Avengers #57
Behold… The Vision!
A strangely garbed red-skinned man in a yellow and green costume walks through the rain, yet the wet weather passes through his body. Suddenly, he takes flight, heating toward the apartment owned by Janet Van Dyne, aka the Wasp. Inside the apartment, Janet is saying goodnight to her boyfriend Hank Pym, aka Goliath. She is disappointed that he is leaving to work on a bacteria culture instead of spending time with her as she was certain that he was going to finally propose to her.[1]
That’s when the intruder enters her apartment. When she sees the alien looking humanoid she calls it an inhuman vision and flees into another room. Shockingly, this intruder passes through the wall and then tries to slay her with his heat-vision. However, before he can complete this assassination the intruder suddenly gets a headache. Hearing the screams coming from Janet's apartment from outside, Hank to turns into Goliath and scales the outside of the building to get into her apartment. When he arrives, Janet is unharmed and her intruder is passed out on the floor. They both agree to take the unconscious intruder to Avengers Mansion to figure out who he is and where he came from.
Meanwhile, on the Upper West Side, Hawkeye returns home to discover that Natasha has decided to come out of retirement as the Black Widow.[2] Hawkeye is surprised to see this, and Natasha explains that she decided to start working for SHIELD again because Hawkeye is always busy on Avengers duty, leaving her with nothing to do. As Hawkeye tries to explain to her how important his work is, he gets an urgent call from Goliath asking him to come to the mansion immediately. When he goes to leave, the Black Widow tells him not to expect her when he finally decides to come back as she will be long gone.
While up north, T’Challa is walking the streets trying to figure out how to fill the void in his life when he is not on Avenges duty. That’s when he witnesses a robbery in progress. When a bystander tries to raise the alarm he gets shot for his trouble. With his lightning fast reflexes, T’Challa changes into the Black Panther and makes short work of these thieves. By the time the authorities have arrived he has already treated the man’s gunshot wounds. When he overhears am African-American child wishing that a hero like him is needed in his neighborhood, the Black Panther gets a sudden inspiration.[3] That’s when the Panther receives a call from Goliath asking him to come in as well.
When Hawkeye and the Black Panther arrive at the mansion, Goliath is already examining the body of the strange man who attacked the Wasp. He has determined that he’s not a human at all, but a highly sophisticated type of android that Hank calls a synthozoid. Suddenly, the android wakes up and — now calling himself the Vision — starts attacking the Avengers anew. The team discovers that not only can the Vision make his body intangible, but he can also increase his density so that he becomes incredibly strong and durable. It also becomes apparent that while the Vision wants to destroy the Avengers, he has no idea why. In fact, all the fight seems to go out of him once he has been restrained by Goliath. Seeing that the Vision is as confused as they are, the Avengers offer their assistance.
Wracking his memory to try and figure out who he is and why he was sent to kill the Avengers, the Vision suddenly begins to remember. He recalls that he was created by Ultron-5 to slay the Avengers, but nothing more. Luckily, he also knows where Ultron’s hideout is located, something the Avengers have been eager to know after their last encounter.[4] Taking an areo-car, the Avengers are led to Ultron’s hideout, which opens to them due to the Vision’s proximity to the secret opening into the underground lair.
Little do they know that Ultron has been waiting for him as he built the Vision to lure the Avengers to his lair if he should fail to destroy them. He then springs a trap that separates everyone from Goliath. Pym is dropped into a pit where he has to fight another android created by Ultron. Meanwhile, the Vision and the others are trapped in a room with walls that are slowly moving together. Unable to stop this death trap, the Vision becomes intangible to pass through the walls and try to find a way to stop the death trap. He finds Ultron in the control room and confronts his creator. Ultron dismisses the Vision’s emotions and attempts to destroy the android by tossing him into some electrodes. But the Vision manages to make himself intangible at the last moment. Demanding answers from Ultron-5, the Vision gets none and when the robot lunges at his creation the Vision becomes intangible again.[5][6] Ultron then strikes the wall on the other side and explodes, seemingly putting an end to the robot.[7]
With Ultron destroyed, the death traps deactivate and the Avengers are saved. When they find the Vision he shows them Ultron’s remains and they figure he has been destroyed. However, this still leaves some lingering questions — just who is the Vision and what will he do now that he is freed from Ultron’s control? Unknown to the Avengers, Ultron’s head survived the destruction and was knocked into the rubble of a nearby vacant lot. There it is found by a boy who kicks it around for a while. Growing bored, the boy rips off one of the robot’s antennae before discarding it again.
Recurring Characters
Avengers (Goliath, Wasp, Hawkeye, Black Panther), Ultron, Vision, Natasha Romanoff
Continuity Notes
Hank does eventually propose to Janet and they get married shortly after this. See Avengers #59-60.
Following a mission with SHIELD that lasted from Avengers #38 through 44, Natasha decided to retire after getting shot.
This story says T’Challa’s idea will be revealed in a few issues. It’s actually a lot longer than that. They are referring to Avengers #77 when he becomes a school teacher under the alias of Luke Charles. Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes (vol. 2) #2 reveals that the Black Panther started teaching students in Harlem much earlier than Avengers #77.
The Avengers previously battled Ultron who brainwashed Jarvis, the Avengers butler, into betraying them to the Masters of Evil. See Avengers #54-55. It states here that Jarvis was unable to remember the location of Ultron’s lair because a hypnotic mental block was put in place.
The Vision’s origins are quite complicated. As it turns out, he started his life off as the android Human Torch from World War II. Even more confusing, Immortus created a temporal split so one Torch became two. One went on to continue his career at a much later date, the other was recycled into the Vision. His original memories were overwritten by the brain patterns of Simon Williams, aka Wonder Man. For more on all of this see Avengers #58, 134-135, and Avengers Forever #6 & 8.
It’s later revealed in Avengers (vol. 3) #21 that Ultron was inspired to use Wonder Man’s brain engrams after assisting Eric Williams in becoming the Grim Reaper to avenge his brother’s “death”. The Reaper went after the Avengers in issue #52, but Ultron’s involvement in his origin isn’t revealed until Avengers #161.
This is not the last we see of Ultron. He will rebuild his body and terrorize the Avengers anew in Avengers #66-68.
Topical References
Dated pop-culture references: Andy Warhol
