[Criticism Corner] Vision's Surprising Love Life (Patreon)

The weird videos are back!  I've had this one on the backburner for a while, but thanks to an appropriate sponsorship, I was able to justify bringing it back and finishing it off.  I actually had a lot of fun working on this so I hope y'all enjoy it too.  I'd love to hear your thoughts. :D

When you think of characters in Marvel comics that get around, you typically think Tony Stark, She-Hulk, or like… anybody in the X-Men, but because I decided that for some reason, I wanted to become the definitive Marvel sexpert, I’ve learned that some characters have surprisingly robust love lives.  Take Aunt May for example which I have a whole video about.

Well despite being a robot man, The Vision is another one of these characters that surprisingly gets around a whole lot.  So, let’s put my oddly specific knowledge to the test and take a look at his huge love life.

Scarlet Witch

Let’s get the first and most well known out of the way.  When Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver rejoined the Avengers after they decided to stop working for Magneto, they met Vision who had become a valuable member of the team in their absence.  At first, Wanda didn’t think much of Vision, but Pietro is a robo-racist and hated him.

Wanda’s feelings for Vision slowly built up over time and they had a “will they, won’t they” relationship that made up the main sexual tension of the book.  Despite Quicksilver’s protesting, Wanda and Vision hit it off, fell in love, and were a solid couple for a few years, but then a new woman walked into Vision’s life and put this new relationship to the test.

“I am Mantis.”

Okay, long time viewers of the channel know that I seriously hate the comic book version of Mantis with a burning passion, mostly because she’s the writer’s pet of her creator, Steve Englehart, who made it his mission to force her into as many books as possible, even going so far as to take her FROM Marvel and shove her into books he wrote for other companies like DC, but he renamed her so that it was technically legal even though those aliases have since been made canon to Marvel itself.  Because comics.

Well as soon as Mantis first appeared, she single handedly took down Thor AND Captain America, kissed all the dudes on The Avengers, and convinced them to let both her and her alcoholic ex-super villain boyfriend join the team. (Avengers #114 - 1973)

Mantis was a straight up homewrecker, explicitly flirting with Vision, even staring him down while she was making out with her boyfriend.  Obviously, this made Wanda pretty jealous and overall, the character was extremely annoying

See, Englehart never liked the WandaVision pairing since it was established before he took over writing the book and straight up just didn’t know where to go with it.  Part of the inspiration for creating Mantis was for Vision to cheat on Scarlet Witch with her, but Englehart didn’t want to do Wanda dirty like that.

The solution?  Have Vision propose to Wanda and marry her in the same issue… and at the same time as the wedding of Mantis and an alien plant dude that had merged with her husband’s dead body.  Because comics. (Giant-Size Avengers #4 - 1975)

Anyway, Wanda and Vision had a pretty happy marriage.  They even quit The Avengers in order to go live a normal life out in the suburbs where thanks to Wanda’s magic, they were able to give birth to the twins, Thomas and William.  Turns out though that those kids weren’t real and were ACTUALLY fragments of the devil himself.  It’s a really complicated bit of nonsense and if you want to know more about it, I have an entire video dedicated to breaking it down.

Anyway, Vision was later destroyed and rebuilt into this solid white form.  He had no emotions or much memory of his time with his wife which naturally put a damper on the relationship.  If you want more information on the white body, I also have a dedicated video breaking it down as well.

So after the back to back trauma of finding out that her kids were demons, losing them, and losing her husband, Wanda had a mental breakdown and became a supervillain so yeah.  She and Vision were done for good.

From here, Vision’s entire life, romantic or otherwise, becomes extremely complicated and that’s all thanks to one man, Avengers writer, Bob Harras.  So Bob here really seems to have been obsessed with Vision, especially his romantic life, not that I’m one to talk considering that I’m the one making this whole video.

Laura Lipton

First off, we have Vision seeking out a scientist named Miles Lipton to help him navigate living life without emotions in this new white body.  The end result was Miles implanting Vision with the brainwaves of his dead son, Alex. (Avengers Spotlight #40 - 1991)  Well Alex was a dude that lived an entire life of his own which included his widow, Laura.  Normally, this wouldn’t be all that relevant, but when Miles was revealed to be diagnosed with cancer, Laura came to Avengers Mansion to inform Vision, but was also low-key hoping that some trace of her late husband was alive within him.  After returning to Miles’ lab, they tried to bring out Alex’s memories and personality so that he could have a last goodbye to his son.  While the process didn’t work, Vision still pretended to be Alex to allow Miles to pass in peace.

