Fan Retrospectives: Vision: Part 12: Spring

 

Writer Tom King and artist Gabriel Hernandez Walta created a strange premise for the old-school Avenger Vision. They gave him a family. On paper, Vision with family hijinks sounds ridiculous and cheesy, but instead, it turned out to be a haunting, character-defining master class on comic storytelling. Let's break down 2015's Vision series.

"Spring"

Writer: Tom King

Artist: Gabrielle Hernandez Walta

Color Artist: Jordie Bellaire

Letterer: VC's Clayton Cowles

Review by Eric Lee

Vin and Victor are both dead. Vision's wife Virginia murdered Victor in an attempt to prevent a vengeful Vision from crossing over to the dark side.

We open with Detective Lin- the same detective who interrogated Vision when CK- the teenage classmate of his daughter Viv-was murdered. Another detective is regaling Lin with some random anecdote about someone named "Roger Daneel". 

The name "Roger Daneel" is an homage to a robot detective named R. Daneel Olivaw. He was the star in a number of Isaac Asimov's novels.

Taking the Blame

So Lin gets a call from Virginia who confesses the whole thing to Lin. She was responsible for the murders of Victor, CK, and the Grim Reaper, as well as Mr. Kinzky's comatose state and destroying any incriminating evidence.

However, Virginia embellished and/or lied about some key details, including: burning the Grim Reaper's body and accessing the Vision's central coding- effectively inferring that she is responsible for him lying to the police and fighting the Avengers. This is all an elaborate falsehood. She is covering for the Vision despite the fact that he made an intentional choice to do those things. Essentially, she acquitted Vision of his wrongdoings. 

 But the final piece of Virginia's plan is to accept the blame and then kill herself. She takes a drink from the beautiful, but deadly flying water vase of Zenn-La.

The narration boxes overlays with the sequence of Vision returning back to his home and dressing down into his domestic clothes is a repeat of the narration captions from the opening of issue one. Except now, it is tinged with tragedy and irony, since now we've experienced the Vision family falling apart, Vision almost going to the dark side, and multiple deaths. The narration ends with a line that tells us Vision's motives throughout the entire series:

"They made the compromises that are necessary to raise a family." 

The irony is that writer Tom King listed more domestic types of familial sacrifices, like moving to the suburbs or getting a high-paying and more stable jobs. This is in stark contrasts with the sacrifices that Vision made for his family, like betraying the police's trust or attempting to murder others.

Sacrifices

Virginia made her own sacrifices for her family. She took the fall for Vision's misdeeds and now is killing herself so others do not have any further suspicions on Vision and Viv.

Vision comforts Virginia as she slowly dies. She insists that he must keep her lie alive to give Viv a chance at life- another sacrifice that Vision needs to make for the sake of his family. As her condition deteriorates, she revealed that when she consumed the Everbloom leaf, she saw the Vision would raze the world for his family and murdering Victor Mancha would have been the start. Fortunately, her intervention stopped that future from coming to pass.

Virginia insists her sacrifice was "Nice". Vision says that it was "Kind". This is a callback to their argument in issue one. "Nice" is broad and not specific enough. However, Virginia's actions were more than that, they were also "kind". She made the ultimate sacrifice and shouldered the full responsibility out of love and not any reason.

While the whole series shows multiple instances of both Virginia and Vision making sacrifices for the family, most of them were wrong-headed at best and murderous at worst. But the difference with those sacrifices versus Virginia's ultimate sacrifice is that they don't accept responsibility for their actions. 

When Virginia killed the Grim Reaper in issue one, she decided to cover it up- kicking the can down the road so to speak. But that decision made things progressively worse and worse. However, now Virginia is taking responsibility for her actions, so now all of these problems can end with her.

The real question now is: how much responsibility does Vision actually take on for his decisions? The story is frustratingly oblique about that.

"One Half of Me is Yours..."

We flash-forward a little bit. We reveal that the narrator from issue seven until now has been the Scarlet Witch talking to Viv. She reiterated the whole story to Viv to give her a better understanding of her family's sacrifice. But upon hearing everything that her parents have done to protect Vin and her, Viv feels slightly cynical and confused. She openly questions what is the point of having families at all. It's just an endless string of sacrifice after sacrifice, but it is ultimately nobody benefits from it because they always need to pay down the line by sacrificing their lives for their offspring. To Viv, trying to have a family seems like a fruitless fool's errand.

Wanda responds with a quote from The Merchant of Venice: 

"One half of me is yours, the other half yours--mine own, I would say. But if mine, then yours-and so all yours."

In the play, Portia is expressing her love for her husband Balthazar. As a married couple, half of her life is in essence devoted to Balthazar. On the flip side, half of Bathazar's life is devoted to Portia. However, unconditional love is not a mathematical formula.  In reality, their love means that Balthazar is actually fully "owned" by Portia and vice versa. Their love is not a zero sum game, but actually generates more life and energy when they are together.

Similarly, Wanda uses the Merchant of Venice as a comparison that families are not just an endless string of sacrifices. The sacrifices mean something. It can be hard or brutal, but if a family's sacrifice is through love, then it allows the rest of the members to blossom. And a family's love for each other actually grows beyond the capacity for one individual. Having families are supposed to ultimately help the world grow. It isn't a strict one-to-one transaction. Sacrifices are investments for better futures.

And with that, Wanda gives one more parting gift: Sparky is resurrected and reunited with Viv.

 "I Am Not Normal, Father"

We cut to the epilogue of Vision and Viv going through their morning routine. Vision and Viv debate the inherent ridiculousness of a robot needing a lunch if they don't need to eat. But Viv states that she is not normal, so there is not point to go through the empty motions in an effort to appear normal.

She states how nothing in her life has been normal: "Two months ago, my uncle killed my brother. In response, my mother killed my uncle, then killed herself. And now I am a teenage sythezoid being raised by an Avenger. I am not normal, Father"

Viv's acceptance of her true self is symbolized with her diamond shaped necklace that evokes the Vision's superhero logo on his chest. She is comfortable with her lineage and all the inherent weirdness that comes with it.

What is normal? In the end, there is no such thing as normal. Every family has their own oddball eccentricities.There is no one correct way of raising a family. The best thing to do is to lean into what makes you and your family unique and raise them accordingly.

As Viv leaves for school, Vision goes into the basement to start making a new synthezoid. As he gets to work, he sings "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" to himself. This seems to indicate that he is rebuilding Virginia- since that is her song. On a meta-level, the song is sung in a recursive loop. You can theoretically sing it over and over again with no noticeable end point. Just like the song, Vision seems to be trapped in another cycle of building a family without seemingly learning from his past mistakes.

The title "Spring" seems to indicate optimism to a better life. However, since it is unclear how much responsibility Vision personally holds with his mistakes, Vision seems to be content repeating them. In that sense, "Spring" can also symbolize rebirth. But exactly what kind of rebirth is up to the readers to decide.

Is Vision truly all right? Is his slide to villainy truly over or is still just beginning?

Conclusion

Vision is a dense and layered commentary about family, sacrifice, and normalcy. Everyone struggles to try to fit in, but much of the time, it ends poorly- especially when the more you deviate from your own sense of self. King does a superb job weaving plots together and seeding elements that will eventually pay off in the climax.

Gabriel Hernandez Walta's art was warm and comforting with his textured style. However, it also is in ironic contrasts to King's scripts and dialogue, making the whole experience disconcerting. This series is a modern day masterpiece and a standard to the storytelling potential creators can do with a minor character.

For the previous chapters' analysis, click here.