Who is the greatest villain in all of the MCU? Back in 2015, briefly, the answer to that question was the murderous A.I. known as Ultron. Since then, outside of Thanos and the impending reign of Doctor Doom, the cinematic Avengers have spent more hours battling each other or their own inner emotional demons than actual enemies. And now, with VisionQuest, one of those enemies is back, sort of. As the new series makes clear, when Vision vaporized the last of Ultron’s sentries in Avengers: Age of Ultron, he took a portion of Ultron’s A.I. consciousness and trapped that data in his own mind. That one detail — the unlikely virtual survival of the MCU’s sneakiest villain — is the key to understanding nearly everything about VisionQuest.
Technically, VisionQuest is the final installment in a trilogy of MCU TV shows that began with WandaVision (2021) and then took another path down the witch’s road in Agatha All Along (2024). But it’s also a show utterly obsessed with Ultron. So, whose show is this anyway? While VisionQuest is a noble effort to tie up some Marvel loose ends, it’s also a show very much about Ultron, which means it’s a techy sci-fi show lacking a lot of the literal magic of its progenitor. As a sci-fi show, VisionQuest mostly succeeds. But does it work as the sequel and conclusion to the WandaVision trilogy? The answer to that would be shaky, kind of.
