Vision, v. 1: Little Worse than a Man

Collects: Vision v. 3 #1-6 (2016)

Released: June 2016 (Marvel)

Format: 136 pages / color / $17.99 / ISBN: 9780785196570

What is this?: Vision creates a synthezoid family in his own image, and while they try to assimilate into suburbia, it all goes wrong immediately.

The culprits: Writer Tom King and artist Gabriel Hernandez Walta

Vision, v. 1: Little Worse than a Man is one of the rare dramatic superhero books that lives up to its hype.

The Vision is a synthezoid, an artificial life form. He tried to have a normal family decades ago with the Scarlet Witch. It did not go well, for various complicated and retconny reasons, but that experience makes the Vision one of the superheroes who is best adapted to domesticity. It’s little wonder, then, that in Little Worse he has decided to create a new family, and rather than wander down the biological road again, he has created a family — wife, teenage daughter and son — in his own synthetic image.

What follows is a fascinating and complicated look at the Vision and whether it’s possible for someone like him to be normal in any way.

The problems that beset the Visions do not feel contrived. An attack by the Grim Reaper is the inciting event of the breakdown of the Visions’ suburban life; given the Reaper’s hatred of Vision — the Vision’s brains patterns are based on Reaper’s brother, Wonder Man, and Reaper believes Vision to be an impostor — his assault is a logical starting point for any title featuring Vision. The rest of the story follows from there, with the goal of normalcy dropped in favor of being a functional family. Each complication in the story is compelling, leaving the reader waiting for the next calamity to befall the protagonists.

Writer Tom King does an excellent job giving each of the Visions a distinct personality and arc. Well, Vin, the son, doesn’t have much of an arc; he ruminates over equality and his own nature in somewhat awkward but not implausible ways, and I don’t believe the one plot-related decision he makes. But Vision, Virginia, and Viv each have their own separate troubles, despite all their similarities. The Vision thinks the situation he has created is controllable, and despite the difficulties, he can make things right. Virginia, his wife, has made decisions calculated to keep her family safe, but they have all gone wrong. Viv, the daughter, comes closest to fitting in because one person values her differences and isn’t intimidated, not because of anything she does.

Striving for normalcy isn’t unusual, but it’s a self-defeating proposition in this case. The Visions themselves make no attempt to disguise their non-organic nature, nor do they attempt to assimilate; they buy a suburban house, go to suburban schools, and imitate suburban domesticity, but that isn’t enough to gain them acceptance. They stick out like walnuts in banana bread, and they are about as welcome. The house tour Virginia gives the neighbors at the beginning of the first issue shows a house filled with exotic memorabilia from the Vision’s life and career: a stringless Wakandan piano, a flying water vase from the planet Zenn-La, an everbloom plant from Wundagore, a lighter used to read a map before D-Day, a gift from Captain America. Extraordinary furnishings of an extraordinary family.

Gabriel Hernandez Walta makes these fantastic artifacts look quite normal. The piano has no expensive fillips (except perhaps for a lid shaped like a panther); the everbloom is a shaggy evergreen, and the lighter is just a dented lighter. The vase is a floating blob, barely recognizable as a vase. Give that the water vase and everbloom are, in essence, useless, this decision to make them look mundane makes sense. Why would anyone want to own these things?

Everything in Walta’s work is muted, partially because of the restrained color palette used by colorist Jordie Bellaire. The restrained artwork — no superhero excesses for Walta — and the washed-out colors help give the book a feeling of a ‘50s sitcom, which goes along with the nuclear family that the Vision has constructed to live in his oversized suburban house. Walta draws Vision’s perfect suburban world — perfect house, perfect teenage kids, and a perfect Martha Stewart housewife, complete with an apron — with little embellishment. Walta and Bellaire’s work cast a pall over the book; it’s not hard to believe that the people in this ostensibly perfect world are all trapped and depressed, and escape is the only way to be happy again. Despite the synthezoids’ blank eyes and robotic features, their emotions — sadness, isolation, confusion — are plain to see, and that’s to Walta’s credit.

