Vision has been an AI since 2015 — only now are critics holding it against VisionQuest
One review wanted Marvel's android to take a stand on privacy and data centres. Reddit's reply got 186 upvotes, and the Rotten Tomatoes score is firmly on Reddit's side.
Marvel lifted the review embargo on VisionQuest on 12 October 2026, two days before the eight-episode series arrives on Disney+. The Tomatometer settled at around 87% from roughly 30 reviews, Certified Fresh, which puts it between WandaVision (92%) and Agatha All Along (84%). Then Rolling Stone headlined its review as "a show only a bot could love", and the comment sections did the rest.
The bot in question has been on screen for eleven years. Paul Bettany first played Vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron in 2015: a synthetic body Ultron built for himself, switched on with Tony Stark's AI butler, JARVIS. Nobody asked him to justify his existence through Captain America: Civil War, Infinity War or WandaVision. VisionQuest, created by Terry Matalas, closes the trilogy WandaVision opened in 2021 and brings back James Spader as Ultron.
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What the critics actually object to
Rolling Stone's David Fear wants more than an android's inner life. His verdict fits on a fridge magnet:
"Vision may provide half the title, yet actual vision is the one thing this series sorely needs."
— David Fear, Rolling Stone
His fuller complaint is that the show can't stand on its own robotic feet or say anything about current AI anxiety. Variety's Alison Herman, in a review arguing that the series, like its hero, struggles to connect emotionally, notes that Vision now convenes autonomous AIs, what we would call agents, while real tech companies talk seriously about sentience. The show sits right next to the news and declines to comment.
Fans have seized on exactly that. In the r/marvelstudios review megathread, the second most upvoted comment quotes a review grumbling that the show is "much more interested in exploring what AI means within the MCU and much less in commenting on real-life issues like privacy, theft, and water-hungry data centers", then signs off with "Jesus Christ". The next one, at 186 upvotes:
"...we're really about to enter an age where we're so paranoid and up our own ass about this issue that we can't even have robots as characters in fiction, aren't we?"
— r/marvelstudios commenter
Another accused Rolling Stone and Variety of "pearl clutching at the mere presence of fictional AI". A bit of a stretch for Herman, who mostly faults the plot. Fair enough for the headline writers.
Vision was a perfectly acceptable robot for eleven years. In 2026 he is expected to have a view on data centres.
Spader is the one thing everyone agrees on
Even the critics who sent the show back to the shop don't argue about Ultron. Here is how the split looks:
- The score: 26 fresh reviews and four rotten at last count.
- The holdouts: Rolling Stone, Variety and IndieWire, where Ben Travers gave it a C.
- The consensus: Spader. Herman called his Ultron highly entertaining, and Fear singled out the Ultron and Vision banter as the highlight.
- The Doomsday link: barely one. GamesRadar listed "feels disconnected from the wider MCU heading into Doomsday" among its reasons to avoid.
That last point stings more than the AI debate. VisionQuest is the final MCU release before Avengers: Doomsday reaches cinemas on 18 December, and Marvel has spent it on a family drama between a robot and his genocidal robot dad.
The series starts on 14 October. Its real audience has been watching Vision fly around since 2015 without once checking his water usage.
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