Afterwards, he went to Laura and still pretended to be Alex so she could have the catharsis of having a last goodbye and a last kiss with her husband, following which, Vision said that the memory program of Alex was gone for good.  Fellow Avenger, Crystal, was along for the ride and asked Vision if he was faking it the whole time to which he didn’t respond, but a single tear fell from his face, implying that on some level, it wasn’t an act. (Avengers #348 - 1992)

Crystal

The reason Crystal cared so much was because it was HEAVILY implied that she had feelings for Vision which was extremely complicated because at that time, pretty much everyone in The Avengers had crushes on one to three other members of the team. (Avengers #348 - 1992)

Crystal’s crush was seemingly reciprocated by Vision once Alex’s brainwaves were added to the mix, but at that point, it was too little too late since Crystal heart was set on another member of The Avengers, Black Knight.

Deathcry

Wanting to take advantage of the situation was another Bob Harras original, Deathcry.  God, okay.  How do I describe this trainwreck of a character?  Well Marvel writer, Fred Van Lente, probably said it best. “To me, her real name should be "The '90s" because she's the classic stereotypical bad girl with cleavage and a shitty attitude.”

As soon as she shows up in Harras’ Avengers book, she starts flirting with Vision hardcore, talking all about the pleasure robots on her planet and following it up with a non-consentual kiss.  Oh and I guess I forgot to mention that Deathcry is a teenager by her race’s standards.  Well, I guess that knowing she’s a kid makes a lot of sense considering that every teenager I have ever met has tried to be edgy to try and look more adult.  This aspect was played with later on in the series, but man then they start to depict her as super childish and playing with dolls all while keeping the sexualization going.  Big yikes.

Golden Jocasta

Now I’m sure you’ve noticed that Vision’s body stopped being solid white for the past few minutes.  Well that happened when a group of evil Avengers from an alternate universe called The Gatherers came around.  In order to better infiltrate The Avengers, The Gatherers kidnapped Vision and swapped his body with Anti-Vision, their own alternate universe doppelganger of the normal Vision.

The Gatherers were eventually defeated, but two of their members stuck around, Anti-Vision and Jocasta.  For those who aren’t aware, Jocasta is a robot created by Ultron with the brainwaves of his creator’s wife in order to be his bride, but much like Vision, Jocasta stuck around and joined The Avengers.  This golden version of her is the alternate universe doppelganger that was a part of The Gatherers.

Well Anti-Vision wanted his old body back so he infected Golden Jocasta and Vision with a virus that made them experience humanlike emotions, prompting the two of them to get together… and become 1930’s style detectives.  Alright, setting aside how weird that whole thing is, keep in mind that these two are practically siblings.  Like Ultron and all of his creations FREQUENTLY use phrases with each other like father and son, but even though this is the EXTREMELY odd and complicated case of making out with your alternate universe sister / sort of step-mom with the brainwaves of your grandma all while you’re inside the body of a version from yourself from a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT ALTERNATE UNIVERSE, that’s still your sister and it’s still pretty fucking weird.

This all happens in the Vision solo series which was written by Bob Harras and more or less EVERY SUPPORTING CHARACTER was somebody that wanted to get with Vision.  Crystal, Deathcry, Laura Lipton, Golden Jocasta.  It’s like a harem anime, but instead of the main character being a lovable dumbass, it’s a synthetic superhero that’s losing his mind and thinks he’s a hard boiled private eye.  90s comics are weird, man.

Anyway, at the end of the mini-series, Vision returns back to normal and Golden Jocasta leaves comics altogether, never to be seen again. (Vision #4 - 1994)

For a good while, Vision didn’t really have a love interest since when he got all of his emotions back in order, he was hung up over his ex-wife, Wanda, especially since Simon Williams A.K.A. Wonder Man came back to life and started a relationship with her.  As many of you might recall, when The Vision was first created, he was given Wonder Man’s brainwaves.  With Wanda now dating Simon, Vision got extremely jealous, seeing himself as a pale imitation of the real deal.  Unable to deal with these emotions, Vision runs off.

Darby Charvat

In order to work through his personal baggage, Vision went off to Chicago where he tried to hunt down the villainous Grim Reaper, spending a lot of his time hanging out at a bar getting to know people in order to try find information about the Reaper’s whereabouts. (Avengers Vol 3 #31)

Vision became good friends with all the regulars including a woman named Darby Charvat, but even though he vanished from the city just as she tried to ask him out, it’s clear from Vision’s dreams that he was similarly into her.

