VisionQuest theory: is the mystery client Vision himself?

What if Vision himself is the client who hired Paladin to bring Vision to him, and the reason is that he's trying to get his original body back? I know the theory sounds crazy, and it's a theory, not something VisionQuest has confirmed. It would mean Vision is paying somebody to hunt himself, which seems to make no sense at first.

But after looking at what the show has given us so far, and every scene where the client has been mentioned, I can't throw this theory in the bin. I think it may also explain why the show has kept the client a mystery for six episodes now: they're saving the big reveal for later on.

How White Vision Got Vision's Memories but Not His Feelings

First, the facts. Thanos rips the Mind Stone out of Vision's head in Infinity War. S.W.O.R.D. then collects the body, takes it apart and rebuilds it. They drain all the color out of it, and what comes out is a White Vision meant to be their weapon.

Meanwhile, Wanda builds her own Vision inside the Hex, and her version is a dad to the twin boys, Billy and Tommy. I'll call him Hex Vision. S.W.O.R.D. sends White Vision after him and they end up in an intense fight. In the end they stop fighting over the philosophy of the Ship of Theseus: is it still the same ship when you replace every plank?

Hex Vision gives White Vision his memories back. That's when White Vision realizes who he was, says "I am Vision," and flies off. When Wanda dissolves the Hex, Hex Vision vanishes along with it. So in VisionQuest we have a new Vision with every memory of the original, and yet he doesn't feel like that Vision. He only remembers loving Wanda. He doesn't feel what it is to love her.

What We Know About the Client in VisionQuest

All we know about the client so far is that it's a voice. It isn't even right to say he, because the voice is distorted so badly you can't guess the gender. Whoever it is can break straight through Paladin's firewalls whenever they like.

Ultron leaks Vision's location, but it's clear he isn't the client. He says so himself, and at that point he was still locked behind the firewall inside Vision's mind. That rules him out. Whoever the client is wants Vision delivered alive, and in an earlier piece I said all of that points toward S.W.O.R.D., since White Vision is their own creation and their weapon. They'd want him back.

Why Firing Paladin Points to the Body's Owner

Paladin is seriously bad at this job. He attacks Vision with adamantium rounds and drones when the client has said he wants him alive. In episode 2 he almost kills Vision, who only survives because Jarvis gives up his own code to give him enough power to live.

Because the client can no longer tolerate his failures, he fires Paladin. He terminates the contract even when Paladin begs and offers to waive his fee. That made me laugh, because S.W.O.R.D. would do fine with a Vision that's a bit dented. A few bullet holes wouldn't be bad for them. But if the body is yours and you want it back, you fire the man who shot holes into it.

So Paladin's failure might not only be that he failed to capture Vision. It might also be that in trying, and failing badly, he caused real damage to the body.

Jocasta and Raza Are Ruled Out as the Client

There have been theories that Jocasta is the client, but at this point I don't think anyone would still hold on to that after everything we've seen. She grabs Paladin and goes digging through his head, trying to pull the client's name out of it, but she gets nothing, which means it isn't her.

After terminating Paladin's contract, the client found a replacement: Raza, the Ten Rings man from the cave in the first Iron Man who watched Tony build his first suit. For a moment I thought he was the client. Then the voice speaks, and it became clear the client was still hiding in the shadows.

The Wizard of Oz Tin Man Clue in Episode 6

In episode 6, the lights die all over town. Every television flickers and a silhouette appears on the screens: a man in a suit and a fedora, his face hidden. The voice then talks directly to Vision and, surprisingly, offers him a heart and a soul if he surrenders, the soul he came back to life without. It calls Vision a tin man, saying he died for love but was rebuilt, reborn without that love.

That's a reference to the Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz, who wants a heart. And the one who promises him one is the Wizard. But the Wizard is a man behind a curtain projecting a giant face onto a screen so nobody sees how small and lost he actually is.

If the show is drawing that parallel, then whoever is behind that curtain is someone lost and broken, like the people he's scaring. Somebody who needs the heart as badly as the Tin Man does. From the look of things, the client isn't human, and he knows a lot about Vision. He knows Vision died and was rebuilt without that love. He knows the hole Vision is in, as if the client is Vision himself.

