Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
“In late September, with the leaves just beginning to hint at the fall to come, the Visions of Virginia moved into their house at 616 Hickory Branch Lane, Arlington, VA, 21301.”
Volume one of The Vision: Little Worse Than A Man by Tom King (writer), Gabriel Hernández Walta (artist), and Jordie Bellaire (colorist) follows comic-book hero Vision, a member of the Avengers, as he tries to live like an ‘ordinary’ human by creating a Synthezoid wife, Virginia, and twin children, Viv and Vin. But because they aren’t really human, the existential crises faced by Vision’s family carry far more dangerous consequences than when a “normal” person begins to question their place in the world.
While I wasn’t sure what to expect from this volume of ‘The Vision’…. it was definitely not the dark, depressing, tragic mess it serves up. The happy family of Synthezoids featured in the cover is pure deception. Which is fine, covers are allowed to be deceptive, but the comic was overtly wordy. The rare pages with fewer words stood out best courtesy the artwork.
So, yes, the artwork is quite fantastic, although unlike the illustrations in the cover, the characters have creepier eyes: stark white eyelids, surrounded by thick kohl-black lines, making them seem more ghostly than android. This of-course lends the comic a horror-tinged atmosphere, foreshadowing its dark themes, even if the first few pages show them receiving cookies from their neighbors and the kids getting friendly with other kids. The prejudice, fear, and hate the invite from the humans, is a core theme of the comic.
“For a moment, as she listened to her family argue and laugh, Virginia felt content. She belonged here. They belonged here. Everything in the end would be good. This moment lasted 1.72 seconds.”
This is a paradoxical story, where even though the primary characters are Synthezoidas, their daily battles are quite human-like. For instance, Virginia almost feels like a ‘regular’ housewife, yes, she has special powers, but her mental health is mostly in tatters through the tale, she feels ignored by her husband (usually busy fighting with the Avengers), is lonely, lost, and depressed.
The twins – Viv and Vin – on the other hands are childlike in their nature, enjoying debating and playing with each other. Unfortunately, the twins’ high-school life is quickly cut-short by a shocking turn of events, depriving readers of a section that could’ve been truly fun. For a Marvel comic, this tale thrives on its strange family drama, with just a little sprinkling of action, violence, and deaths. It seems the Vision’s dreams of living an ordinary life might mean doomsday for earth.
Virginia stands out in this volume, struggling to fulfill her role as the ‘mother’, and keeping her family safe from outsiders. Although, the second-half of the volume starts to have glaring plot holes. But right from the start, we as readers are expected to suspends most logic in order to enjoy this bizarre tale of a family of androids fitting into a suburban American life.
Rating: 3 on 5. The Vision is also on Kindle Unlimited.
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