A World in His Head

I’ve been thinking of the first two episodes of VisionQuest for a little while now. They premiered last week, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about them or what I wanted to say. It’s not a question of the cast, who are all great. They take the material Marvel has given them and they do their best to sell it for all its worth. The issue, I think, stems from a pretty simple conundrum: did we really need this Vision-based series?

The reason this show exists is simple enough: Vision, despite dying at the end of Avengers: Infinity War, is brought back in two forms in WandaVision. One version of his is a magical illusion cast by Wanda when she takes over a small town and remakes it into her own sitcom-based paradise. She has her husband back, they have two kids, and there is bliss for them… so long as the illusion is never broken. Meanwhile, SWORD (the successor to SHIELD) reclaimed Vision’s actual body and found a way to rebuild and activate it without the Mind Stone. The two Visions meet within Wanda’s illusion, and Magical Vision gives Body Vision all their memories back. Then the physical version flies off, never to be seen again.

That is until VisionQuest, the new series focusing on that new, white, physical vision. But the fact is that I don’t think people were really hankering for more Vision (certainly I wasn’t). He was an okay character, but he only appeared in three films – Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War, and Avengers: Infinity War – and I doubt most people were really attached to him. His resurrection feels like a footnote to the universe, a thing SWORD did simply because they could, but not necessarily out of any great necessity to have the character back. And yet he existed, so Marvel apparently felt like they had to do something with him (no one tell the Eternals).

That kind of half-hearted shrug of, “well, I guess we have this character,” is a real vibe in the episodes we get. Vision (still played by Paul Bettany) exists here in a weird state, as he mentions, where he has the memories of his former version’s life but none of the emotions that go along with them. He’s a body that exists to fill space, a character that used to be something but now is kind of nothing. And he’s forced into a position to act as the lead of a show when he still hasn’t even figured out who or what he’s supposed to be. It certainly opens up a character arc for the character, but it doesn’t really feel like a necessary one.

But then, just about every cast member in this show is a resurrected form of a previous character, which makes the whole endeavor reel like a zombie title (except not in the Marvel Zombies way). To help him figure out what it means to be human, and to have people he can confide in and discuss his thoughts, Vision brings back all the A.I. models Tony Stark previously created: James D'Arcy as J.A.R.V.I.S., Orla Brady as F.R.I.D.A.Y., Emily Hampshire as E.D.I.T.H., Henry Lewis and Jonathan Sayer as D.U.M.-E. and U., and, most importantly, James Spader as Ultron. And it’s Ultron that actually gives this series the life it needs.

I’ll be honest, I struggled with the plot of these first two episodes. Vision is trying to find himself, which is an interesting endeavor, but it feels less vital when most of his existence (and most of the story) takes place within his head when he’s talking to himself (via the other A.I. models that are installed in his head, functionally giving him split personalities). He wants to figure out who he is, but he can’t just go out into the world and try to be a person, in part because this is a superhero show and the Marvel Cinematic UniverseWhen it first began in 2008 with a little film called Iron Man no one suspected the empire that would follow. Superhero movies in the past, especially those not featuring either Batman or Superman, were usually terrible. And yet, Iron Man would lead to a long series of successful films, launching the most successful cinema brand in history: the Marvel Cinematic Universe. demands action beats every few minutes. Thus, Paladin (Todd Stashwick) is dropped into the series.

Legitimately I think Paladin is part of the problem. We don’t have great attachment to Vision, in part because this isn’t the Vision we know. But we also don’t have attachment to Paladin because he’s this random villain that’s brought into the story simply for the sake of the story needing a villain. Vision has never met him before, Paladin isn’t a villain that we’ve seen in any MCU work before this. He’s just a guy, a bounty hunter hired to get Vision, and that’s it. His inclusion (just like his purpose) is very mercenary.

I would say that the series needs a villain that Vision actually knows, someone attached to his past, but Vision doesn’t actually have any of those. He’s only appeared in four works before this, and in one of those (WandaVision) it wasn’t even really him. There isn’t enough history for someone out of Vision’s past to come back and haunt him, so the series has to invent a new guy to act as Vision’s foil, the Paladin to charge in just to get the plot moving. It’s a means to an end, and that’s plainly obvious.

The real villain, I suspect, is actually Ultron, but so far he’s not cast in a villainous role and, in fact, he’s the one thing actually bringing life to the series. When James Spader was cast as the titular villain in Avengers: Age of Ultron, it felt like a real waste. Spader is a phenomenal actor, and he can delightfully slither his way through just about any performance, letting his natural, vile charisma carry the day. But Ultron is a construct made entirely in CGI, so Spader was little more than a voice for the character and it didn’t really feel like it did justice to the actor.

Getting to see him here, playing a human version (in Vision’s mind) of the villain is great. Now we get to see Spader enjoy himself while he plays the heavy, and it’s clear this is the kind of role Spader was hoping for in the MCU all along. He’s smarmy and swarthy and he gets to needle all the other characters while acting erudite at the same time. The script gives Spader all he needs to work with, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he wandered onto set and started riffing so he could truly make this version of Ultron his own.

Certainly Ultron is far more interesting than Paladin, and his story is much more engaging than whatever Vision is up to. Vision has to go out and save his supposed son, Thomas Shepherd (Ruaridh Mollica), who has been taken over by the magical soul of his illusionary son Tommy Maximoff, as Paladin has the kid. And this is the plotting that ties this show from WandaVision through Agatha All Along to make this a “trilogy” (conveniently ignoring Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness… as you should). It’s, again, a plot thread that was raised elsewhere that, I guess, we have to resolve, but it’s not like anyone really cared. Vision was dead. Wanda is dead (probably). These are all vestigial characters in vestigial storylines that, at least in these first two episodes, haven’t done enough to justify their continued existence. It feels like they’re all going through the motions simply because Marvel had these action figures still sitting out on the floor so what else were they going to do?

There are still six more episodes of VisionQuest to go, and I really do hope the series is able to find the heart and spirit to power it. This is a series that is struggling to justify its own existence, despite the creativity that has gone into building its own world. Hopefully it finds its footing before the eight episodes wrap up. Right now, I have my doubts if that’s possible.