Marvel Finally Brings Back Its Greatest Villain After a Decade of Wasted Potential
Paul Bettany’s Vision storms back in Visionquest, as the NYCC trailer teases White Vision, a human guise—and the shock return of James Spader’s Ultron.
Marvel just put a big neon sign over Vision again. The first trailer for Visionquest premiered at NYCC, and it does not tiptoe in quietly: Paul Bettany is back as Vision, the all-white WandaVision version pops up, there are glimpses of him in a human skin, and then the kicker — James Spader’s Ultron returns. Yes, the same Ultron Vision supposedly offed at the end of Age of Ultron… off-screen, which suddenly feels like a very convenient detail.
So what’s in this thing?
Terry Matalas is running the show as showrunner and executive producer, and Marvel is framing Visionquest as the final chapter of a Disney+ trilogy that started with WandaVision and continued with Agatha All Along. The trailer leans hard into the MCU’s AI lineage: White Vision is greeted by what look like human attendants, who are actually JARVIS and EDITH. We also get Ultron back in the mix — and, curveball, he shows up in a human guise too. Between Vision’s human form and Ultron’s, the footage is playing around with avatars and identity, which is an interesting way to kick the doors open.
The AI thread finally gets center stage
Given the cast of digital suspects, the premise seems pretty clear: Visionquest is about the MCU’s biggest artificial minds colliding. Vision was born from JARVIS plus the Mind Stone, so seeing JARVIS and EDITH in the same space begs the obvious question: is this actually Tony Stark’s original JARVIS resurfacing, or another government-made remix in the spirit of White Vision? If the answer leans toward 'something went sideways with a legacy AI,' that’s an easy runway for Ultron to boot back up.
How we got here (and how it went)
Post-Endgame, Marvel’s TV run has been a mixed bag, but WandaVision came out swinging — inventive early on, wobbly at the finish. Agatha All Along kept the energy going and earned its spot as one of the better Disney+ entries. Visionquest looks like the baton pass from both: character-driven weirdness plus a big thematic swing.
- WandaVision — IMDb 7.9, Tomatometer 92%, Audience 88%, showrunner: Jac Schaeffer
- Agatha All Along — IMDb 7.2, Tomatometer 84%, Audience 82%, showrunner: Jac Schaeffer
Ultron 2.0 needs to land
James Spader was a killer choice for Ultron — silky menace for days — but Age of Ultron never gave him the runway to be the MCU’s big bad for more than, what, a week? The movie’s last act undercut a lot of the interesting ideas it set up, even if the tech on display was slicker than the first Avengers. The best part, honestly, was the quiet conversation between Vision and Ultron at the end — two reflections of Tony Stark’s legacy, the ideal and the nightmare, sizing each other up. If Visionquest builds on that dynamic, we might finally get the Ultron we were promised.
Where this could be headed
How Visionquest plugs into Marvel’s wider plans is still fuzzy. There’s chatter about big-picture events on the horizon — including a Doomsday title currently slated for next year — but schedules shift and Marvel likes to keep its cards close. For now, I’m just glad we’re getting Spader back in the sandbox and Bettany in a story that puts Vision’s identity front and center.
Visionquest premieres on Disney+ in 2026 in the US. What are you hoping the show does with Vision, Ultron, and the whole JARVIS/EDITH thread? I’m all for a stylish identity crisis with sharp elbows and even sharper ideas.