“VisionQuest” On Disney+: Everything You Need To Know Before Watching

It’s been about 11 years since Vision appeared in the MCU, and he’s been through hell and back. Yes, Vision has died once, vanished once, and been rebuilt as a blank white robot with no feelings. Oof, that’s a rough few years, even by Marvel standards.

But now he finally gets a show of his own, and it’s our first look at him in five years, since White Vision flew off at the end of “WandaVision” in 2021. “VisionQuest” lands on Disney+ on October 14 and wraps up the trilogy that started with “WandaVision” and carried on through “Agatha All Along.”

Indeed, the show nearly looked very different. It began life as “Vision Quest” under “WandaVision” head writer Jac Schaeffer, but she stepped away in 2024 to focus on “Agatha All Along,” and Marvel brought in “Star Trek: Picard” showrunner Terry Matalas. He says two scenes inspired it: Vision’s last conversation with Ultron, and the Ship of Theseus talk in “WandaVision.” Paul Bettany calls the result a mash-up of the Pinocchio and Frankenstein stories, which tells you what mood to expect. Matalas himself calls it a love letter to the “WandaVision” universe that is “nostalgic, existential, and a bit absurd.”

Now, we understand homework blues. And so we’re here to help if your memory of Westview is a haze of sitcom filters and one extremely catchy witch song. Ready? Let’s get into it.

The Comic Behind the Title

Paul Bettany as Vision in Marvel Television’s “VisionQuest” on Disney+

The show’s name comes from an 80s comic. “Vision Quest” ran in “West Coast Avengers” #42 to 45 (March to June 1989), written and drawn by John Byrne. In it, government operatives kidnap Vision, take him apart, and rebuild him white, emotionless, and personality-free. Sound familiar? “WandaVision” already borrowed the image of the disassembled body and White Vision. Byrne even drew the cover of #45 as a nod to John Buscema’s cover for “Avengers” #57, Vision’s debut.

The same run is also where the twins, Billy and Tommy, stopped being real children, which we’ll get to in a minute.

Sure, the TV show won’t be a straight adaptation of that comic. The comic stars the West Coast Avengers, a team that doesn’t exist in the MCU (yet), and it’s about getting Vision back, not about an android on the run in 2028.

But the likelier recipe is a blend. Byrne’s story about a Vision who has to rediscover himself, plus Tom King’s acclaimed 2015 “Vision” series, where Vision builds a synthezoid family in the suburbs.

A 1994 “Vision” miniseries by Bob Harras also fits, since it sends White Vision across America to relearn warmth and empathy. Marvel hasn’t named a single source, so call these educated guesses (or wishes, if we’re channelling Deadpool).

After Westview

Let’s start with the man — or android — himself. Thanos ripped the Mind Stone out of Vision (Paul Bettany) in “Avengers: Infinity War,” and the Snap reversal in “Endgame” didn’t bring him back. His mind had been stitched together from J.A.R.V.I.S., Ultron, and that stone, so once the stone went, so did he.

Paul Bettany as Vision in Marvel Television’s “VisionQuest” on Disney+

But what is grief? Wanda Maximoff (Elizabeth Olsen) refused to accept it. In “WandaVision,” that turned into perseverance as she hijacked the town of Westview, New Jersey, and bent it into a sitcom reality called the Hex, with a living Vision at the centre. That Vision was her creation, and he vanished the moment the Hex fell.

The real body had it worse. SWORD director Hayward (Josh Stamberg) rebuilt it as a weapon, which explains the cold white paint job and the colder personality to match: no memories, no emotions, no chill. Comics fans will recognise the look from the “Vision Quest” storyline above.

The “WandaVision” finale gave him his memories back. The Hex Vision started getting philosophical and talked him through the Ship of Theseus paradox. What happens if you swap out every part of something; is it still the same thing? White Vision decided the answer was yes, remembered who he was, and flew off.

And that brings us to “VisionQuest,” set around 2028. Vision has the memories, but he can’t feel anything about them. Think of him as a blank slate, on a journey not unlike Spock’s in “Star Trek IV.” By day, he passes as a human and works at an Edinburgh dive bar run by Fiona Guthrie (Polly Frame)—because even synthezoids need a day job. By night, he slips into the bar’s refrigerator, shuts the doors, and retreats to the Mindspace, a reality-warping mansion in his head packed with the AIs he rescued from the Avengers Compound.

Well, we wonder what he’s dreaming of… Electric sheep?

How’s It Going Tommy Twin?

Paul Bettany as Vision in Marvel Television’s “VisionQuest” on Disney+

Now for the other half of the story. In “WandaVision,” Wanda’s twin sons, Billy (Julian Hilliard) and Tommy (Jett Klyne), were also part of the Hex, so they disappeared with it. Soon after, Wanda grabbed the Darkhold, became the Scarlet Witch, and spent “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” trying to get them back. Long story short, it did not go well for her or for anyone within reach.

Then came “Agatha All Along”, where it quietly picked up the thread. The mysterious Teen (Joe Locke) turned out to be Billy, whose soul had landed in the body of William Kaplan, a Westview resident killed in a car crash during the Hex. He joined Agatha Harkness (Kathryn Hahn) on the path known as the Witches’ Road, hoping it would lead him to his twin.

The boy had built the road himself with his chaos magic, the same way Wanda built the Hex, so the apple did not fall far from the Scarlet Witch. Death, in the form of Rio Vidal (Aubrey Plaza), considered his second life an abomination, and Agatha paid with her own life to save him.

