The Vision - Visions of the Future: review

The Vision - Visions of the Future

The Marvel film world, after a year of absence from theaters due to force majeure, finally has the opportunity to return to action, fully launching into its Phase 4. If at the cinema we will see Natasha Romanoff in action in Black Widow and we will also see the appearance of new characters, in the world of seriality Phase 4 has already begun thanks to WandaVision, a series available on Disney + starring Wanda and Vision. A true phenomenon of the moment, this particular production, like the other works of the MCU, struggles with a stringent adherence to the paper originals, but has nevertheless thrilled the spectators thanks to a fun game of quotes and tributes, referring to the comics of the two Avengers, like The Vision: Visions of the future.

To give viewers of the Disney + series the opportunity to learn more about the comic life of the two Avengers, Panini Comics has published volumes dedicated to some of the most important moments of the their story. Visions of the future, after having amazed the world of comics at its release in 2017, has therefore benefited from this publishing situation, being re-proposed in a beautiful collector's volume that further ennobles one of the most interesting productions of recent years.

Visions of the future, the human side of Vision

Managing a character like Vision is not easy. At the time of its genesis, the syntezoid was supposed to be Ultron's weapon to destroy the Avengers, but its programming freed itself from this constraint, leading it not only to join the Mightiest Heroes on Earth, but even to find the inside of this formation his great love, Wanda. With all that ensued, including infernal pregnancies, memory loss and great tragedies, as in the best Marvelian tradition. What makes everything exciting is to see how Vision, being synthetic and created to be the perfect instrument of death, instead rises to a peculiar humanity, born from its desire to be like us, a sort of modern Pinocchio, animated by this force investigator of the human soul that leads him to obsession. On the other hand, we are talking about one of the few characters, together with Jocasta and Aaron Stack, who have often been used by Marvel screenwriters as a means for stories that enhance human emotion through the contrast with their robotic nature.

Tom King, in writing Visions of the future, has fully grasped what are the essential traits of the character of Vision, bringing them more and more on the level of the typically human emotional ordeal. Not only did he make the syntezoid's drive to want to be more and more human the center of his narrative, but he embellished it by giving Vision some of the most exhausting traits of the human being, such as anxieties and fears.

Visione, in his search for a 'humanly' normal life, decides to create a syntezoid family, giving birth to his wife Virginia and their two twin children, Viv and Vin. Together with them, he will decide to go and live on the outskirts of Washington, in order to better fulfill his role as liaison officer between Avengers and the Capitoline administration. In this new social context, the Visione family has the opportunity to deal with the different typically human interactions, from relationships with the neighborhood to school life, putting their perception of humanity to the test. Of course, being a decidedly atypical family, the reactions and events that will see them involved take to extremes what is the normality we are used to, but the emotional experience of these very particular beings can be seen from the pages of Visions of the future. difficulty in feeling imprisoned in a role in which they struggle to reflect themselves.

Visions of the future are exciting precisely because we are witnesses to this inner struggle of the Vision family, poised between the Avenger's obsession with completing his transition to humanity and his family members who are, ironically, incredibly human in living with sincere and real suffering this contrast between being tied to a superhero and the search for an apparent normality. On the other hand, as King himself presented his work:

"Our readers will meet again in this family. Through the continuous, absurd struggle of the Visions to be normal, they will recognize themselves in the attempt of unique individuals who try to fit into a homogeneous society "

Not surprisingly, King places this particular family unit within a context social daily, that is the small American suburbs, where the middle class lives, which we have come to know in sitcoms and TV series, just like WandaVision. The choice to set this search for humanity in such a normal dimension, as if it were a Norman Rockewll painting, is functional, it increases the emotional contrast of the characters, especially Virginia and the twins. Because every family faces its own demons, and one made up of syntezoids and part of the human community can only live these existential dilemmas to the nth degree.

Despite the driving force of history, at least initially, is the will to Vision, in Visions of the future the strong point of the emotional characterization of the story is the experience of mother and children. In the opening bars, Vision and Virginia seem to be in tune with their analysis of human behavior as a method of reaching humanity, but in short, the syntezoid seems to suffer all those little emotional flaws of an American housewife, reaching, ironically, a humanity that still escapes her husband.

Her problems of diction, a sign of an inner tension, are accompanied by extremely human little ones, from jealousy for the historic ex of Visione, Wanda, to her amorous impulses, even reaching undermine the granite aura of rigidity of Vision. An aplomb that fades only in the most dramatic moment of history, in which the android experiences the darker side of the human being, an emotional climax in which his being willing to destroy his world, his friendships in order to yield to a heavy but absolutely human emotion brings him closer to the reader.

A normal syntezoid family grappling with humanity

King is adept at building the complex emotional implant of Visions of the Future. Vision is presented as the trigger of events, but remains essentially in the background, as an observer who analyzes and dissects the emotional evolution of his family. The emotional thrusts of the story come precisely from Virginia and the twins, who virgins in human contact experience for the first time the complex world of social dynamics, yielding to difficulties and reacting by adapting, seeking their own definition within the life of their city.

In giving life to this story, King was able to count on Gabriel Walta's expertise in drawings, capable of grasping nuances and human tensions with which to enrich the rigid physiognomy of the Visione family. Where the syntezoid is portrayed with an emotional rigidity sometimes softened by obvious forcing, the faces of Virginia, Vin and Vin are instead drawn with great sensitivity, which enhances a palpable and sometimes unsettling humanity. Especially Ms. Vision is valued in her inner distress as she tries to fulfill her husband's wishes and protect her family. Walta seems to give the syntezoid a particular care, emphasizing its central figure within this unusual family unit.

Visions of the future is an exciting reading, aimed not only at Marvel fans, but also at those who are looking for a good science fiction comic. Thanks to King's plot, in fact, the fundamental moments of Vision's past are presented, best characterizing the contrast between organic and synthetic, between emotionality and programming. A dualism that in this volume also becomes an evolutionary impetus for the syntezoid, with repercussions also in the Marvel Universe.

Panini's edition of Visions of the future is respectful of King's work, a well-packaged volume and with generous dimensions that allow us to make the most of Walta's work, which deserves a place in our libraries, as well as being a new key to reading WandaVision.