The Vision (2015) #1-6

The Vision #1-6

Originally released in 2015

Written by Tom King

Art by Gabriel Hernandez Walta

This is a re-read for me, but I thought that Tom King's Vision series made for a good thematic counterpart to Alan Moore's Swamp Thing.  Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing has the titular character learning to separate himself from humanity with seemingly mixed success, while Tom King's Vision run has the titular character trying to become more human-like with tragic results.

Technically, the bit about tragic results isn't a spoiler, as the narration includes glimpses and hints of the tragedy to come.  An atmosphere of dread lingers over Washington D.C. as people are subtly and not-so-subtly bigoted against the Vision and his family.

One particularly racist individual is the supervillain Grim Reaper, who shows up at the Vision's house while the Vision is away on Avengers business.  The Vision's mind is based on the brain patterns of Grim Reaper's brother Wonder Man, and the Reaper is ranting and raving about how they're not really his family, critically wounding the Vision's daughter Viv in the process.

The Vision's wife Virginia retaliates, killing Grim Reaper before coming to her senses, but the damage is done.  In the first signs of cracks forming in their perfect family facade, Virginia lies to her husband, claiming that she scared Grim Reaper off.

This impulsive act to defend her family causes a domino effect - Virginia thought that only herself and her son Vin knew what happened to Grim Reaper, but one of her neighbours caught her burying Reaper on video and uses it to blackmail her.

The book isn't all doom and gloom - there's some humour to be had from the Vision treating his work with the Avengers like an ordinary day at the office - but the tone of the series is overwhelmingly ominous, with King doing an amazing job with building up the tension.

A large part of this is due to the narration, which scatters in details about the horrors to come along with the present events of the Vision's family.  Who's been narrating everything?  It's been Agatha all along!

Agatha Harkness, the Scarlet Witch's mentor, ate the petal of a plant from Mount Wundagore, which allows her to see the future.  She appears to have died (she's done it before and gotten better), but she's given the heroes of Marvel's Earth a very clear warning - if the Vision continues with his family experiment, he will kill them all. (though he's been pretty clear that if they let any of his family die, he'll react in a similar way)

Things escalate, to say the least, when the father of one of Viv's classmates reveals himself to be Virginia's blackmailer, telling her that he'll release the video online if she doesn't take her family and leave town.  When she refuses to leave, he pulls a gun on her, fires, and fatally shoots his own son when the bullets harmlessly pass through Virginia - naturally, he doesn't view this as being his own fault in the slightest, blaming Virginia for all of this.

He's left hospitalized, but the son's death leaves Viv depressed.  Vin isn't faring much better - ever since Viv was attacked by the Grim Reaper, he's been lashing out at school, and his English class reading the Merchant of Venice seems to have really impacted him.

When the police investigate the death of Viv's classmate and question Vision, he unknowingly draws himself deeper into this web of lies by telling a lie of his own.

A neighbour's dog gets loose, digging up the Reaper's body (and receiving a deadly electric shock in the process) and forcing Virginia to reveal the lies.  Vision agrees with her logic in order to keep his family safe, and making the most of the situation, he repurposes the brain of the neighbour's dog for his family's synthezoid pet.

Meet Sparky!  He will have killed five people and maimed two more by the time that the series is done.  I'm just kidding.  Or am I?

The addition of a dog seems to the Vision's family seems to have brightened their mood, as the Vision makes it clear that he'll go to any lengths to keep them safe, hiding whatever he needs to hide in the process, whether it's signs of trouble or corpses.  It's a chilling way to mark the midway point of this series, and it reminds me of why I thought this series was so great in my first read-through.