A few years later, Vision bumped into Darby who made it clear that the offer to go out was on the table, but he never took her up on it. (Avengers Vol 3 #55 - 2002)  A good reason for that is because as soon as he apprehended the Grim Reaper, Vision rejoined the Avengers and IMMEDIATELY pulls an alpha Chad move by asking out fellow teammate, Carol Danvers, right in front of Wanda, making sure to drop that he’s always been attracted to strong women.  Total dick move, but Wanda and Carol don’t seem to mind so I guess it’s okay.

Vision and Carol ended up only going on one date which was cut short by an emergency call from The Avengers, but the two of them didn’t pursue things afterwards, making room for everyone’s “favorite” self-important character to come back into the picture, Mantis.

Mantis... Again

When Steve Englehart came back to Marvel, OF COURSE he decided to shove Mantis back into the forefront with the Celestial Quest storyline.  It was an extremely horny book that kicked off with Vision and Mantis finally getting together and hooking up in the Avengers spaceship while Wanda was still on board.  However, the relationship didn’t last too long with Mantis leaving to go do her grandiose space shit, but it also doesn’t matter too much because a couple years later, Vision was ripped in half by She-Hulk who was being mind controlled.

Cassie Lang

That brings us to this guy, Iron Lad.  He’s a young version of a villain named Kang who came to the past in hopes of not turning into his evil older self.  Iron Lad was a founding member of the Young Avengers and dated his teammate, Cassie Lang, the superhero daughter of Scott Lang, the second Ant-Man.

Well Iron Lad’s futuristic armor fused with Vision’s remains, morphing into this guy, Young Vision.  Since Iron Lad’s armor had some of his consciousness, Young Vision was kind of a fusion between the two, including his feelings for Cassie.  When Iron Lad killed Kang, the timestream was in total disarray which could only be stopped if he returned home so he did, but as soon as he was out of the picture, Young Vision swooped in on his girl and they dated.  Pretty weird that Scott’s friend and enemy fused together into one guy that’s dating his daughter, but yeah, that’s his conundrum to work through.

Later on, Iron Lad was able to figure out how to travel through time without messing with reality so he came back and was justifiably confused about his old armor hooking up with his ex-girlfriend.  In a fit of jealousy, Iron Lad killed Young Vision.  Oh and Cassie was killed by Doctor Doom around the same time.  (Avengers: The Children’s Crusade #9 - 2012)

Eve

But of course, Vision was rebuilt and he later went to another planet where he found a female synthezoid modeled after him.  This is Eve and she has an obsession with Vision.  Like they had never met and yet Eve was sitting around with pictures she made of the two of them and kids.  Normally, this would be a huge red flag, but much like me, Vision pretended not to notice and dove in head first anyway.  Yeah, despite having just met, Vision proclaimed that Eve was his soulmate and completed him so naturally, the two of them started getting intimate almost immediately.  Instead of it being the more… biological way that Vision totally performed in the past, Vision and Eve had this weird back to back crossing of wires.  Either way, this method still led to procreation and I mean a LOT of procreation.

But here’s the thing.  Eve’s creator is a madman called the High-Evolutionary and there is ZERO doubt that these kids would get wrapped up in his schemes so they wouldn’t be safe on this planet.  So Vision was like “Well, how about we raise them on Earth?”  Eve took one look at the total shitshow that is humanity and noped the hell out of there, opting to load all the kids on a spaceship to find a new planet.

Vision stayed behind to fight the High-Evolutionary with the rest of his team and even though Eve did send some emails to let him know that they found a new home, Vision pretty much ignored them entirely and they were never mentioned again.

Virginia

So clearly all these relationships either didn’t work out or were nipped in the bud before they could even start, but clearly he was onto something with the whole dating another synthezoid thing.  So he made his own wife.

Using the brainwaves of his ex-wife, Wanda, Vision created Virginia and the two of them fused THEIR brainwaves together to create their twin kids, Viv and Vin.  With Vision’s track record of his first two kids being demons and the next thirty being abandoned in space, what could possibly go wrong?

Well over the course of the mini-series, Virginia killed a few people all in the name of protecting her family before ultimately killing herself.  There is a LOT that I could say about Virginia and honestly this book as a whole, but for one, it’s so good that I don’t want to spoil it any more than I already have and two, I actually have a dedicated video all about it.