The Vision

Comic Info

The Vision #9

Reprinting The Vision #1-12 (January 2016-December 2016).  The Vision has decided to become a family man.  In a suburb of Washington, D.C., Vision has built the perfect spouse in Virginia and children in Vin and Viv.  Everything is programmed to perfection.  When Vision’s frequent nemesis the Grim Reaper attacks Virginia, Viv, and Vin, Vision’s perfect programming begins to break down…and a nightmare begins!

Written by Tom King, The Vision is a twelve issue series published by Marvel Comics.  The series won the Eisner Award for Best Limited Series.  Featuring art by Gabriel Hernandez Walta (with The Vision #7 featuring art by Michael Walsh), the issues were originally collected in two volumes The Vision Volume 1:  Little Worse than a Man (The Vision #1-6) and The Vision Volume 2:  Little Better than a Beast (The Vision #7-12).  The deluxe edition features scripting, sample art, letter pages, and page breakdowns.

The Vision is one of my favorite Avengers.  I started reading comics during the “Vision goes crazy” period of the Avengers so all the issues were very Vision-centric.  I felt the character got a bit sidelined after his relationship with the Scarlet Witch broke down (including his mindwipe etc.), but this feels like the closest match to the Vision’s younger days.

What is nice about this volume is that there is a sense of history to it while still being “modern”.  Often the current events of comics seem to write off the past because they are too complicated or not enough readers know them.  Here, the past is a big part of the storyline.  This makes sense since the Vision is essentially a big computer.  His past and present are inseparable and despite a long storied history, it isn’t necessarily linear for him as much as instantaneous (despite his attempts to “live human”).

The Vision #12

King does all this in the modern comic framework.  I haven’t been able to read much of the Avengers in a while with poor writing and big events that mess up the flow of the comics.  I had read a lot of the stories mentioned in The Vision, but I felt you didn’t really need to read them (like Avengers A.I.) to understand what was going on.  The Vision has always been about family and the story really brings family together (I especially like the Vision’s other “brother” Simon Williams’ cameo as Omega the Unknown).

The story is married with great art by Gabriel Hernandez Walta.  Each issue features a great covers by Walta (issues #5-6 feature cover art by Marco D’Alfonso which is still good), but the interior art is also solid.  The Vision always was rather garish in appearance, but the comic’s design features a more muted color for the Vision and his family which also works a bit better for the whole comic’s design.

The Vision was one of those comics that you savor every issue.  It was hard to finish because you didn’t want it to end (it actually is a very quick read).  Marvel also was running a Scarlet Witch series at the same time as Vision which wasn’t bad, but didn’t meet the levels of The Vision.  I would be interested however to see a new The Vision and the Scarlet Witch series with King helming it…a continuation of the story as the Vision continues his quest for humanity.