MCU Know?
A paranoid android and his old sparring partner are back for more MCU business as usual. The software could use an upgrade
Previously on the MCU:
So there’s this guy named Vision, see, a synthezoid created by Ultron — AI experiment turned genocidal megalomaniac, long story — who gets activated by the Avengers. He eventually kills his robot dad, Oedipus-style, and joins the team. Because he’s powered by something called a “Mind Stone” — one of several Infinity Gems which, when placed in a gauntlet, can engineer mass murder, even longer story — Vision becomes a casualty himself. But! His special lady friend Wanda Maximoff, a.k.a. the Scarlet Witch, resurrected him as part of an extended, grief-fueled hex. Things got complicated. When last we saw him, he was fighting with a kinda-sorta version of himself dubbed “White Vision” — think Vision, but y’know, white — and then his memories were loaded into White Vision, and that dude flew away, and [passes out from hyperventilating].
A lot of this is rapidly recapped at the very beginning of VisionQuest, the new Marvel Studios series on Disney+ that premieres on Oct. 14. Still, you may wanna dip back into a few other chapters of the franchise’s perpetually expanding cinematic universe before digging in. A rewatch of WandaVision, still the best show that the company’s small-screen division has produced to date, is a necessity. Ditto a refresher on Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015) if you haven’t seen that movie in a hot minute. Some online breakdowns of Agatha All Along, a witchy spin-off of WandaVision, would definitely help. Maybe consult a Reddit thread or three. If you have some old copies of West Coast Avengers in your comic collection, along with the classic Jim Shooter/George Perez run of Avengers from the late 1970s, dig ’em outta the stacks.
Of course, you could simply try to consume it as a single eight-episode limited series following one of the gajillion heroes that the company has brought to life. We would not recommend this particular course of action.
Because VisionQuest, like so many of the studio’s products being whisked off its multimedia assembly line, is not just designed to play off previous installments. This story of an artificial intelligence in extreme existential crisis is primarily constructed for MCU superfans, the kind who get giddy over Easter eggs and can recite reams of backstory minutiae off the top of their domes. The “homework required” complaint is so old as to be a cliché at this point, and Kevin Feige & Co. have done interesting projects off of seriously strictly-for-the-heads comics material that don’t require a Ph.D. from the Marvel Cinematic University to enjoy (big up Werewolf by Night).
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But there’s something a little too nudge-wink insular about this cap to what the company is calling a “a groundbreaking trilogy” involving Vision’s extended family. The whole thing feels like Exhibit A for the accusation that they now essentially make big-budget, bells-and-whistles entertainment for a niche audience. It’s a show only a die-hard or a bot could love.
So what has our moody, paranoid android been up to since we last checked in? Vision (Paul Bettany) is hiding in plain sight from the powers that be, taking on human form and tending bar at a pub in Edinburgh. During his off hours, he powers down and retreats to the inner world in his central processing unit, which he shares with a number of fellow sentient AIs residing in a virtual country estate. On deck: J.A.R.V.I.S. (James D’Arcy), former personal assistant to the Avengers; F.R.I.D.A.Y. (Orla Brady), his second-in-command in charge of tactical operations; D.U.M-E (Henry Lewis) and U (Jonathan Sayer), the dimwitted duo who handle general maintenance; and the Id-like E.D.I.T.H. (Schitt Creek‘s Emily Hampshire), an overall chaos agent who dabbles in game theory, recreation, and weapons.
Oh, and living upstairs in a secluded environment is Ultron (James Spader). Yes, that Ultron. It turns out that Vision did destroy what was left of the robot’s wrecked metal frame. But he seems to have downloaded Ultron’s consciousness out of mercy, and the now the artificially intelligent being who vowed to eradicate mankind hangs out in a gilded cage. Since his host has a strict rule about using human avatars in this environment, the bad guy now presents as the gentleman from The Blacklist rocking a wizard’s beard. “Humans remain to me contradictory creatures,” Vision laments. “You don’t have to tell me, I tried to kill them all,” Ultron replies. Someone either dies a hero or lives long enough to see themselves become the villain, someone in another comic-book franchise once noted. Apparently, you also either die a supervillain or live long enough to see yourself become the wisecracking comic relief.
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Ultron is the Oscar to Vision’s Felix, and their odd-couple bickering is the one truly pleasurable aspect of VisionQuest — Spader can do this kind of side-of-the-mouth snark in his sleep, and Bettany solidly lobs back the screwballs he gets served. Before the constant stream of sarcastic Ultron commentary wears out its welcome around the series’ halfway point, the bad guy’s brevity is a nice counterpoint to all of the sentient ennui. As everybody recalls from the “Ship of Theseus” conversation from the WandaVision finale — if you don’t, no worries, it’s trotted out a half dozen more times here — the idea is that this new Vision both is and is not the “true” Vision. So who is he, then? This dilemma is causing one hell of an identity crisis for our hero, thus throwing everything in his inner world out of whack. “How can anyone know you if you don’t know yourself?” F.R.I.D.A.Y. asks him. [Sound of joint being toked] Heavy, man.
Bettany has been playing this synthezoid with a soul for over a decade now, and he knows exactly where to pitch this kind of deep-thoughts handwringing without making it feel like a postgrad philosophy course or a “Miracles” outtake. Showrunner Terry Matalas and his rotating stable of writers and directors lean into the quest side of the equation, while still occasionally leaving room for some visual gags (his kitchen is stocked with Vibranium Foil) and a bit of the ol’ bam-pow-zap. The combo works, until it doesn’t. Indeed, before all the peripheral business kicks into high gear, VisionQuest feels like it could be the sort of outlier that made its sitcom-meets-trauma companion piece such a welcome break from all that world-building and potential world-destroying.
Then there’s a clearing of throats, and like malware, the narratives begin to establish persistence over mood and multiply. It seems that a pickpocket in London may, in fact, be Tommy Maximoff (Ruaridh Mollica), one of Vision’s long lost sons. A bounty hunter named Paladin (Todd Stashwick) has been hired by an unknown client to find Vision and take him out. A serial killer named Butcherbird has been racking up a body count. Vision is trying to detect a connection among the victims. Ultron thinks he may have a clue as to what’s going on. Vintage Avengers readers will guess the who, what, and why of this mysterious figure fairly quickly.
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The SWAT-level snipers, their fingers ready on the triggers, that Marvel Studios has trained on media folks writing about their films and TV shows prevent us from saying much more. We can say old habits die hard, there will be in-universe references galore, and if you have a music budget that allows you to score respective sequences to John Denver’s “Calypso” and Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy,” you may as well take advantage of it. There’s a serious deep-cut MCU character that shows up late in the game which will cause a small group of people to cheer, and have the other 90 percent of us scrambling to Google to figure out why their appearance is supposed to be a big, or even medium-sized, deal.
What starts out strong isn’t guaranteed to end strong, and even when VisionQuest drops in a direct callback to WandaVision‘s meta-television format, it feels like too little, too late. The show presents as both a Marvel team-up and a tie-up to a supporting superhero’s storyline, building off the good will of its predecessors. Then it drops the masks and reveals that this is just more MCU business as usual, a lot of apocalyptic sound and fury ultimately signifying next to nada. The in-progress “phase” that counts this series as part of a bigger serialized narrative is about to rev up in December with the release of Avengers: Doomsday. You get the sense that, despite the reliance on past stories and plot points and fan service, this deep-dive into a synthezoid’s psyche is just a placeholder attached to nothing in particular. That it can’t seem to stand on its own two robotic feet or say anything about current AI anxiety is even more disappointing. Vision may provide half the title, yet actual vision is the one thing this series sorely needs.