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- This article is about Marvel Comics' modern-day character The Vision. For the original 1940s character, see Vision (Golden Age)
The Vision is an Marvel Comics superhero, a longtime member of the Avengers. He first appeared in The Avengers #57 (October 1968).
The Vision is a complex, humanoid android. His penchant for logic over emotion recalls Mr. Spock of the television series Star Trek, another 1960s science fiction creation. Stories about the Vision have explored how legitimately a being of artificial intelligence can feel human emotion, particularly his marriage to teammate Scarlet Witch.
The Vision was created by writer Roy Thomas and artist John Buscema, who based him on the Golden Age character of the same name, an extraterrestrial superhero, created by writer Joe Simon and artist Jack Kirby.
Vision (Avengers, 1968-2004)
Character history
The modern Vision was created by the android Ultron, who intended to use this artificial lifeform against Ultron's creator, Henry Pym (Ant-Man/Giant Man/Goliath/Yellowjacket), and his wife, the Wasp. The Vision's body was created from that of the original Human Torch, while the patterns of his synthetic brain were based on those of the then-deceased Wonder Man, Simon Williams (although it should be noted that the two were not at all alike in personality). It was later revealed that the original Human Torch and the Vision were separate but almost identical robots. The Vision, however, rebelled against his "father" and joined the Avengers, and later became romantically involved with his teammate the Scarlet Witch, Wanda Maximoff. The synthetic man and the mutant eventually married, and appeared to have somehow borne twin children, assumedly via the Witch's mutant powers; however, this turned out not to be the case (see two paragraphs below).Rogue agents of the United States government, manipulated by the time traveler Immortus, abducted the Vision and dismantled him. Once his remains were recovered by the Avengers, Hank Pym rebuilt him as best he could. However, Simon Williams would not allow his brain patterns to be used to provide a matrix for Vision's emotions again, as he felt like the original process had "ripped out his soul". Although his love for Wanda led him to feel incredible guilt, he attempted to justify his actions by falsely claiming that the Vision was never anything more than a copy of him, a claim which a number of other Avengers, including the Wasp, seem to have believed. This, along with damage to the Vision's synthetic skin when dismantled, resulted in his resurrection into a colorless, emotionless form.
Meanwhile, the original Human Torch returned from apparent death, casting doubt on the Vision's identity (it was later revealed that the Vision was created from a copy of the original Torch's body that had been created by Immortus; however, other stories, such as the ones in What If #4 and a Human Torch mini-series written by Roy Thomas, suggest that the Vision was made from a different, red-skinned, android that had also been created by the Torch's orginal inventor, Phineas Horton; this second android was named Adam-II). The Vision and Scarlet Witch's children were then revealed to not be actual children at all: they were fragments of the soul of the demon Mephisto, who had been broken apart by Franklin Richards shortly before the birth of the "twins". The twins were absorbed back into Mephisto, temporarily driving the Witch insane. Although she recovered, she and the Vision were separated, each operating on a different Avengers team. Despite some claims to the contrary, they did remain married.
The Vision gradually regained more of his emotions, sped by adopting new brain patterns from the deceased scientist Alex Lipton, and gained a new body that resembled his original one rather than the colorless form he had been rebuilt with. In addition, the Simon Williams brain patterns gradually reemerged and melded with the Lipton patterns, restoring him to full emotion once more (first Vision miniseries). While recovering from a crippling injury, he gave up on an attempt to reconcile with his wife, yet remained a member of the Avengers, becoming briefly romantically involved with teammates Carol Danvers (Warbird), then Mantis, before moving toward another attempt at reconciliation with the Scarlet Witch.
Recently, grief over the loss of the twins again drove the Scarlet Witch insane. She tried to rewrite reality to recreate them, causing a series of threats and incidents to inexplicably occur one after the other. "No longer in control of the organisms that up [his body structure," the Vision crashed an Avengers Quinjet into the Avengers Mansion. Walking out from the rubble, he apologized to the other Avengers, telling them how he was no longer in control of his body, before melting and expelling several spheres from his mouth. The spheres grew into five Ultrons, which fought and were destroyed by the assembled Avengers. During the fight with the Ultrons, the She Hulk became enraged and tore apart the remains of the Vision. If he wasn't already dead beforehand, he was now.
The Avengers later believed that Ultron could have put a command in the Vision that would have been activated by the Avengers White Code alert. Whether Wanda's magicks had been responsible for what happened, or it was truly Ultron's command that had been activated after one of the previous incidents caused the White Code alert, is unknown.
When the Avengers later confronted Wanda, she had created an illusion where she was having dinner with the Vision and their children. Later, when Professor X was able to partially restore her sanity, she collapsed on the floor sobbing that she had killed her husband, clearly showing that the attack was not intentional.
Powers and abilities
The "synthezoid" Vision possessed the ability to manipulate his density; he could become completely intangible or as hard as diamond. While his density was lowered, he could fly, and while it was increased, he possessed vast superhuman strength and durability, with a lift capacity of 100 tons and a maximum weight of 90 tons at maximum density. The Vision could only achieve this maximum level of strength at his maximum density, albeit at the cost of his agility and speed. At normal weight, The Vision could lift 50 tons. He could fire solar-powered energy beams from the gem on his forehead or his eyes. His body was capable of self-repair, although repairing massive injuries would leave him temporarily infirm. He was capable of rapid analysis of data, and he could access and communicate with other computer systems. He also has superhuman intelligence.Even as an artificial lifeform, Vision's mind has been shown to be "close enough" to human to be affected by telepathy.
Appearances in other media
The Vision was a playable character in the 1991 arcade game, Captain America and the Avengers, developed by Data East.The Vision made several cameos in the mid-90s Fantastic Four syndicated animated series, alongside several other Avengers.
