We continue our tour through the alphabet, with a different cool comic book item each day, from A to Z!
Here's an archive of A-T.
Today we look at a classic member of the Avengers.
Through 200 issues of the Avengers, since it was a team book starring various characters, many of whom who had their own book, the book really wasn't "about" anyone in particular.
However, if you had to pick one character that the series was "about," it would definitely be the Vision.
He was the third significant member of the Avengers to make his debut IN the pages of the Avengers (Wonder Man being the first and Dane Whitman being the second)...
The Vision was an android created by Ultron, based on the brain patterns of Wonder Man, who was thought dead at the time.
Vision could change his density (making himself intangible then as tough as diamond), he was strong, he could fly and he could shoot heat beams from his eyes. Upon joining the Avengers, he was almost instantly one of their most powerful members.
Part of the fun in following Vision was seeing him grow as a "person."
As a sign of his importance to the book, with #93, he was given the corner box, which is usually where the picture of a book's star goes...
Neal Adams did some awesome work with the Vision...
A major part of the Vision's popularity was also his burgeoning relationship with his teammate, the Scarlet Witch.
The Vision continued on as a valuable member of the team...
He and the Scarlet Witch married...
He had the corner box for so long that they even changed it to show him in a DIFFERENT pose!
He was one of the few Avengers left standing against Count Nefaria...
But as the book neared #200, his role in the book diminished a bit...
And soon after #200, he and the Scarlet Witch left the title.
They had their own mini-series (where Magneto reveals himself to be Scarlet Witch's father).
And then, after helping the Avengers out, the Vision was incapacitated for a time, and when he came back...
He took over control of the Avengers and started an insane plan to take over the world (for its own good, of course)...
The Avengers saved him (and his sanity) and he and the Scarlet Witch more or less retired to become parents, which they did in their second mini-series.
It involved magical sperm.
They returned to the Avengers, this time the West Coast team.
Sadly, the governments of the world held a grudge over that whole "trying to take over the world" thing, so they kidnapped him...
dismantled him...
And by the time they got him back, it was like tabula rasa (this was aided by the now living Wonder Man being all, "Hell no, I'm not letting you copy my brain again!")...
The Scarlet Witch did not take it well...
The newly blank Vision joined the East Coast Avengers...
There, he slowly regained his humanity (here he is kissing the lady who was married to the man his current brain pattern was based on)
He also got his own foil embossed cover!!
And a new costume...
Kurt Busiek brought him back to his old look, and some familiar territory (Scarlet Witch love triangle, sorta)...
He had two mini-series of his own...
Then Bendis had him destroyed in Avengers #500.
A NEW Vision (of sorts) showed up in Young Avengers...
This new Vision is dating his teammate Stature and is part of the newly formed Mighty Avengers...
Quite a history the Vision has, huh?
I'd like to see the original one return! The new one can stay, too - he can be like a junior version of the Vision (he'd need a new name, though, of course).