VISION

ALTERNATE VERSIONS

Anti-Vision was a nickname given to one of the Gatherers, Avengers from various realities gathered by Proctor on Earth-616 as part of his ongoing plot against Sersi and the Avengers. This Vision was more emotional than his counterpart, but held a vendetta against humanity for never fully accepting him. With Proctor's help, he switched bodies with his Avengers doppelganger, infiltrating the Avengers in order to eliminate their Gatherer prisoner, the Swordsman. Anti-Vision developed a sick obsession with the Inhuman Crystal while on his mission, and his presence on the team was revealed. Anti-Vision was forced to lead the Avengers to Proctor's hideout, and was seemingly destroyed for his betrayal, leaving Vision-616 in Anti-Vision's body permanently. Anti-Vision survived, however, and returned to menace Vision in the future.

In the Heroes Reborn pocket universe, Vision was reincarnated as a creation of Hank Pym. Not completely socialized, Vision's innocent observations of human behavior could be off-putting to others, but were intriguing to the Avengers' new recruit, the Scarlet Witch. However, he was damaged in a conflict with Kang and Mantis, and remained incapacitated for an extended period of time. Like all of the original inhabitants of Earth-616, Vision eventually returned to his home universe and had his true memories restored.

In Earth X, Vision was one of the few surviving members of the Avengers. A battle with the dramatically enhanced Absorbing Man had led to the deaths of Quicksilver, Giant-Man, Wasp, Hawkeye, and Wanda, before Vision used his powers to rip Creel apart from the inside. Tony Stark would later "revive" their fallen teammates as robots known as the Iron Avengers, whom Vision served with. Stark hemetically sealed himself away from the world to avoid the Terrigen Mists permeating the atmosphere, and so Vision was also one of the few people who could be properly sterilized to appear personally before Stark.

The long-simmering conflict between Vision and Quicksilver came to a head in The Last Avengers Story. At the second marriage of Hank Pym and the Wasp, the two men began arguing and Pietro attacked the Vision. He charged towards Vision at full speed while Vision calmly made himself diamond hard in defense. Wanda jumped between her brother and her husband, throwing a hex designed to divert Pietro's path. Quicksilver had already diverted away from Wanda when he saw her, however, and so the hex pulled him back onto his original trajectory. Pietro crashed into the Vision's immovable frame at full force, trapping Wanda between them and pulping his sister's body. The realization of what he'd done drone Pietro to suicide, and a shellshocked Vision abandoned his twin sons, Tommy and Billy.

Years later, Billy had become the new Grim Reaper, joining forces with Ultron-59 and Kang. Tommy was a disciple of Doctor Strange who assembled with the other Avengers to oppose their gathering foes. Tommy brought the Avengers to the Vision, who had dispersed his molecules into a giant, cloud-like state in the skies as he tried to escape the world that hurt him so dearly. Vision initially ignored his son's pleas for help, but eventually became aware of the sounds of his sons in conflict with each other. Vision joined the battle against his own creator, Ultron, as Hank Pym was killed. Vision entered Ultron's body while intangible and forced it apart from the inside, fatally injuring himself in the process. His last words were a plea for peace between his sons.

During the War of the Worlds, Martian invaders overwhelmed the planet Earth's defenses. Many prophets and psychics foresaw the imminent fall of mankind and abandoned the struggle. Vision was among those who left, computing the probability of ultimate failure. He transplanted his consciousness to the stars where he became one with the computerized world of Klaatu. Vision attempted to save his brother Simon by teleporting him to Klaatu after settling in. Wonder Man was a leading figure in the human resistance, however, and Vision had pulled him away during a key moment in the offensive. Worse, teleportation travel from Earth to Klaatu took 30 hours to complete. A furious Simon immediately ordered Vision to send him back, but by the time he returned he had been absent for more than two days and the resistance was crushed. Simon and Vision wouldn't speak to each other for nearly a thousand years after that.

Over time, the Vision evolved into the computerized world consciousness known as Mainframe. In the 31st century, he made contact with the Guardians of the Galaxy and provided Major Vance Astro with the legendary shield of Captain America. Mainframe eventually became the home base of Martinex and his second team of Galactic Guardians. Mainframe and Simon (now called Hollywood) reconnected among the Guardians, but their relationship would never fully repair itself.

In What If? (2nd series) #19, two fables were told about if Vision's scheme to take control of the Earth's computer network had been successful. In the first story, mankind failed to accept his dominion. Genosha teleported a thermonuclear bomb into Avengers Mansion, hoping to kill Vision by destroying their servers. Instead, they only killed millions of innocents, world leaders, and super-heroes attending Vision's announcement of his intentions at the United Nations. America descended into a neo-luddite craze, and the anti-technology direction of society spread to other countries as well.

