The Man on Fire in Vision Quest Points to the Body Ultron Needs

Spoilers for Vision Quest episodes one and two follow.

The painting of a man on fire in Vision Quest episode two is Jim Hammond, the original Human Torch. In the comics, his body is the one Ultron rebuilt into the Vision, and I think the show just hung a spare body on the wall. I saw him the second he was on screen and knew exactly what he was. I didn't say a word about him in my review, and that was on purpose. The review is where I tell you what the show is doing; this is where we go deep into Marvel Comics lore, and the man on fire is pure lore.

So I sat on him. Twenty-three of you didn't. One reader pointed at the painting 56 minutes after my review went up. And you didn't just name him. You went straight for what he's for. You found the body Ultron needs.

The painting in episode two is Jim Hammond, the original Human Torch

Here's the scene. In episode two, Vision is about to walk into Paladin's trap at St. Maven's, and Jarvis stops him in the hallway to warn him that emotions can be beautiful but also rash, impulsive and self-destructive, and that the man in the painting knew that better than any of them. The camera finds a painting of a man standing in the street, completely on fire. Then Vision says it himself: "As the first of us, he remains a cautionary tale, a reminder of what may become of me should emotions consume me."

The show never says his name. It doesn't have to. That's Jim Hammond, and the MCU has been sitting on him for 15 years. In Captain America: The First Avenger in 2011, at the Stark Expo, Steve and Bucky walk past a glass case: Phineas Horton presents The Synthetic Man. That was him in a box in 1943.

Then on Friday, Marvel put out a TV spot with the Human Torch in it, and it looks like Paul Bettany is playing him. Marvel pulled the spot. The internet did not. So the first of us is coming, and he's wearing Vision's face.

Jim Hammond was the first hero Marvel ever published, and he was an android

The man on fire is older than Marvel, literally. In Marvel Comics #1 in October 1939, from Carl Burgos, a scientist named Phineas Horton unveils a synthetic man in an airtight glass case, and the second he hits the air, he bursts into flames. The Human Torch was the cover feature, first story, first issue. So the first superhero Marvel ever published wasn't a man. It was an android.

He fights Namor in Marvel Mystery Comics 8 and 9 in 1940, which is the first crossover in comics: two issues, the same fight told from both sides. He takes a cover identity named Jim Hammond and joins the New York police. He gets his own book, and then superheroes go out of style, and so does he.

In Fantastic Four Annual #4 in November 1966, the Mad Thinker digs him up to fight the new kid who took his name, the Fantastic Four's Human Torch. He turns, he saves the Four, and he dies.

Ultron built the Vision out of somebody else's body

Now here's where it gets good. In Avengers #57 in October 1968, which I covered in the review, Ultron builds the Vision to destroy the Avengers. Built him out of what, though? In Avengers 133 through 135 in 1975, Steve Englehart has Immortus show the team what really happened. Ultron didn't build the Vision from scratch. He found the original Human Torch lifeless and forced Phineas Horton to help him rebuild that body into the Vision: Wonder Man's brain patterns for the mind, Jim Hammond's body for the ship.

One of you knew that before I said a word, and laid out the history: the idea was first suggested by a letter writer, seized on by artist Neal Adams, who co-plotted and drew Journey to the Center of the Android in Avengers 93, and then confirmed by Steve Englehart in Avengers 133 through 135. A fan wrote a letter, an artist ran with it, and a writer made it canon.

Avengers Forever #8 in 1999 complicates it. Immortus had copied the Torch, and Ultron got the copy, not the original. Plenty of you like that version because it lets Jim Hammond come back as Jim Hammond. It doesn't change the part that matters. Whichever copy it was, Ultron built his son out of somebody else's body.

I said it in the review: Ultron is a ghost who moves house. Pym's mind, Vision's head, Tony's armor, adamantium on a workbench. The painting just tells you where the method started. The first time Ultron needed a son, he didn't make one. He took one.

Readers split on whether Ultron takes Hammond or Hammond comes for Vision

Everybody else is asking who the man on fire is. Who's Jim Hammond? Is he the Fantastic Four Torch? Is this a First Avenger Easter egg? Those are explainers, and they're fine. But here, nobody asked who. You asked what he's for.

