Entertainment

The Cancellation of Chelsea Cain's 'Vision' Is a Massive Loss for Marvel

Marvel Entertainment, Comic Book Resources

What’s going on at the House of Ideas? Months after Marvel announced The Vision from writer Chelsea Cain at San Diego Comic-Con, the publisher has canceled the highly-anticipated series before even the usual retail pre-order period for the first issue took place.

On Thursday, novelist and writer of the awesome Marvel series Mockingbird confirmed a Newsarama report on Twitter regarding the early cancellation of hers and co-writer Marc Mohan’s new comic, The Vision, a limited series sequel to Tom King’s The Vision from 2016.

Bizarrely, the writers and series artist Aud Koch had already submitted four completed issues to Marvel that will now never see the light of day.

“I’m incredibly proud of the 4 issues we’ve turned in so far,” Cain tweeted. “It’s been 2 years of work. And reflects tremendous effort by an incredibly talented team. It kills me that we won’t get to share them…Forgive me, Viv.”

Anonymous sources told The Hollywood Reporter that the cancelation of the book “was not made lightly,” but was the result of a “shift” in “long-term publishing plans for both the superhero Vision and his daughter, Viv, who was slated to be one of the primary characters in the new series.”

In the first volume of The Vision by Tom King, the A.I. Avenger built himself a “normal” nuclear family — wife Virginia, son Vin, and daughter Viv — and took up residence in suburban Virginia. But Vision’s home life descends into chaos when Virginia murders an intruder and desperately tries to cover it up.

Cain’s sequel would have followed Vision as a single father living with an “aging” Viv, who has adopted rebellious programming after her exploits with the Champions.

The Vision was one of the most popular comics of 2016 that a direct sequel, announced at Comic-Con International, was met with massive anticipation. That the new writer would be Cain, who earned recognition from Mockingbird (and scorn from Comicsgate) made the series all the more exciting to think about. (In other tweets, Cain confirmed she was approached by Marvel to write for the series during publication of King’s original run.)

And now it’s gone, without much ado. What King achieved with The Vision was nothing short of spectacular; amidst titanic success at the worldwide box office, Marvel’s publishing released an utterly subversive, provocative comic book that starred an actually-known character and was actually in continuity.

In a piece for Inverse, Matt Kim praised King’s The Vision, writing: “The suburban psychodrama is so strongly established, and so well written that the bursts of violence, superpowers, or even body-horror contrasts so sharply with the rest of the book.”

Chelsea Cain, who successfully reinvented Mockingbird forever, would have made a stunning book out of the foundations King left behind. It’s a devastating loss not just for fans, but for Marvel, who could use a book like Chelsea Cain’s The Vision after the year it’s had.

The Vision #1 was expected to go on sale on November 7.

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