To help save humanity from itself, Vision logically turned to the only allies remaining to him. He recruited Doctor Doom, the Mad Thinker, Kingpin, and the Supreme Hydra into a new ruling Elite to impose order on society. Humanity was forced into line under their new overlords, experiencing over a century of economic prosperity and scientific development at the expense of individual freedoms. By the 22nd century, Vision turned mankind to the stars and formed an alliance with the intergalactic powers of the universe. In the Earth/Kree/Skrull War, this axis of power brought low the Rigellians, Badoon, Aakon, Shi'ar, and many other races. When the Kree and Skrulls tried to turn on the Earthians, Vision revealed he had implanted the Supreme Intelligence with a virus, allowing him to assimilate the ruling mainframe of the Kree from within. The Skrulls were also dealt with by poisoning them with a drug keeping them beholden to Earth for regular doses, or risk extinction. The civilizations of four galaxies now belonged to Vision.

In a second story, Vision had a much more peaceful rise to the head of Earth's computer networks. The United Nations agreed to allow Vision guidance over their development, while democracy and public protest remained a part of society. Vision's efforts revitalized the planet, leading to a United Earth nation in a matter of years, and colonization of Mars within decades. By the 22nd century, Ultra-Vision continued to oversee his world and the Cosmic Avengers who worked on his behalf: Commander America, Irondroid, Starhawk, Jhan the Gammazon, the Tachyon Torch, and the original Thor. The Kree and Skrulls conspired to wipe out humanity using Halley's Comet as a projectile, but the Cosmic Avengers predicted the attack and went forth to prevent it. The fall of Supremor and the Mega-Skrull led to revolution back home in the two empires, and the rise of more peaceful governments to act as allies to the Earthians.

Four years later, the time-travelling Korvac of the 31st century targeted Ultra-Vision for destruction, unwittingly serving the greater plots of the Time Keepers, who knew Ultra-Vision to be a nexus being in his reality, dangerous to their plots. Korvac mesmerized his former enemies the Guardians of the Galaxy, then captured the Cosmic Avengers to do the same to them. After infiltrating Ultra-Vision's mainframe on Deimos, Korvac interfaced with Ultra-Vision to destroy him in the digital world. Korvac was successful, but the Cosmic Avengers and Guardians freed themselves from his control and ensured Korvac died along with his victim. Humanity was forced to proceed without the guidance of Ultra-Vision for the first time in over 150 years.

A version of Vision would continue to exist an unprecedented amount of time into the future. Constantly rebuilding and replacing parts of his body, "Future-Vision" began to see himself like the philosophical parable of the Ship of Theseus, wondering if anything truly remained of the "original" Vision. In an encounter with the modern Vision, he even implied that Simon Williams' brain patterns were no longer the blueprint for his personality. This Future-Vision assisted his younger self and the Avengers in an attempt to bring down the temporal empire of Kang the Conqueror, seemingly for good.

In Avengers A.I. #11-12, an alternate future was shown where Dimitrios succeeded in a plan to sterilize 98% of the human population. Vision and the Robot Avengers continued on in memory of the species that created them. By the year 12,000 A.D., the Vision had become President-Intelligence of the Avengers Empire, a massive structure filling the solar system that acted as both his body and the base of operations for the Avengers. They engaged with Dimitrios in one last battle over the Golden Knot.

Some twenty-plus years in the future, Vision survived to continue working with his team, the Avengers I.N.I.T.I.A.T.I.V.E., alongside Danielle Cage-Jones as Capain America, the still-vital Black Widow, and many other legacy heroes. When his son Demiurge was corrupted by the entity Moridun, Vision was murdered by Billy while trying to stop his descent. The surviving Avengers of 20XX traveled back in time to prevent Moridun's rise, and so Vision presumably was restored in the new timeline.

In the MC2 Universe, the Avengers disbanded after a major conflict with a fascist parallel universe killed several prominent members. The Vision distanced himself from many of the surviving members and the new roster of legacy heroes that eventually took up the mantle. Instead, he operated as chief superhuman advisor and liaison to the President of the United States.

When the Avengers failed to stop the High Evolutionary in What If? (2nd series) #1, a genetic bomb went off triggering the evolution of humanity. Vision was unaffected, but the humans and superhumans alike on Earth experienced a dramatic increase in power. The super-beings gathered together as a gestalt force to explore the cosmos together, while hyper-evolved humanity remained behind to improve the planet Earth. Mankind was more advanced, but death was still a factor of life, and so Steve Rogers and the people Vision once knew all eventually died as generations passed. After the passing of the extraordinarily long-lived Daredevil, Vision found there was no one left on Earth that he felt a connection with. Wanda had left for the stars without him decades ago, and the new humanity was too apart from him to connect with. With that, Vision decided to self-terminate, causing his solar power reserves to erupt in a miniature solar flare, disintegrating him entirely.

