Avengers: Infinity War: Predicting the MVP against Thanos

Credit: Marvel Studios/Walt Disney Pictures; from Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

2. The Vision

The Vision was a fairly irrelevant character in Infinity Gauntlet, as Thanos ripped circuitry out of his chest and left the synthezoid for dead. However, he did have a key insight before then; more on that later.

However, Vision in the MCU is unique as a true child of an Infinity Stone, meaning he could understand them in ways even the Scarlet Witch couldn’t. A combination of Ultron and Iron Man’s Jarvis AI, Vision in the MCU traces part of his ancestry back to the Mind Stone, which housed the neural foundation for Ultron. The stone fittingly has a mind of its own and none have wielded it as directly as Vision.

That means Vision is the MCU character most resembling Warlock in his connection to an Infinity Stone/Gem. As an artificial mind, he’s also the one character who could most naturally “upload” himself into a stone. That means he can most easily substitute as Warlock in invading an Infinity Stone to disrupt Thanos.

But wait, you say, the trailers show Vision apparently losing the Mind Stone while his consciousness appears to remain in his body, rather than reabsorbed into the Mind Stone. True, but it remains to be seen if he’s “all there.” His consciousness could be split between his body and the Mind Stone, giving him a window into Thanos’ mind and agency both inside and outside the stone.

Vision could be MVP by acting as the sleeper agent or saboteur that our heroes would desperately need. He’s also the one hero that, through the Mind Stone, could truly understand Thanos. That would let him echo a key observation that he (and Warlock) made about Thanos in Infinity Gauntlet: that he always sows the seeds of his own defeat.

Two factors keep Vision from taking number one. First, I’ve had to lay out a pretty specific scenario for Vision to be the MVP, albeit one that would honor Infinity War’s source material.

Second, it’s hard to see Vision becoming the tactician and leader our heroes needed in defeating Thanos. That brings me to the top contender…