Filed under: Exquisite Reviews | Tags: Gabriel Hernandez Walta, Jordie Bellaire, Marvel, The Vision, Tom King, VC's Clayton Cowles
Written by Tom King
Art by Gabriel Hernandez Walta
Colour art by Jordie Bellaire
Letters & Production by VC’s Clayton Cowles
Published by Marvel
£2.85
The Vision has taken a job at the White House. The Vision has built a family. The Vision has decided to experiment with being human.
The Vision may soon regret that decision.
This is CHILLING. From the opening, precise narration to the final panels, King has done something unprecented. His script folds the most science fictional Avenger of them all into an American Beauty-esque look at what happens to families who have it all and how little that matters. This is the classic American novel, filled with aspiration and ambition and emotional disconnection and robotic children. It’s brilliant and weird and terrifying.
It also unfolds with the calm of a live dissection. We meet the Visions, their neighbours and get a sense of what’s coming. We also see them try and fit in, and what happens when that choice clashes with their fundamental programming. Virginia, the Vision’s wife is incapable of not learning and her functional imprisonment at home not really doing anything is already starting to chafe. His kids bicker and fight with strength that could destroy houses while wondering if they’re normal and knowing they aren’t.
And, like every panicked, beaten down father in history, the Vision just keeps working and hopes it all goes away.
It’s clever, subtle, measured and horrifying stuff. And Hernandez Walta’s art shows you everything. There’s feral, desperate emotion bubbling up in all four Visions and when it breaks out it’ll be savage. As a result every page is clenched tight with threat and the naturalistic, bright colour choices made by Bellaire only heighten that. Likewise Cowles’ lettering delivers the overarching narration especially well and ratchets the tension further.
This is an astounding, bizarre debut and a book you absolutely need to read. Unsettling, tragic and unputdownable.
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