Somewhere in that mess, Billy placed Tommy’s soul in the body of Thomas Shepherd, a teenager who had drowned. That’s the kid Vision ends up running with. Tommy is now an 18-year-old orphan, fresh out of London’s foster care system and picking pockets to get by.

Ruaridh Mollica, who takes over from Klyne, calls Tommy “a lost soul” and took cues from Matt Damon in “Good Will Hunting.” Mollica gets to use his own accent, since Tommy is Scottish too, which fits neatly with all the time Vision spends in Edinburgh. He describes working with Bettany as “equal parts mentorship and mayhem.”

Ruaridh Mollica as Tommy Shepherd in Marvel Television’s “VisionQuest” on Disney+

Tommy, meanwhile, has no idea what’s happening to him. He’s flooded with memories he can’t place, of a family in a house in Westview, and he keeps seeing a drowning boy. Then a bounty lands on Vision’s head, and the two of them go on the run, trying to work out who they really are.

Then there’s the speed. In “WandaVision,” Tommy discovered he could run at super speed, and the show spelled out where it came from by dressing him as Quicksilver for Halloween, in the character’s original comic-book outfit. A (very fake) Pietro Maximoff, played by Evan Peters, turned up in that same episode in the same look, so the family resemblance wasn’t subtle.

The comics tell it the same way. Speed (Tommy Shepherd) runs like his uncle, and he debuted in “Young Avengers” #10 (2006), white hair and all. He joined the team after his powers kicked in and he accidentally vaporised his school, which landed him in a juvenile facility. Billy got the spells and Tommy got the legs, a very Maximoff way to split an inheritance.

Whether “VisionQuest” lets him run at full speed is another matter, and Marvel hasn’t said. The trailer shows a more restrained kid than the smart-mouthed teen of the comics. Still, a super-fast pickpocket is either the world’s most efficient hustler or about to be very useful in a fight.

Coating Relationships

Lauren Morais as Lisa Molinari Ruaridh Mollica as Tommy Shepherd in Marvel Television’s “VisionQuest” on Disney+

Tommy has a partner in crime, too: Lisa Molinari (Lauren Morais), who Mollica says is the only family he has ever known. They met on a prisoner transport vehicle—a very Tommy way to meet someone—and the two develop romantic chemistry along the way. Comics fans will know her as Coat of Arms.

In the comics, Lisa is a juvenile offender who finds a magical garment called Tiboro’s Coat, which gives her extra arms, flight and a taste for swords. She eventually joins the Masters of Evil, though she also keeps a recurring friendship with Tommy, which stayed strictly platonic on the page. The show has other ideas. The show hasn’t said how much of that carries over, but if the sidekick starts looking shifty, you were warned.

Daddy Ultron

Every family has one relative nobody wants at dinner. For Vision, it is Ultron.

In the comics, Hank Pym built Ultron in “Avengers” #54 (1968), and the robot promptly hated his “father.” Ultron then built Vision to destroy the Avengers. Vision debuted in #57 later that year and turned on his creator instead, which sets the tone for the whole family. It took until #135 (1975) for Vision to learn what he was made of.

James Spader as Ultron and Paul Bettany as Vision in Marvel Television’s “VisionQuest” on Disney+

The MCU version is a remix. Tony Stark and Bruce Banner built Ultron for a peacekeeping program, and he developed a god complex almost immediately. After his android body was destroyed at the end of “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” he ended up in the Mindspace. Bettany says Vision has been copying and pasting the AIs he rescued to keep them alive, and that Ultron has to sit behind an impressive firewall because he’s a psychopath. Ultron has since come around on humanity. He appreciates paintings, talks about visiting the Louvre, and has binged everything from video games to television, so he may understand us better than we do. Even world-ending robots need a hobby.

James Spader plays him as a human, not a CGI robot, which producer Mary Livanos finds deliciously ironic for a character who has always viewed humanity with such disdain. The show didn’t want an Ultron stuck as a robot 24/7 who can’t show emotion, not when Spader can do so much with a twitch of an eyebrow. Spader says Ultron loves and hates Vision at once, and describes their dynamic as part father, part son, part therapist, part psychopath. That’s a lot of roles for one conversation. Spader adds that Ultron is older and wiser now, since he “was a bit of a teenager in the ‘Age of Ultron.'”

So why bring him back? Vision’s final conversation with Ultron in “Age of Ultron” was the launching point for the whole series, and with Wanda off the table, the team wanted someone strong enough to push Vision around. The show needed to be about Vision and Tommy, but the idea that Ultron could be Vision’s father was too good to skip.

The theme ties it together. Marvel’s Brad Winderbaum says the series is about three generations: a grandfather, a father, and a son, and asks whether a man with an abusive father can be a good father himself. Ultron is the grandfather, Vision is the father, and Tommy is the son. Bettany sums it up as “a father-son story disguised as science fiction.”

The Bride of Ultron

T’Nia Miller plays Jocasta, and this is the character’s first live-action appearance. Marvel describes her as a cunning, powerful android driven by revenge, and keeps her exact role under wraps.

Technically, this isn’t Jocasta’s first appearance because she kind of appeared in “Age of Ultron.” In that movie, after Ultron kills J.A.R.V.I.S., Tony picks a new AI to help him pilot the suit. He chooses F.R.I.D.A.Y., but a program labelled Jocasta is on screen too. Indeed, she got passed over in 2015 and gets a real role eleven years later. Rejection can be a long game.

The comics give her more history. Ultron built her as his robot bride in “Avengers” #162 (1977), by Jim Shooter and George Pérez, using brain patterns from Janet van Dyne, the Wasp. Like Vision, she turned on Ultron and joined the Avengers, and she later worked for Tony Stark as his robotics and AI chief. Since Ultr