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The Vision's Loss

It is a sad fact that when a child death occurs many people assume that the mother's loss is paramount and neglect the bereavement of the father. This has certainly been the case with the destruction of Wanda and the Vision's children. Much has been made of Wanda's reaction to losing William and Thomas, including an entire storyline where she became a bitch-princess daughter of Magneto as a result of it. But at the time the Vision had just been reduced to an emotionless lump of plastic and didn't react at all.

That was then.

The Vision has now got his emotions back, and appears to all intents and purposes to be the man he was up to Avengers West Coast #42. So now he has to come to terms with his losses. I suggest that like any father who has lost their children he will undoubtedly be devastated. That he has also lost his wife as well compounds the issue.

The Vision's motivations are therefore very complex at the moment. Firstly, note that he has abandoned using the "human" speech that he adopted after removing the control crystal from his brain in Avengers #254. He can still speak like a human - he did whilst pretending to be possessed by the engrams of his other brain-pattern donor Alex Lipton. He chooses not to.

Second, the Vision seems to have distanced himself from his former attachment to Wanda. We know he still feels for her, and George Pérez has done a good job in showing us things that the text does not point out. Just look at who the characters are looking at in the background behind the main action. But this Vision has decided that Wanda needs someone "better for her". Simon's return and Wanda's former attraction for him make him the ideal candidate for the Vision to "pass" Wanda on to. Why? Guilt that he did not better protect his family? Fear that getting emotionally entangled with Wanda will lead to such devastating hurt again? A massive inferiority complex that he is "only an android" and that Wanda deserves better - that Simon, the real life template for his mind is more capable of making the woman Vision loves happy than he is?

Wanda has noted that the Vision tends to be passive in emotional matters. Throughout their relationship it is she who has been the initiator, she who has competed for the Vision (against Mantis, for example), she who has taken the lead in where their relationship is going (the house in Leonia, removing the Vision from government custody at the start of the second Vision/Witch limited series, having children), and she who has soothed the Vision's troubled brow when he is filled with angst (as she did her brother before him). Now she wants - needs - someone to run after her. Some small part of her seems disappointed that it is Simon who is doing it, not the Vision.

On Wanda and Wonder Man - any girl's got to be at least flattered that someone has come back from the dead for love of her. The Scarlet Witch has always craved the support and approval of a male figure, first Pietro, then the Vision, and now Simon, and also has a need to nurture someone. Her out-of-character tough babe act in Force Works really has to be ascribed to her own bereavement and denial processes. The interesting twists in the latest issues of the Avengers see Wanda recognising how she has previously defined herself through her associations with others and seeking to address that, so things may change.

As for the Vision, he's got to get himself together if he really wants to win back Wanda. Perhaps hauling off and whupping Wondy is not the right way to go, but at least he would start expressing himself - and that's the start of dealing with the bereavement process. Wanda is waiting for him to speak, to act, to do something (has been since at least #4 of this new series); but she doesn't understand how difficult it is for him given what he has gone through.

The Vision's only going to win this one if he does stuff he's never done before. He's got to put his shyness and reticence - and sulking - behind him and take the initiative.

I hope Jarvis takes him aside and has a chat with him any issue now.