
Through some convoluted plot mechanisms in the big Marvel action movie Avengers: Age of Ultron, we saw Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, and Thor accidentally create the Vision, a heroic synthetic humanoid who helped them to defeat their enemy, the evil robot Ultron.
This is not that Vision.
In this comic book series from writer Tom King and artist Gabriel Hernandez Walta, Vision is similarly a synthetic human but one with a long history. He’s spent decades fighting alongside the Avengers. He has personally saved the world at least 37 times. His longtime romantic relationship with Wanda Maximoff, the hero known as Scarlet Witch, has come to a disastrous end. And he is desperate to become less weird-synthezoid and more normal-human.
To become more human he tries to live the most normal life he can imagine. He creates a synthetic family for himself. With his new wife, Virginia, and a their two children, Vision moves to the suburbs. As Vision says “To assert as truth that which has no meaning is the core mission of humanity.” But things don’t go according to plan. The kids have trouble fitting in at school, the neighbors don’t trust them, Vision’s superhero past affects the family, and Virginia’s maternal instincts cause her to have violent outbursts when she thinks her kids are threatened.
Vision’s protective feelings are unpredictable, too. When tragedy strikes the family, Vision just might kill all his hero friends and destroy the world.
Despite that dramatic last sentence, The Vision, is a pretty low-key affair. There aren’t a bunch of traditional superhero punch-ups. The majority of the story is spent examining suburbia, what it means to be human, and how we react to those that are different from us.
Don’t worry if you’re unfamiliar with the long comic book history of Vision and the Avengers. The two volumes tell a complete story that contains pretty much everything you’ll need to know.