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

Link to the n*de dudes

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 d*ck in Watchmen (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends), and both have played gay characters, so there's bound to be some representation.  And maybe some d*cks.

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 movie? 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.  Hetero 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.  Hetero identity established immediately.  Simon tells him to shut up, but Old Guy 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 d*cks

  

Link to the n*de photos

I decided to research Julian Hilliard based on this photo on the teen idol site.   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, the one being licked) 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 Westview 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, left) is a struggling drug addict, and the adult Steven (Michael Huisman, d*ck on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends) is a writer whose book about the haunting became a best-seller, alienating his family.  Both are hetero, but their sister Theodora is a lesbian.  So some gay representation in Julian's first major acting gig.

More after the break

Dakota Taylor: Prom kings, soap stars, model, and ghost. Plus Justin Berfield, Justin Kirk, and the problems of searching for Dakota's d*ck pics

Link to the n*de photos

In Ghosts Episode 1.17 (2020), Jay and Samantha, the owners of the heavily-haunted Woodstone Mansion, meet mean girl ghost Stephanie.  In 1987, she and her prom date Tad (Dakota Taylor) were parking on the estate, when a serial killer murdered her. She has unfinished business, so she is stuck there (but only appears once a year, on the anniversary of her death).  We assume that Tad was murdered, too, but went to the afterlife right away.

Until Episode 4.20, when he re-appears as a middle-aged man (played by Justin Kirk, left), using the tragedy in his mayoral campaign: he announces that he bravely tried  to protect Stephanie, but was knocked out.

"Bull hockey!" Stephanie exclaims.  "He ran away like a little coward."

So of course Jay and Sam have to call him out with "I know what you did 37 years ago!"

But some of the other ghosts observed the attack, and corroborate Tad's story.  It turns out that Stephanie just wants to "get even" because Tad started dating her best friend shortly after the murder.  

Dakota Taylor (the teenage Tad) is extremely cute, and a brief internet search revealed this photo of two guys on a date.  He must have played gay  characters.  

Plus there are some very interesting modeling photos (on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends).  Maybe there are d*ck shots out there as well.   

Dakota grew up in Grimsby, Ontario, near Niagara Falls.  He graduated from the Blessed Trinity Catholic School in 2017, and then studied at the Toronto Academy of Acting and York University.  His first on-screen roles came in 2017: a World War I soldier in an  episode of Canada: The Story of Us, and a teenage drug addict in an episode of Teens 101. 

He seems to specialize in proms:

Homekilling Queen (2019): Whitney will stop at nothing to be elected Homecoming Queen. Dakota plays a cute boy that she uses to catfish her chief rival, Natasha.

Fear Street: Prom Queen (2021).  Same plot.  Dakota plays the boyfriend of one of the contenders. Dale Whitby plays another.

N*de photo on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends. 

More after the break. 

The Mickey Mouse Club: Which Mousketeer was the cutest? Which was gay?

When Annette Funicello died on April 8, 2013, the world mourned one of the iconic figures of the Boomer generation.  She was the first crush for many heterosexual boys and gay girls who watched her every week on The Mickey Mouse Club, and later in comedies co-starring Tommy Kirk and Frankie Avalon (left).

The Mickey Mouse Club (1955-59) was the first children's television program that starred real children, "the Mouseketeers."  They wore wore mouse ear-shaped caps and white sweaters emblazoned with their first names, and performed song-and-dance numbers interspliced with Disney cartoons, amateur talent contests, and dramatic serials.

In the early 1980s, the original series was broadcast on the Disney Channel.  My sister watched every day after school, and I saw a few episodes.  Girls outnumbered boys three to one, but if you could find them, the boys were exceptionally cute.  And in the 1950s, singing and dancing were widely labeled "sissy" pursuits, so they were all gay coded.  Turns out that only two were actually gay.

1. Bobby Burgess (born 1941), who was very tall, well-scrubbed, and always smiling. Straight. 

He went on to dance on The Lawrence Welk Show.

2. The short, sandy-haired Lonnie Burr (born 1943) was the intellectual of the group (his website commemorates Annette Funicello's death with the Latin phrase "ave atque vale"). Straight.

He was a poet and playwright as well as an actor.

3. Tommy Cole (born 1941) was hired primarily for his singing ability, though had a handsome face and the hunkiest physique among the Mousketeers (left). Straight.

After MMC, he had a stint in the air force and then became a makeup artist.

4. Cubby O'Brien (born 1946), the kid of the show, became a professional drummer. Straight.

More after the break