Thanks to the recent negative news concerning Marvel’s Black-led projects like “Wonder Man” and “Blade,” its Black fanbase is calling out the iconic cinematic universe for its alleged maltreatment of the shows and others like them. And if we’re honest, they’ve got more than enough reasons to. Let’s break it down!
Over the weekend, it was revealed that the former show had been officially canceled, despite previous news of an impending second season and even though lead actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II had recently received an Emmy nomination for his role. This news felt like yet another blow to both fans of the show and Black Marvel lovers who’d grown tired of seeing yet another melanated show get taken off the docket.
To make matters worse, one of the showrunners for “Wonder Man” later took to TikTok to express that “contracts were signed, schedules were cleared,” and the writer’s room was set to begin this month for the second season, so the decision came out of left field for them, too.
Related: Amid Aaron Pierre’s Exit, What’s Going on with ‘Blade?’
However, if we were to really take a step back and look at how Marvel’s other Black-centric shows or movies have been handled, we probably should’ve seen this cancellation coming. Take, for example, how long the studio dangled a remake of “Blade,” starring Mahershala Ali, in our faces before they ultimately scrapped it altogether. While Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige recently admitted to feeling like a “gigantic loser and failure” for not getting things off the ground, Ali’s recent words paint a different picture and speak to the frustrations many of us felt.
“No offense to them. I’ve been doing this professionally for pushing 30 years now, and one thing I’ve learned is that what is for you is for you and what is not is not,” Ali told GQ in a new interview. “For whatever reason, that project is not for me. If they wanted to do it, we would’ve done it. So I have to move on, and I have moved on.”
Both “Wonder Man” and “Blade” join a long list of Black-led shows that will never see the light of day. Sadly, that list also includes shows like “Armor Wars” starring Don Cheadle, the untitled series revolving around Danai Gurira’s “Black Panther” character Okoye, the animated show “Moon Girl & Devil Dinosaur,” “Luke Cage,” and more.
There’s also the alleged sidelining some fans feel has happened to Teyonah Parris’ Monica Rambeau from “Captain Marvel” and Anthony Mackie’s Captain America now that the promo for the upcoming “Avengers: Doomsday” appears to show the old (white) Captain coming back. And there’s the silence surrounding a potential second season of “Ironheart,” which was released as a limited series in June 2025, and the discontinuation of the Samuel L. Jackson-led series, “Secret Invasion.”
Taking all of this into consideration, it’s no wonder why Black folks were quick to hop online to express their anger and disappointment.
“Marvel don’t care about niggas!” wrote one user on X/Twitter.
“The way marvel studios treats its black characters pisses me off to no end,” said another.
One other person wrote, “Marvel needs a complete overhaul when it comes to the current treatment with black heroes.”
Added another: “So they hoeing every single Black marvel character… Blade in limbo, Mackie is not given the true respect he needs as cpt America, Ironheart didn’t get renewed and now Wonderman gets cancelled after it was renewed.”