Should the Vision and his family try to fit in more? That’s not a question Little Worse tries to answer, unless that answer is found in the racism that surrounds the Visions. Many of their neighbors are uneasy about them because they are different; some of them couch this in a fear that the Visions are “dangerous.” The temptation to make a parallel between white-bread communities fearing “dangerous,” darker-skinned newcomers is obvious, but the locals have a point: the Visions are dangerous, in their way. Still, the community is primed to be fearful of the Visions, or at least to not accept them. A pair of local kids, for instance, spraypaint robot slurs on the Visions’ garage, even though they have to research which obscure slur to use. The local high school’s previous nickname, “Redskins,” operates in two different ways: the word is an insult toward Native Americans, yes, but it also foreshadows the locals having trouble seeing the Visions (who have red “skin”) as humans. Changing the school’s nickname to Patriots doesn’t change perception immediately.

On the other hand, Vision uses his superhero privilege to escape trouble when dealing with authority figures. He tells the principal at his children’s school and a police detective that he has saved the world “37 times,” and when he’s being interviewed by the detective, the specific events are enumerated between panels. (Several are labeled “Ultron — again,” which made me laugh.) The two events feel different; with the principal, Vision is using his heroism to gain equal treatment for himself and his family, but with the detective, he uses it to assert his superiority — somewhere between “I shouldn’t have to answer your questions” to “My life of service should mean you believe me.”

King uses the final issue to discuss the central theme of the book: Can the Vision, a being ruled by logical, programmed responses to the world, create a family and be happy / normal in a human, illogical world? The narration frames this in terms of a computer programming concept, P vs. NP. P is all the problems a computer can solve in a reasonable amount of time, the problems that can be solved with an algorithm or shortcut or program. NP is all the problems that cannot be solved that way. Is the Vision’s quest P or NP? King asks. (He also answers it.) What happens if the Vision decides it’s NP?

It’s an interesting question, although it would have had more of an impact had it been made earlier in the book and not have been fairly convincingly answered. (This is more of a criticism of the trade paperback form; from King’s view, the question is asked halfway through the series.) On the other hand, King also identifies the narrator, who is explaining and answering the P vs. NP question, and it’s possible that we shouldn’t believe the cat-murdering old woman. Despite the omniscient tone of her narration, she doesn’t know everything, but I’m not sure whether King is trying to add a bit of ambiguity to the story. If not, I think making the narrator a character in the story is a bit of a mistake, but I’ll find out only by reading Vision, v. 2: Little Better than a Beast.

And I’m definitely going to do that. I recommend it — and this volume — to readers. It’s one of the rare lessons that despite the huge canvas that superhero comics gives creators, it’s often the smaller stories, the ones with lower but more personal stakes, that are the most satisfying.

Rating: (5 of 5)

West Coast Avengers: Family Ties

Collects: West Coast Avengers v. 2 #1-9 and Vision and the Scarlet Witch v. 2 #1-2 (1985-6)

Released: July 2012 (Marvel)

Format: 296 pages / color / $29.99 / ISBN: 9780785162162

What is this?: The West Coast Avengers, led by Hawkeye, establish themselves and try to fill out their roster.

The culprits: Writer Steve Englehart and artists Allen Milgrom and Richard Howell

West Coast Avengers: Family Ties is very much a book of its time. It’s a soapy team book, with rivalries and romance sandwiched between slugathons with supervillains. For someone like me who was introduced to comics via X-Men in the ‘90s, the character conflict and long-term plot development has a pleasantly nostalgic feel, especially since it is not accompanied by all that mutant angst.

Characterization is (mostly) a strength for writer Steve Englehart. He adds depths to some one-dimensional characters, such as robot supervillain Ultron and human supervillain Grim Reaper. Ultron (Mark XII) tries to reconcile with his “father,” Hank Pym; although the execution of Mark XII’s story is rushed and Ultron’s upgrades mean this plot probably won’t be referenced again, Ultron’s growth is a great idea with a good payoff. The Grim Reaper’s obsession with his brother, Wonder Man, is the only aspect of his character readers previously saw, but Engelhart gives him another character note: he’s a racist, although he excepts his girlfriend from his prejudice.