One reader posted on Wednesday night, an hour and 40 minutes after the review, that they were thinking the first time Ultron jumps out of Vision will be into the original Jim Hammond body, before he gets the adamantium upgrade. That's a body and an order of operations: Hammond first, adamantium second.

A day later, somebody flipped it. Their early call was that Hammond is the client, living as an AI and wanting a new body. In the comics, Vision's original body was Hammond's, so the writers would be turning that on its head and having Hammond try to steal Vision's. Look at the time on that: Thursday, 8:54 p.m. That's the night before Marvel showed us Bettany on fire. That reader didn't have the spot. They had a painting and a 1975 comic. So now you've got two bodies in play and two ways out. Ultron goes into Hammond, or Hammond comes for Vision.

The adamantium suggests somebody in Vision Quest is collecting parts

The common read on the adamantium is that it's about the X-Men: Wolverine's coming, and the celestial metal from Brave New World is turning into bullets. Here, I read it as a workbench. Episode one has a headline about stolen adamantium. Episode two has Paladin putting adamantium rounds through a vibranium body.

And the last time Ultron got a new body in the comics, in Avengers #66, it was adamantium. Somebody in this show is collecting parts.

The client who hired Paladin could be Jocasta, Ultron or Billy

Then there's the client, the distorted voice that hired Paladin. The common read is Jocasta, but maybe that's too obvious. The show makes it clear Ultron isn't the voice. Twenty-eight of you said Ultron's behind it anyway, 20 said Jocasta, and a lot of you said both: Ultron's the plan, Jocasta's the hands. One theory, posted three minutes after the review went up and liked by 89 of you, is that Ultron used the dark web to secretly build Jocasta, used her to hire Paladin, and Paladin's job is to weaken Vision so Ultron can take over his body.

That, I think, is the distinction to hold on to. Not the voice is not the same as not the plan. Ultron already admitted he leaked Vision's location: "And I leaked your location to the bounty hunter to speed up the inevitable. So, you're welcome." He's sending pigeons out of the attic. Nobody in that house is clean.

And then there's Billy. Eleven of you think Billy is the one on the phone who hired Paladin. I'm not getting into Young Avengers today, as I said in the review. But I'm writing your names down, because if that voice turns out to be a kid looking for his brother, this room had it.

Terry Matalas's track record is why I trust Vision Quest

Why do I trust the show to know what it's doing with all of this? Terry Matalas. I don't think he gets enough credit for where he came from. He started as a production assistant on Star Trek: Voyager, fetching coffee on a Trek set. He wrote two stories on Enterprise. He wrote on Nikita and Terra Nova. Then he co-created 12 Monkeys on Syfy, four seasons, which started as a time travel spec of his own; he didn't even have to rewrite it, he just changed the names. That show had one of the great series finales on television, and I'll stand by that.

He ran MacGyver's first season, then Star Trek: Picard, as co-showrunner on season two and sole showrunner on season three, the Next Generation reunion. The story he tells is that he walked in and was told the Picard show was spoken for. Go away, kid. He ended up running the last season of it anyway. And Kevin Feige gave him exactly one rule on this show: Vision meets his son. The rest was up to him.

I love the repertory company. Todd Stashwick was Deacon in 12 Monkeys and Shaw in Picard, and now he's Paladin. Emily Hampshire was Jennifer in 12 Monkeys, and now she's Edith. Orla Brady from Picard is in the house too. These are all brilliant actors. Fifty-one of you agreed with a reader who said directors using familiar actors is common and breeds chemistry. Nobody says a word when Scorsese calls DiCaprio.

The Picard precedent is the strongest case against my Ultron call

Here's the Matalas file that actually matters, and I think two of you found it before I did. One reader argued that Jarvis sacrificing himself is the Ship of Theseus thought experiment in action, and that the avatars will be integrated into Vision one by one to strip the old persona away and make a new Vision, something we already saw play out with Data in Picard season three.

