraft short story.  A mysterious meteor crashes onto the alpaca farm of Nathan (Nicholas Cage) and his family, with dire consequences.  For instance, his wife and son (Julian) are fused together in a "monstrous mass" and attack. Fusing with your mother has some gay-coded Freudian symbolism, and the friendly hydrologist Ward (Elliot Knight) doesn't display any heterosexual interest.

Penny Dreadful: City of Angels (2010) sends detectives Tiago and Lewis (Daniel Zovato, Nathan Lane) to solve a murder in 1938 Los Angeles. For some reason they have Nathan Lane playing a straight guy, but there are gay characters, notably Councilman Charlton Townsend (Michael Gladis) and his boyfriend, Kurt (Dominic Sherwood, who got in trouble for referring to his costar as a f*g)

More after the break

The Weird World of Gumball: Definitely weird, but is it adequately gay? With Jordan's junk, Kwesi's cock, and Alkaio Thiele

 

After identifying Alkaio Thiele of Wizards Beyond Waverly Place as probably gay due to his many male friends, his romance with Kayden Koshelev, and...well, just look at him, prancing with his mom (the butch one)... I've been going through his work, looking for gay subtexts. 

Left: I don't have any n*de photos of Alkaio, since he's under 18, but here's a random Greek guy.

 He is currently the star of The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball (2025-), the latest in the franchise of animated series featuring a catlike being (Alkaio) and his adopted brother, the evolved goldfish Darwin (Hero Hunter).  They have ordinary middle school adventures in a world populated by an assortment of humanoids, animals, inanimate objects, gods, and spirits drawn in various conflicting styles.

Fans have been claiming that the new series is "super gay" and "insanely gay."  and pointing specifically to Episodes 1.13, "The Letter," and 2.8, "The Diary."  So let's take a look.

Episode 1.13, Scene 1: After school, Darwin is cheerful; Gumball is suspicious.  Finally he comes clean: He wrote his girlfriend Carrie (right) a love letter, and he's going to slip it in her locker.

"But Carrie is a cursed specter from the Underworld. She might not approve of love."

Then the ghost-being Carrie and her friend Penny, a glowing peanut, appear.  Gumball and Penny rub their faces over each other and smoochy-woochy. Two boy-girl romances.  It's not looking good for the "insanely gay" advocates.

Ghost-being Carrie icks.  She explains that she's dead inside, so she finds physical displays of affection "cringy and gross."  That's why she and Darwin get along so well -- he's not "a mewling puddle of mush."  

Uh-oh, she opens her locker, and her monster-knapsack absorbs Darwin's love letter!  

"But what if you get a cute 'I wuv you' letter?" Darwin asks, grasping at straws.

She possesses Gumball and makes him announce that the dead are deprived of love, so when a ghost hears "I love you," even when addressed to someone else, the hunger makes them lose control and devour your soul.  So is it that you don't like physical affection, or you don't like romantic love?  Make up your mind, lady.

Scene 2: At lunch, Ghost Carrie, Peanut Penny, and a cloud-being are discussing the circumstances under which a boy might say "I love you" and not get eaten. They specify a boy, assuming that all romances are boy-girl.  Things are not looking good.  

Gumball sneaks under the table, where the monster-knapsack eats him.  But it spits him out, and he brings the letter with him, along with Ghost Carrie's book of magic, which they can use to destroy it.

Scene 3: Gumball can't read the arcane language, so he tries conjuring at random.  First, a refrigerator.  Then a love spell. Gumball already loves Darwin, but "You really look like a snack right now." Ok, a reference to same-sex desire.

The dimwits finally realize that they could just throw the letter away, but as they toss, the giant ape Hector Jotunheim jumps in front of them, and it ends up in his backpack. Now he'll think that Darwin is in love with him!

Scene 4: Gumball suggests that "a sweet and chill partner" like the Giant Ape is a better match than an emo ghost, but Darwin insists that he loves only Ghost Carrie.  He doesn't assume that Darwin's romantic partners can only be girls. 

Whoops, the Giant Ape returns the letter -- during class --- and the teacher forces Darwin to read it aloud.  Now Carrie will know the truth! 

Wait, it's not his letter after all!  It's from the Giant Ape, explaining that he is not romantically interested: "I've tried dating people your size before, and I've been hurt."  Chances are they'll be hurt, too. Giant Apes have giant....you know.

Scene 5: Uh-oh, Carrie thinks that Darwin was trying to cheat on her with the Giant Ape and goes berserk, turning the hallways into a Lovecraftian hellzone, with eyes and tentacles everywhere.  Darwin tries to explain that the Giant Ape was responding to a letter to her, but instead of saying "I love you," he says "Eat my face."

Carrie rushes back into the school, possesses Gumball, and returns to kiss him.  "Thank you for understanding," Carrie/Gumball says.  They hug, and Carrie lets Gumball go.

Gumball is happy that he could help his friend, and imagines being there for him "all day, every day."  Well, maybe not all day, like on his wedding... he retches at the thought of watching Darwin's wedding night.  The end.

Gay Representation: Various allusions to people being pansexual, and no disgust over same-sex acts, but the main romance is between Darwin and Carrie. B+

Left: Another random Greek guy.

The diary and n*de black guys after the break