Biography - page 6
Back from space, Wonder Man discovered the Nega-Bomb radiation had destabilized the ionic flux that comprised his body, causing a number of harrowing side effects. First, his ionic instability made his energies erupt uncontrollably at varying intervals. One eruption happened in the 
presence of his entire supporting cast various friends and neighbors, including Alex, Ginger and Spider. Although they seemed unaffected at first, a Cambodian monk he and Alex were visiting for screenplay background was transformed by an ionic eruption into Angkor, a vengeful, ionically-powered berserker. Simon's own mind and body also became unstable due to his ionic flux. He experienced manic-depressive emotional extremes, bouncing from myopic and uncontrollable rage to crippling doubt and self-loathing. His power levels began varying in direct proportion to his emotional shifts, boosting his strength when enraged or acting with certainty, but losing his powers altogether when he started to doubt his motives or actions. [Wonder Man Annual #1, Wonder Man (1st series) #10-12]
The ionic instability cut Simon deeply, reaching to the core of his self-image problems. Ever since he returned from the dead, Simon had struggled with the thought that he wasn't truly human anymore. Was he really Simon Williams, fallen engineer and industrialist, or just a cloud of ionic 
flux that thought it was Simon Williams? His career as an actor had primarily been in response to these feelings, with Simon hoping he could prove he was human by acting human and getting others to believe it. His new emotional instability and a conflict with his Infinity War doppelganger shattered these beliefs, however, leaving Wonder Man maudlin and convinced of his own inhumanity. Now fueled by rage and dwelling on how the first Baron Zemo conceived him as little more than a weapon against the Avengers, Wonder Man began seeing himself as a "living engine of destruction." [Wonder Man (1st series) #13-15]
In his unstable state, Wonder Man met violence with greater violence, lashing out at the gang wars that were rising in Los Angeles at the time. His response was brutal and even fatal to one of the gunmen, Freddie Munson, [Wonder Man (1st series) #16] although it was later established the thug died of a pre-existing heart condition when Wonder Man repeatedly pummeled the ground next to the man's head. [Avengers Two: Wonder Man & the Beast #2]
This prompted Avengers West to challenge Simon's actions. Following his violent urges, Wonder Man lashed out at the Avengers as well, even coming close to killing Wanda in his rage. Despite 
his involvement in the gang violence, Simon was unaware that the gang warfare was part of a larger scheme by Lotus Newmark to prompt greater demand for her Armed Response private security forces. Unsure of Wonder Man's intentions, Lotus arranged through her contacts to get Simon the lead role (being filmed out of town) in Shakespeare's MacBeth, the serious acting job he had been waiting for ever since reaching Hollywood. On the outs with the Avengers and seeing Alex, Spider and his friends beginning to manifest ionic transformations of their own after his energy flare, Simon decided there was nothing left for him in Los Angeles and he took the role, openly and admittedly running away from his problems. [Wonder Man (1st series) #17-18]
In his absence, Simon's ionic super-friends decided to play at being heroes themselves, forming the Crazy Eight in an effort to reveal Armed Response's true motives. They successfully hurt the 
group's image in the media with an incriminating video tape, but that only provoked Lotus to send her assassins Splice and Rampage after the Eight. Alex was seriously injured by Splice, and her daughter Jamie used her "dreaming" power to call Simon for help, bringing him back from the Sierras. The angry, uncompromising Wonder Man was more than Splice, Rampage and Armed Response combined could deal with and he beat his adversaries handily before getting Alex to the hospital. [Wonder Man (1st series) #19-21]
This led into a hallucinatory scenario where Wonder Man and Grim Reaper were used as pawns in a war between Mephisto and Blackheart for possession of Hell, with the soul of Alex Flores and Simon's humanity held in the balance. However, these events were interwoven with blatant lies and falsehoods throughout, such as Mephisto posing as a restored original Masters of Evil, claiming responsibility for Lotus Newmark's schemes. The demon also attempted to convince Simon and Eric with faked memories that their parents died together in a fire accidentally set by 
Eric when the boys were still children, when in fact Martha Williams was still alive in the present day. As a result, it's difficult to say if other events from those days (such as Simon and Wanda spending the night together, revelations about Martha Williams' oppressive love in Simon's childhood and Eric sacrificing himself for Simon) actually happened. The end results were clear, however -- Simon embraced his humanity again, his role as a hero, and stabilized his powers along with a newfound gift of flight. [Wonder Man (1st series) #22-25]
Intending to put his "savage" days behind him, Wonder Man accepted the everlasting nature of his ionic makeup, representing himself as the immortal guardian of humanity. He still had a great deal of bad press to live down to after his Los Angeles rampages, however, and ultimately lost the MacBeth role after a battle led to him being considered an insurance risk. Meanwhile, Ginger's thrill-seeking behavior led child services to remove Spider from her custody and place him with self-promoting foster parents who intended to leech off his connections. Alex was forced to accept a two million dollar contract on a screenplay focusing on Wonder Man's "savage era" in order to support her and Jamie, but Simon was understanding and even moved their relationship forward by asking Alex to marry him. They intended to petition the courts in order to get Spider placed in their care. [Wonder Man (1st series) #26-29]
All the public relations in the world, though, could not wipe the stain of Galactic Storm from Simon's conscience. Part of Wonder Man's image revival included mending fences with the Avengers West. However, he arrived at Avengers Compound shortly after the East Coast team all but unilaterally shut down their California franchise, leading the entire active roster of “Whackos” to quit the Avengers in protest. [Avengers West Coast #102]
Simon was found by Iron Man, and was the first enthusiastic member to sign up for Stark's new pro-active and independent team, Force Works. Mere hours after Force Works was formed, Wonder Man and Vision were cleaning out Avengers Compound as part of Avengers West's dissolution when they were targeted by the renegade Kree Starstealth unit for their responsibility in the Supreme Intelligence's demise. The Kree blasted Simon with an ionic cannon, fired down from their orbital starship, destabilizing his ionic matrix. Wonder Man broke his way into the ship to disable the cannon, but an independent invasion from a race known as the Scatter struck Earth at that moment, damaging the Starstealth ship and sending the ionic cannon into overload. To prevent ionic fallout from devastating the Earth, Wonder Man flew the malfunctioning cannon deeper into space where it exploded. The ionic flux utterly destroyed Wonder Man's ionic-powered body beyond his ability to reconstitute himself, and Simon was killed as his ionic mass was scattered throughout the upper atmosphere. [Force Works #1] The skies over California were tinted red for days after his death, as Simon's ionic energy dispersed. [Tales of the Marvel: The Wonder Years #1-2]