Picard season three, episode eight: Data and Lore in one synthetic body, sharing one mind palace. Lore is winning. He's taking over. And Data stops fighting. He hands Lore his memories one by one, his friends, his cat, everything, and Lore takes them and becomes Data. The bad brother doesn't get out. He gets absorbed. The writer of that episode is on the Vision Quest writing staff. And the single most liked prediction in my comments, with 86 likes, says they're going to kill off the AIs inside Vision's head as the show goes on, with the revelation that they're all part of Vision now, including Ultron. Ultron doesn't leave. He becomes part of Vision.

So let me be straight. I said Vision is how Ultron gets out. The man running the show has done this exact setup once, a good android and a bad one in one head, and in his version the bad one never left the building. That's the strongest case against me, and it's on his record. I'm still where I was. Lore had nowhere else to go. He was born in that body and he died in that body. Ultron has never in 60 years been a one body villain. He's been in Pym's head, in Vision's head, in Tony's armor, in an adamantium shell, on a workbench, and this show just hung a spare body on the wall and put adamantium in the newspaper. You don't stock the shelves for a guy who's staying in.

Can Matalas do both? Can Ultron get out and still leave a piece of himself in the house, the way Lore left a little snottiness in Data? Yeah, that's the version I'd bet the long money on. But the first half of that sentence is still mine. Ultron gets out.

Readers spotted the Ship of Theseus and the repetition problem early

I asked for the clue, not the theory. One reader answered the night I asked, four days before the premiere, saying they were looking for two things: how Vision views morality, as an axiom or an obligation, and any callback to the Ship of Theseus. On Friday, October 9th, episode two's title turned out to be Theseus. To be fair to everybody, Matalas told interviewers the Ship of Theseus scene is one of the two scenes this series is built on, so that card was face up. But face up only counts if somebody reads it. The same reader asked why Vision is so fixated on keeping up the appearance of humanity in his head, which I answered in the review: every voice in his head gets a face, including the one in the attic.

Another reader, not a comics reader and someone who avoided the trailers, said their dream for the season is that it pays off one of the best conversations in the MCU, the line "But a thing isn't beautiful because it lasts." The showrunner says the whole series came from that forest scene at the end of Age of Ultron.

Some of you pushed back on me. Forty-six of you liked a comment arguing that Vision understands perfectly who he is, he just doesn't feel who he is yet. You can call it a feeling problem, and I think it is. I'd just say the show already put the answer in his mouth: "I have his face, but not his virtue." He knows exactly what's missing. Two hours of six people explaining it to him is two hours of the show telling you something it already told you. Another reader was tempted to give the two episodes a nine but took a point off for the repetition of Vision asking who he is and Tommy restating his story. To my 15 Tommy defenders, I hear you. One of you pointed out that Tommy's story about the lightning and the pool is the same story as how Billy came to life: a dead kid and a soul that drops in the moment Westview ends. That's a real catch, and I'll keep an eye on it.

Readers scored episodes one and two on their own ballot at eight and a half. My score for the premiere was an eight, and I didn't see their number until I'd already given mine. One reader gave it a 10, arguing the ship parts don't matter, it's who's at the helm. That's the whole Ultron question in four words.

Jim Hammond is a body, not just an Easter egg

So here's the file. He's Jim Hammond, the first synthetic man Marvel ever published, in October 1939. He was in a glass case at the Stark Expo 15 years ago. In the comics, his body is the one Ultron rebuilt into the Vision. And on Friday, Marvel showed us he's wearing Bettany's face, whether they meant to or not. Elsewhere he's an Easter egg. Here, he's a body: the vessel, the client, or the shell before the adamantium.

The case against me is Matalas's own record, a bad brother who stayed in. I respect it. I'm still betting the shelves got stocked for a reason. The house has a spare body on the wall, and the guy in the attic has never once in 60 years stayed home. Ultron never builds his own body. Episodes three and four drop Tuesday night at 9 Eastern on Disney Plus, and somebody hired Paladin, somebody stole that adamantium, and somebody hung a dead android on the wall of Vision's head.

What one clue will you be looking for in episodes three and four?