Specifically this gruesomely cyborg-looking fellow being armbar’d by Hawkeye and Wonder Man? He looks a bit like a Terminator endoskeleton, but with some human muscles attached, and firing some kind of beam out of his noggin.
It’s a scan from an Avengers guidebook, but it doesn’t give an ID, and the only clue is that it’s apparently from the early days of the West Coast Avengers.
It doesn’t LOOK like Ultron, who’d be my first guess, but that could be a a temporary revamp, or a minion of his, or something. It could just be Vision having a bad acid trip, for all I know.
Nope, it’s the Vision. Dr. Pym was repairing him after a bad fight, and he “woke up” before his brain was fully integrated. This may have been when the multinational scientists tore him apart, but I’m not sure. Note the solar gem flaring up on his forehead.
Given the significant presence of Wonder Man and Scarlet Witch in the image, Vision with his skin off is my first guess…
search
Yes! It’s Vision! (Not actually identified as such on that cover, but I got there looking through Vision’s gallery, which had the first page of the issue - Vis’s skinless face.)
Yep, definitely the Vision. I’ve still got this issue kicking around somewhere. It was during John Byrne’s run on West Coast Avengers, after the world’s governments decided to dismantle him, for no real reason.
from the Marvel Wiki:
"When the Vision’s malfunctioning control crystal interfered with his ability to reason, he became bent on creating a new golden age of peace on Earth by seizing control of the world’s computers and defense systems. "
Malfunctioning and trying to take over the world. It’s enough to make a nation apprehensive, nest-ce pas?
I think that had been quite a few years earlier though. I think the official reason given at the time was because he had rejoined the Avengers and therefore had access to their computers or something, but that doesn’t explain why if they were so concerned, they let Hank put him straight back together again.
I kind of remember that it wasn’t an official government action that dismantled him… but a villainous government guys scheme.
The rebuild was basically just making a sythentic robot man–Wonderman refused to donate his brain patterns to the Vision so there was no “personality.” Which of course worked great by Byrne making the Vision just plain off-whtie color to show his blandness.
Ah, cool! Thanks for the info—that would have driven me nuts.
Y’know, all things considered, if I’d wanted to redo the character’s look, I’d probably have just stuck with the “creepy metal skeleton interwoven with humanoid muscles, firing death rays out of it’s skull-face” look. It even still works with the collared cape.
It was a group of shady government agencies, but it was definitely officially sanctioned. The Avengers complained through the official channels (via Raymond Sikorski Avenger Liaison). The word back was basically “STFU, and while we’re at it, we’re foisting a new team leader on you”. USAgent turned up moments later, leading to Hawkeye and Mockingbird walking out
It looks like both Wonder Man and Hawkeye are struggling to restrain Vision, which is odd since Hawkeye is a normal (if highly athletic) human and Wonder Man can lift ~90 tons.
Is Vision’s left arm significantly stronger than his right?