Englehart also takes up the challenge of making the book’s two married couples interesting, and he succeeds. (Given how difficult many creators find writing husbands and wives, that’s no mean accomplishment.) The Vision and Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye and Mockingbird have two different sorts of relationships; Vision and Scarlet Witch are stable, determined, and about to have a family, while Hawkeye and Mockingbird are high spirited, passionate, and always bickering. It’s no wonder Hawkeye and Mockingbird’s marriage didn’t work out.⁷⁹

But Englehart is not so successful with Tigra. Englehart spends a lot of time with Tigra, but his character arc for her is decidedly not modern. Tigra is a human who also has a cat soul inside her, which gives her not only a feline shape and superpowers but also feline characteristics — personality elements her human side wants to get rid of. So far, so good; it’s similar to a werewolf story, and Englehart even brings in Morbius the (ex-) Living Vampire and Werewolf by Night to drive home the monster angle. But Tigra’s internal conflicts come from her newfound fear of water, mercurialness, and promiscuity. A male character would not be given promiscuity as a character flaw, then or now, nor would fickleness be considered a sufficient challenge to overcome. I appreciate the lengths Englehart shows Tigra is willing to go to rid herself of her catlike flaws, but there are better cat characteristics he could have used: cruelty, aloofness (definite problem on a team), independence (ditto). Focusing on a female’s character’s sexuality is a cliché; silly fears and a proclivity to change her mind only make the stereotyping worse.

Exploring the problems of Tigra’s powers necessitates devoting several pages to Cat People continuity, which is not worth rehashing. But it’s just one example of Englehart’s reliance on continuity in Family Ties. Sometimes it works, as when he brings back Tigra’s old opponent Kraven for a rematch, but often it falls flat. The Cat People are an odd fit with a superhero story and not very exciting. The Grim Reaper / Wonder Man / Vision story works OK, but Simon's embezzlement — referred to in his origin story — is as exciting as accountancy plotlines tend to be. Englehart’s biggest success is using Secret Wars to explain why there are two Ultrons with differing personalities; the flashbacks with Ultron’s head controlling people are fun and creepy.

Englehart’s continuity mining limits his choice of villains, but fortunately, those villains are heavy hitters: Grim Reaper, Ultron, Kraven. Other villains are offbeat but enjoyable; I have a soft spot for Nekra, Black Talon and his zombies, and the Rangers. But the main villain in Family Ties, one who grows in importance in succeeding volumes, is Master Pandemonium, and he’s … oh, he’s not very good.

Master Pandemonium is just one of a type: the guy who makes a deal with the devil that goes horribly awry. Unlike Johnny Blaze / Ghost Rider, Master Pandemonium becomes evil when Mephisto gives him an opportunity to regain his soul. Until he reclaims his soul, he’s the amazing Fall-Apart Man, who has demons for limbs; they separate from him and fight his enemies, leaving him a floating torso. He can also summon demons from the great sucking star-shaped wound in his chest. Why he doesn’t summon demons rather than lose his limbs isn’t clear. But Master Pandemonium is utterly generic and utterly forgettable were it not for his role in future stories that helped victimize the Scarlet Witch.

Artist Allen Milgrom doesn’t shine on Master Pandemonium either. Milgrom gives Master Pandemonium a sinister, almost Yellow Peril look that clashes with his Anglo ethnicity. The forked Fu Man Chu resembles a stereotypical Asian villain’s facial hair, howevermuch it is supposed to evoke a pentagram, and his robes and cape certainly call to mind the Mandarin. Milgrom also draws standard Marvel Technicolor demons, which I’ve always been bored by. There’s little about them that differentiate them, artistically, from a host of generic monstrous humanoids.

Milgrom’s art is standard for the ‘80s, solid without being flashy. Milgrom tells the story without unnecessary flourishes; I especially like the slightly wall-eyed panels from the view of Ultron’s disembodied head. In #6, Milgrom’s rough pencils are inked by Kyle Baker, whose wider, softer faces works well on Tigra and the Cat People. Most of the rest of the issues are inked by Joe Sinnot, who contributes to the book’s traditional look.

Richard Howell draws the two issues of Vision and the Scarlet Witch included in Family Ties; overall, his work is more detailed and features more close-up shots of characters than Milgrom’s. His Nekra is wonderful, and he seems to enjoy drawing the Scarlet Witch. But there is a certain stiffness to many panels, his zombies aren’t frightening (the colorist's decision to make them dark gray has something to do with this), and his Wonder Man is awful, looking more like Wonder Granny.⁸⁰

Family Ties has too many continuity-filled soft spots to be great; Tigra’s short-sighted characterization may make it difficult for some readers to enjoy. But Family Ties does hit a nostalgic sweet spot at times, and between Englehart’s high spots and Milgrom’s solid art, Family Ties has a lot to offer, especially to those who wish they were still 10 and buying comics in 1986.

Rating: (3 of 5)