Paladin's Sleep Code and Who Could Have It

Paladin mentions that the client sent him a sleep code when he took the job, a code to put Vision to sleep. If anyone has access to something like that, it's either the people who built you or the person the body belongs to.

How Hex Vision Could Survive Like Billy and Tommy

The big question is how. Vision is in his body and using it, so how could another Vision be trying to get it back? The simplest answer goes back to WandaVision and to the name VisionQuest itself. This theory says the quest is becoming whole again.

When Tommy and Billy survived the collapse of the Hex, we learned their souls lingered and eventually found bodies. Billy got his body in Agatha All Along, and Tommy got his by the end, which we're now seeing in action in VisionQuest. So what if Vision also survived but, like the twins, lost his body and only exists digitally? Now he's seen that White Vision is alive with his memories intact, and he wants to merge with him so he can be whole again.

From another angle, what if there was a backup of the original Vision somewhere before S.W.O.R.D. put him back together? A copy, watching the real one walk around in its body feeling nothing and wasting it. In that case, the copy would hire a bounty hunter to bring back the body, hand over a sleep code to make it work, and get furious when Paladin started putting holes in it, which is why he fired him.

Jim Hammond, Phineas Horton and the Human Torch Angle

Marvel dropped a commercial, and those who caught it said Bettany is playing Jim Hammond. Marvel hasn't officially announced it yet. In the comics, Jim Hammond is the original Human Torch, a synthetic man built by a scientist called Phineas Horton, the first android in Marvel. The problem with him in the show was that he couldn't process complicated emotions, which would overload him and set his whole body on fire.

He's been in the MCU since 2011, sitting in a glass tube at the Stark Expo in Captain America: The First Avenger, and VisionQuest has been dropping him everywhere. There's a painting of a burning man in Vision's mind mansion, the synthetic man, and Phineas Horton is name dropped like he's Geppetto.

In episode 6, Jocasta's backstory says she built on Horton's AI work, and the work stolen from her ended up feeding into what became Jarvis, who then became part of Vision. So Vision's family tree runs straight through Jim Hammond, as if he's in Vision's code. In the episode 7 trailer, it looks as though Vision comes face to face with the client, and as though the client is Hammond. If the client is Hammond and Hammond has Bettany's face, then maybe we get Vision meeting a man with his own face. Maybe we should wait until episode 7 gives us a direction.

The Biggest Problem With the Theory: The Client's Violence

The problem with this theory is the violence. The client seems to love it, and he's not a good person like the Vision we know, because he says he'll spare no life to take Vision. Then Raza shows up and shoots up a bar while Tommy is trapped in a van, and the only reason they get out is E.D.I.T.H. hacking the truck. I'm wondering whether any version of Vision would ever do something like that.

Or maybe, as our Vision said, even though he has the original Vision's memories, he doesn't have his virtue. Is it possible that the Vision hunting White Vision is one who can commit crimes, even threaten a city, to get his body back?

And maybe because of Tommy, White Vision is developing care for humanity he didn't believe he had. We've seen him care so much for Tommy, even if he won't admit it. The whole reason he drops his firewall and risks letting Ultron escape is to save Tommy from Paladin, a boy he claims isn't his son. So maybe the bad Vision is becoming good, and the good Vision, who according to this theory is the client, is turning bad. Ultron tells Tommy that Vision can't love him the way he wants, but everything Vision has done so far shows he cares for him. The client tells Vision he was reborn without love, and Vision believes it too. But is that true?

Why I Still Think the Client Is Vision or Someone Wearing His Face

Matalas has already said the client isn't Billy, isn't Doom, and isn't a Tony Stark or Mephisto level cameo, but it is somebody important. That rules out some names we might conjure, and among the choices left, the Vision as client theory still holds.

I bet it's not a human, which means we're talking about androids and AIs, including Vision, and to me he's the most important of them all. The Tin Man and the sleep code are just too personal. Whoever it is knows Vision from the inside, and that means it's either Vision or Jim Hammond wearing Vision's face. Hopefully by episode 7, we get to see who it is.