The Vision was also one of several secondary Avengers to star in Fox Kids' short-lived Avengers animated series. His origin was modified slightly for television: Still a creation of Ultron sent to destroy the Avengers, this Vision was respondible for "killing" Wonder Man, and thus his engrams were transferred to the Vision following this attack.
The series ran for thirteen episodes during the 1999-2000 season. The Vision was voiced by Ron Ruben.
Bibliography
- "The Avengers" (Vol. 1) #57 (Oct. 1968)
- The Vision and the Scarlet Witch (Vol. 1) #1-4
- The Vision and the Scarlet Witch (Vol. 2) #1-12
- The Vision (Vol. 1) #1-4
- The Vision (Vol. 2) #1-4; also called Avengers Icons: The Vision
Vision II (Young Avengers, 2005-)
After the Vision's destruction in Avengers Disassembled, a new Vision based upon him was introduced in Young Avengers by Allan Heinberg and Jim Cheung. This Vision is based on his predecessor's "operating system", but has none of the life experience of the former Vision. Consequently, the Vision has all of the physical and emotional potential of his "father," but where his mind was based on Wonder Man's brain patterns, the new one is based on Iron Lad's.
Character biography
Iron Lad, a teenage version of Kang the Conqueror landed in the "present" several months after the Vision's destruction. After being ignored by Captain America and Iron Man, he found the Vision's mangled remains and downloaded his operating system into his armor. He was able to use plans the Vision had created in case the Avengers fell to assemble a new team of "Young Avengers." Once Iron Lad was forced to remove his armor to stop Kang the Conqueror from tracking him, the Vision's operating system caused the armor to become a sentient being for the first time - just in time to save the Young Avengers and buy them some time. Kang was able to use his intimate knowledge of the armor to shut it, along with the Vision, down relatively quickly, before donning the armor.When Iron Lad was forced to leave the time period, he left the armor behind with the Vision's operating system activated. Upon Iron Man's examination, it was determined that the new Vision was not the Vision they had known but merely based upon his operating system, and had been sentient for only a very short time.
This Vision is found to be superior to his "father,", due to his abilities, but is unable to join the reformed Avengers, as they're concerned that he is still being controlled by Kang the Conqueror. Recently, he used the failsafe program to find another Young Avenger, Thomas Shepherd. The Vision has become something of a leader, due to his brain patterns being based on Iron Lad's. Also, the Vision has changed his appearance from his Iron Lad-like look to that of the original Vision to comfort Iron Lad's former crush, Cassie Lang, the Young Avenger known as Stature and daughter of Ant-Man II Scott Lang.
Powers and abilities
It appears that the new Vision, by default uses the armor to recreate the former Vision's powers, although the armor itself has additional capabilities, including time-travel. It is unknown exactly how the new Vision's body works or what the Vision can do with it. So far, he has displayed abilities including an approximation of the original Vision's density control, energy blasts in place of the first Vision 's microwave beams, minor shapeshifting similar to Iron Lad's to alter his default appearance, and holographic projections to display information and create disguises.Ultimate Vision
There have been two Vision robots that exist in the Ultimate Marvel Universe.
In Ultimate Nightmare, members of the Ultimates and the Ultimate X-Men discovered a damaged, sentient robot, who stated that the closest English translation to its name was "Vision". The robot said it had come to Earth 100 years ago to warn them of a threat, but its ship malfunctioned, causing it to crash-land on Earth, in Russia. Under the auspices of the former Soviet Union, the Vision was partially disassembled by government scientists; that, plus damage done in the crash, had kept the robot immobile. It warns that Gah Lak Tus, Eater of Worlds (clearly an analogy of the original Marvel character Galactus) is headed for Earth.
In a six-page-per-installment back-up story running in several Ultimate series, the first Ultimate Vision reappears, in United States government custody and under repair. Those repairs enable the Vision to activate its own self-repair systems and restore itself fully, revealing a true form that is, from a human perspective, decidedly female. It then proceeds to use its restored abilities to show holographic records of its travels as it warned planets of Gah Lak Tus' approach, only to see each planet in turn fail in its own defense and fall to the Eater of Worlds. The story ends with ninety-six hours remaining until Gah Lak Tus arrives, leading directly into the Ultimate Extinction series. Vision has downloaded a complete record of Earth and is repairing its ship so it may move on to the next system in the path of Gah Lak Tus. In Ultimate Extinction #4, the Vision is convinced by Jean Grey to help with a plan Jean has formulated to repel Gah Lak Tus, roughly a day before the Eater of Worlds is expected to reach Earth orbit.
Gah Lak Tus was driven away from the Earth after it was overloaded with human thoughts and 20% of its mass was destroyed with the Ultimates version of the Ultimate Nullifier - a cannon that fired the energy from an alternate universe's Big Bang. Gah Lak Tus quickly left the solar system in search of weaker prey. The Ultimates decided to upload the Ultimate Vision robot with the plans for the cannon and dispatch it to other worlds, enabling them to defend themselves should Gah Lak Tus threaten again.
Later, former Ultimates member Hank Pym created another robot, called the Vision II. It is shown as being identical to a robot named Ultron that Hank Pym had been working on, and is presumably just a copy bearing a different name for ease of identification.
The Vision series ran in the following comic books:
- Ultimate Spider-Man #86 (released November 16, 2005)
- Ultimate X-Men #65 (released November 23, 2005)
- Ultimate Fantastic Four #25 (released November 30, 2005)
- Ultimate Spider-Man #87 (released December 7, 2005)
- Ultimate Spider-Man #88 (released December 21, 2005)
- Ultimate Fantastic Four #26 (released December 28, 2005)
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"Vision (comics)"