Didja Know... The Origin of the Vision

Didja Know digs into the fun facts, strange stories, and divine details that helped build the hallowed halls of the House of Ideas!

Gather 'round, True Believers! This week, we're hot-wiring an electronic essay about the long history of the Vision!

There are a few burning questions about the android's Avenging past, and we’re here to answer ‘em! 

Didja know… Another Vision existed before the android version?

Way back in Marvel’s own history, its predecessor, Timely Comics, enlisted creative dynamos Joe Simon and Jack Kirby to tell the tale of an alien named Aarkus in the pages of MARVEL MYSTERY COMICS #13 in 1940.

Aarkus appeared like a—you guessed it—vision when a scientist performed a kind of “scientific séance” to broach the barrier between our world and others in an attempt to see what’s out there. The Vision, who just happened to be a policeman in his reality, rounded up a clutch of crooks on his first Earth adventure and stuck around to aid the Allies during World War II. His powers stemmed from his connection to smoke, and extended to the production of extreme cold as well as near-instantaneous teleportation if in the presence of smoke.

Later, long after the arrival of the synthetic Vision, information turned up to reveal Aarkus’ continued Earth involvement in cases with the Invaders, the X-Men’s Legion, and even the Eternals.

Didja know… The android Vision debuted as a bad guy?

Well, kind of. Let us 'splain: Marvel editor Stan Lee liked the name “Vision” but wanted a new character tagged with it for 1968’s AVENGERS #57. Writer Roy Thomas kept the spooky atmosphere and fashioned a “synthezoid” from it with artist John Buscema, a character who appeared like a “vision” but not to catch crooks at first. No...this guy wanted to destroy Earth’s Mightiest Heroes instead!

It all revolved around a sinister scheme of the robotic Ultron to plant the Vision in Avengers Mansion and sit back to watch the fireworks. Unfortunately for him, the android resisted his creator’s twisted programming and turned the tables on Ultron. With his help, the heroes routed their foe and surprised their new artificial ally by offering him Avengers membership. This, in turn, led to readers’ discovery that “Even an Android Can Cry.”

Years later, the Vision returned to his roots when he attempted to take over the entire world through its computers…but that’s an exhilarating epic you’ll find in AVENGERS #251!

Didja know… The Vision’s been destroyed and rebuilt multiple times?

Death and rebirth seem to be plain-old part and parcel of the life of a Super Hero, and the Vision’s no slacker in that category. In fact, he may even give some of his flesh-and-blood comrades a run for their death-and-rebirth money!

One of the first of the android's major malfunctions arrived due to the attack of the Negative Zone’s Annihilus. The Vision shut down in the aftermath of that adventure and remained comatose for a long while, even assuming a holographic form when his own physical body proved too damaged. After that, the U.S. government literally took him apart after his bid for world domination and once reassembled sported a cold, emotionless ghostly white form that cost him friends and his wife, the Scarlet Witch.

The incredible assault on the Earth by sorceress Morgan le Fay left the Vision in a highly damaged state that stretched out for months until finally being rebuilt, but perhaps the worst moment of his artificial existence arrived through the skewed attentions of the Scarlet Witch when in the depths of madness she “disassembled” the Avengers by subverting her ex-husband into a carrier for mini-Ultrons. This prompted an enraged She-Hulk to utterly destroy her former teammate. Yowch!

Suffice to say, each time the Vision “got better," surviving to continue an existence still unique in the Marvel Universe, as well as in comics history overall.

Get mixed up in these magnificent mags with Marvel Unlimited right now! 'Nuff said!