The Vision has never had a perfect figure, but this is as close as he’s come to getting one.
The Vision is a synthezoid originally created by Ultron, using the brain pattern of Wonder Man and the body of the first Human Torch. Ultron built the Vision in order to destroy the Avengers, although, by some combination of Wonder Man’s brain pattern and Vision’s own humanity, he betrayed his father and joined the group he was meant to destroy. Vision’s life has not gotten any easier nor any simpler in the time since his creation; he married Scarlet Witch, divorced Scarlet Witch, died multiple times, and most recently created his own family from scratch. Vision’s costume in this 3-pack has roots in Uncanny Avengers and The Vision (the book in which Vision creates his own family from scratch). This costume selection has been a point of contention for Marvel Legends fans, as they are rightly clamoring for an update to Vision’s classic garb. Having read (and loved) every issue of Tom King’s The Vision series, this is more positive than negative for me.
The figure itself is my personal favorite Vision to date, though there is certainly some room for improvement. Other than a new cape and head, the figure is all Bucky Cap. The articulation is standard for the Bucky Cap body: the head can look up, down, and side-to-side, he has ball-jointed shoulders, bicep rotation, double-jointed elbows, swivel-and-hinge wrists, an ab crunch, waist swivel, T-joined hips, thigh swivel, double-jointed knees, calf swivel, hinged ankles, and ankle rockers. The new head is almost as standard as the articulation, as it features that determined grimace that you often see in Marvel Legends these days. The lime-green cape fits nicely around Vision’s neck and shoulders, but it is still either too long or too stiff to work in crouching poses. Because soft goods are typically disastrous in this scale, Hasbro may have to consider making their capes from a rubberized material. ToyBiz had a fair amount of success using rubber capes on figures like Sentry. (Vision’s cape doesn’t limit him as much as you’d expect. Instead, the pose below was a result of my girlfriend getting in on the action.)
One of Hasbro’s biggest challenges of late has been selecting which colors to mold the figure in, and which colors to paint over that plastic. They’ve met this challenge with a varying degree of success, and Vision is a microcosm of that varying degree of success. The paint flaws are more evident in the photos than they are in person, but Vision is a damning example of the difference between the paint quality on a $50 figure and a $20 figure. Vision has mismatched paint (thanks to the aforementioned plastic mold color problem), paint rub, paint bleed, and uneven lines. Attempting a complex design like this was never the best idea for a mass market toy line, but as I said before, it’s more noticeable in the photos and easy to ignore unless you’re examining the figure.
In the end, I do recommend the figure, the 3-pack, and The Vision comic that helped inspire it. The paint application is rough around the edges, and Hasbro may have a classic Vision up their sleeves for future release, but in the meantime, this is the best Vision figure ever made.
