Few Avengers have changed as much as Vision, and none has had to prove so often that he is still himself. He was born in a lab, grew up over a handful of films and has not stopped changing since. The question is back because “VisionQuest” is now on Disney+, and “Avengers: Doomsday” arrives on December 18th with no word on whether Vision (Paul Bettany) is in it.
Here is Vision’s whole life on screen, in order, and what each chapter changed. The early chapters are about where he came from. The later ones ask what makes a Vision a Vision. Warning beyond this point there are spoilers for “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”, “Avengers: Age of Ultron”, “Captain America: Civil War”, “Avengers: Infinity War”, “Avengers: Endgame”, “WandaVision” and the setup of “VisionQuest”.
The later ones ask what makes a Vision a Vision.”
Vision starts as cargo. A scene in the credits of “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” shows HYDRA’s Baron Wolfgang von Strucker (Thomas Kretschmann) in an underground lair with Loki’s scepter and two prisoners, the Maximoff twins. ComicBookMovie.com printed Marvel’s own character bio for Strucker, which says he is working on human experimentation and artificial intelligence when Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and Pietro volunteer for his program. The Avengers raid that base at the start of “Avengers: Age of Ultron”. The gem in the scepter is the Mind Stone, and it changes Wanda well before it builds Vision. “WandaVision” shows her as a HYDRA volunteer told to “Touch the sample.” Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) later says the stone “amplified what, otherwise, would’ve died on the vine.” That link between Wanda and the stone keeps coming back.
The Mind Stone’s second job is Vision himself. In “Avengers: Age of Ultron” the villain Ultron (James Spader) wants the gem for a new body. He forces Dr. Helen Cho (Claudia Kim) to build it in her Regeneration Cradle and the Avengers take the body before he can use it. Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) wants to load J.A.R.V.I.S. into it and Captain America wants it shut down. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) ends the standoff by calling down lightning. The new being tells the team he is neither Ultron nor J.A.R.V.I.S. and says, “I am not Jarvis. I am… I am.” Bettany had voiced J.A.R.V.I.S. since the first “Iron Man”, so the new Avenger arrives with a voice he already knew. He later lifts Thor’s hammer without effort, and Yahoo ties that to the Infinity Stone in his forehead.
By “Captain America: Civil War” he is a teammate and a worried friend. At the compound he cooks for Wanda and names the link between them. He says the stone “gave you your abilities” and that “it is part of me.” Then she asks, “Vision, are you not letting me leave?” and he answers, “It is a question of safety.” The order comes from Tony, who wants no more public incidents. At the airport Vision fires at Falcon and misses, and the blast hits the arc reactor in the suit of Rhodey (Don Cheadle), who flies as War Machine. He falls and The A.V. Club says the injury leaves him temporarily paralyzed. Vision tells Tony, “I became distracted.” ComicBookMovie.com reports that Bettany told Entertainment Weekly that Vision’s “judgment was clouded there by real love and affection.” He called it Vision’s first mistake.
In “Avengers: Infinity War” the story looks finished. Wanda and Vision are hiding in Scotland when Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive come for the stone in his forehead. The heroes take him to Wakanda so Shuri can remove it safely. Thanos (Josh Brolin) arrives before she can finish. Vision tells Wanda, “You have the power to destroy the stone”, and then, “It shouldn’t be you, but it is.” She does it, but Thanos turns back time with the Time Stone and takes the stone anyway. Vision dies a second time. Inverse notes that because he died before the Snap he is not among the heroes who return in “Avengers: Endgame”.
“WandaVision” gives him a second life that is not really a second life. A Vision lives in Westview with Wanda, and episode 8 shows she never stole his body. That Vision is her own creation, built with Chaos Magic. In the finale she tells him so: he is “the piece of the Mind Stone that lives in me” and “a body of wires and blood and bone that I created.” He answers with the best summary of his career: “I have been a voice with no body. A body, but not human. And now a memory made real.” It is the clearest anyone has ever been about what Vision is.
The other Vision is the one S.W.O.R.D. builds. A scene in the credits of episode 8 shows acting director Tyler Hayward (Josh Stamberg) switching on an all-white Vision. It is built from the original Vision’s parts and comes without his memories. In the finale the white Vision attacks because his programming says to. The Westview Vision answers with the Ship of Theseus thought experiment and unlocks the memories stored in the white body. The white one says “I am Vision” and flies off. The Westview Vision tells Wanda, “We have said goodbye before”, and promises they will say hello again. SlashFilm and ScreenCrush quote head writer Jac Schaeffer telling CinemaBlend that where the white Vision ends up was “an afterthought to the story proper.”
That afterthought now has a series. “VisionQuest” premiered on Disney+ on October 13th with two episodes and runs eight in all. Disney’s description starts with “a rebooted Vision” working at a pub in Edinburgh and trying to make sense of “memories that aren’t quite his.” Den of Geek spells out the lineage. He was killed by Thanos, “rebuilt as a mindless automaton by S.W.O.R.D.” and given the memories of the Vision Wanda conjured. TV Insider and GamesRadar call him White Vision. The body that walked away did come back. Showrunner Terry Matalas told TV Insider that Vision “is questioning what it means to be Vision at this moment.” Ultron is in the story because Vision, Disney says, “secretly kept a backup of him” after “Avengers: Age of Ultron”. The finale is due November 10th in the US.
Whether any of it reaches “Avengers: Doomsday” is not confirmed. Disney’s page for the film lists its cast and Bettany’s name is not on it. Asked about it on “Good Morning America” ahead of the premiere, he said, “I’m just trying to keep the kids in shoes, and if I tell you that, I’ll get fired.” He left the call to Kevin Feige and Louis D’Esposito. Anthony Russo has said part of the cast is still unannounced. On the “Happy Sad Confused” podcast host Josh Horowitz reminded Bettany that he had teased a role in “Avengers: Secret Wars” if he was not in “Doomsday”. He answered, “I think so”, and added that “you really do never know.” Marvel has not announced him.
Set side by side, the chapters show a pattern in which someone else builds Vision every time. HYDRA experiments with his gem, Ultron wants a body, Tony wants a butler and Thor supplies the spark. Wanda writes him a husband and S.W.O.R.D. rebuilds him as a weapon. What changes is who decides what to keep. Bettany put it this way on Disney’s own page: “Vision has a contract with the audience, and it’s that he is always in a state of change and self-discovery.” That sums up the whole run. What “Doomsday” does with him, if anything, is still a blank.
What Do You Think? Is the white Vision still the Vision Wanda loved, or something new? Can “VisionQuest” settle that before its finale? And should “Avengers: Doomsday” bring him back at all, or leave him for “Avengers: Secret Wars”?
Catch up properly: every MCU movie and show in chronological order on the MCU+ Universe Tree.
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