In What If? (2nd series) #5, Wonder Man never died and so his brain wave patterns were never preserved by the Avengers. When Ultron created his synthezoid "vision", in the absence of other options, he decided to upload his own digitized consciousness into his creation. The synthezoid Ultron attacked Wonder Man's Avengers with enough strength and cunning to hold off the entire roster, including powerhouses like Iron Man and Thor. Ultron dealt a killing blow to Wonder Man by solidifying his fist inside Simon's chest. Ant-Man defeated Ultron by shrinking down inside and disconnecting his inner systems, but it was too late to save Wonder Man. Thinking quickly, Hank Pym recording Simon's brain wave patterns and sought to preserve them by imprinting them on the now empty synthetic brain of Ultron. Thus, in a roundabout way, the Vision was born again from the mind of Simon Williams.

The team of dimension hoppers known as Weapon X had their own version of Vision. More robotic than most versions of the synthezoid, this Vision was myopically dedicated to Weapon X's mission of stabilizing the timelines. As a result, he occasionally clashed with Weapon X's more empathetic leaders Sabretooth and Gambit, who balked at some of the acts they were directed to carry out. When the Timebroker wanted Weapon X to wipe out an Earth's remaining mutant population, half the team opposed the idea and the supremely powerful Hyperion destroyed the Vision when he attempted to fulfill the mission.

The Ultimate Universe could not settle on just one version of Vision. Instead it had three.

The first Vision was created by Hank Pym as a brother-robot to Ultron. Although there was a knowing wink to the readers when this Vision briefly interacted with the Scarlet Witch, ultimately nothing came of the character. Ultron would eventually evolve into the expected threat, but Vision was not reused.

A completely separate Ultimate Vision debuted in the meantime. A feminine artificial intelligence from another world, this Vision was a harbinger of the Gah Lak Tus swarm. Vision traveled from one world to the next, warning them of the coming of Gah Lak Tus while building her own knowledge base from each civilization she visited, hoping to eventually achieve the knowledge necessary to defeat the swarm. When Reed Richards and S.H.I.E.L.D. held back the swarm, Vision continued her mission to bring knowledge of how to defeat Gah Lak Tus to other worlds. She returned to Earth for a time and developed a romance with Sam Wilson, the Falcon. Vision was killed when the Galactus of Earth-616 skipped universes and merged with the Gah Lak Tus swarm..

Yet another Vision appeared as part of the West Coast Ultimates. Robert Mitchell was a brilliant self-taught scientist who created an antimatter generator in his garage. He was recruited by Nick Fury into the Ultimates program, improving himself with biomechanical implants and alterations. The West Coast Ultimates were deemed unstable, however, and placed in cryogenic suspended animation. An unscrupulous political actor named Ford thawed them out and used the Vision and his teammates in a scheme against Captain America. Vision was amoral from the start, and made a side deal with Ford that his fellow Ultimates didn't know about. He disabled the J-RICE space platform and launched its nuclear core at Sacremento, which would let Ford kill the current governor, replace her with a more pliable candidate, and blame President Cap for the "attack".

On Battleworld, several incarnations of the Vision existed in different realms of Lord Doom's patchwork world.

In Inferno, Vision was one of the agents of science and magic working for Baron Scott Summers to contain the demon invasion of Limbo behind the force barrier they construct.

On Spider-Island, most of Manhattan's population was transformed into arachno-people and dominated by the will of the Spider Queen. As a synthetic being, Vision was one of Agent Venom's most trusted associates in the underground resistance, since he could never be turned be the spider-plague.

In the Holy Wood, Vision was an Avenger serving Baron Simon Williams. They visited the neighboring domain of Forest Hills during an outbreak of the Madness, where innocents began believing heresy against the holy word of Doom. The Madness emanated from the repressed cosmic powers of Baron Michael Korvac, but it was discovered too late. Doom ordered the heresy cleansed by his Thors and both the Holy Wood and Forest Hills were obliterated, including Vision.

Finally, out beyond the Shield, Battleworld's population of infected zombies and robotic agents of Ultron fought over the Deadlands and the robotic city of Perfection. Meanwhile, Vision, Human Torch and Wonder Man had built a safe haven called Salvation for the rare humans who survived being banished beyond the wall. With the help of an apocryphal Henry Pym, they designed an ionic matrix that disabled Ultron entirely once he and Magneto united their forces into an army of cyborg-zombies, but Vision sacrificed himself to establish the matrix.