Eric Bradach's The Comixalaxy

Vision #10
Writer: Tom King
Artist: Gabriel Hernandez Walta
Colorist: Jordie Bellaire
Letterer: Clayton Cowles
Publisher: Marvel
Release Date: 08/17/2016

When one of the founding members of the Avengers, Hank Pym, aka Ant-Man, created the android Ultron, he unintentionally created the premier Marvel super-team's quintessential villain. Ultron in turn, created what he called a synthezoid named Vision. With the sole purpose of destroying the Avengers. However the Vision turned on his father and became a hero, joining the ones he'd been created to destroy, eventually marrying one of them, Wanda Maximoff.

However, the relationship didn't last and the Vision became more determined to become human than ever before. He then created his own family of androids and moved to the quiet suburbs of Washington D.C. Unfortunately, things didn't work out as planned. As his wife Virginia was forced to kill an intruder in order to protect her family, burying the body in the backyard and keeping it hidden from her husband. When Vision discovered of the altercation, he made the choice to keep the secret and protect his family, hoping to appear normal.

Afterwords, Vision's brother Victor Mancha came to stay with them, under the cover of in need of a place to stay for his studies. When in actuality, he was recruited by the Avengers to gather intel on his brother's family. This was due to Agatha Harkness's warning to them about Vision: "He will kill you. He will kill your families. He will raze the world." Vision's son Vin, unearthed Victor's motives and was killed by his uncle. Creating a causality effect, setting Vision on the road that Agatha had foreseen.

The title of the book is The Vision but the real star of this series is writer Tom King. Just by the amount of riveting storytelling he is able to create with its premise. This is a comic book issue entirely about a family of androids in their suburban home of Washington DC and talking. King was not only able to make that compelling, but filled it with emotional depth and drama throughout the pages.

It's pretty incredible how King can get so much emotion from a fictional character, a fictional android character non the less. In what is undoubtably the utmost dramatic scene of the series, Vision plays a visual file of a time Vin is longing for his father's attention. While he tries to read his father a line from a book that he's enthralled with, Vision doesn't return the affection, being busy with a call with the Avengers.

He's also able to create scenes with his other family members as well, all bearing the grief of their lost loved one. Creating more and more questions and causing the reader to ponder, just how close to human these "artificial" life forms are? King keeps the dialogue to a lesser amount here than normally, setting a perfect stage for the art team to take the helm and truly set the tone of the book.

Artist Gabriel Hernandez Walta is able to capture an abundance of emotion with subtle changes in facial expression. None of it is over the top or overly expressive, making this android family feel all the more real. Each scene has an emotional depth to it thanks to his detailed line work. Colorist Jordie Bellaire puts in a supreme performance this issue with the dark color hues and uncomfortable shadows. Creating an unsettling and troublesome environment that tells you all you need to know about what the characters are going through, without any dialogue, and conveying a sense of doubt for the future.

Final Verdict

This is grievously a book that's being 86'd with the upcoming Marvel NOW 2.0 this fall. With the All New All Different Avengers team disassembling already spoiled, thanks to teasers, this will be an interesting book to keep up with and see whether or not its titled character plays a significant role to that outcome. Fingers are crossed that good stories will come out of this. At the time though, we'll have to make do with this masterpiece of a series we have at the moment. All thanks to a brilliant team that's combined their talents of compelling writing and captivating artwork.

Score: 4.5 out of 5

Read the original review here: https://thecomixalaxy.wordpress.com/2016/08/18/vision-10-review/