Paul Bettany has been in the Marvel Cinematic Universe since its debut, but which film or show that he’s been in has been the best and worst?
Paul Bettany is one of the actors that has been a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe since it began and still is an integral piece of it. He first appeared in Iron Man as Tony Stark’s artificially intelligent assistant, J.A.R.V.I.S., named after his former butler, Edwin Jarvis.
While it’s typical for characters to change and grow throughout a franchise, Bettany had a unique experience with his role completely transforming altogether. He may have started as J.A.R.V.I.S., but he later got a live-action role in the form of Vision almost a decade later in Avengers: Age of Ultron.
Although it’s clear that the decision to have the character become Vision was unplanned, it proves just how inspired Bettany’s casting was in the first place. Since then, the character has become a core part of the franchise, even more than he was before.
So far, Bettany has made seven appearances in various projects across the MCU and will even be getting his own solo Disney+ series, Vision Quest. Here is every Marvel movie and show the actor has been in, ranked from worst to best.
9. Iron Man 2
Iron Man 2 takes place six months following the first film, which ends with Tony revealing himself as Iron Man to the world. As a result of that reveal, the government tries to get him to hand over his suit to be used by the military after trying and failing to recreate it after turning to Stark’s business rival, Justin Hammer.
Stark learns from J.A.R.V.I.S. that the palladium in his suit’s arc reactor has been killing him. Believing that he’ll die soon, he starts acting more recklessly. While replacing one of his company’s drivers at the Monaco Grand Prix, Tony gets attacked with a pair of electricized whips by Ivan Vanko, the son of one of his dad’s old business partners.
With help from Pepper and Happy, who brings him a briefcase containing his newest Iron Man armor, Stark defeats Vanko, and the villain gets arrested. Hammer has Vanko broken out of jail to get his help making suits, but Vanko makes a fleet of drones instead. Meanwhile, using his father’s research, which he gets from Nick Fury, J.A.R.V.I.S. helps Tony create a new element that cures him and serves as an alternate power source for his arc reactor.
Hammer debuts the new drones at the Stark Expo, but they go rogue. J.A.R.V.I.S. helps Stark and Black Widow track Vanko’s signal, so she breaks into Hammer Industries with Happy while Tony teams up with Rhodey to take down the drones before facing off against an upgraded Vanko.
The movie has too many moving parts and struggles handling all its subplots. Justin Hammer is one of the better parts of the film. Despite being an antagonist, Sam Rockwell brings a charismatic energy to the role and is one of the characters people have been asking to see back in the MCU for a while.
However, the film also has some fun action beats like the racetrack fight, the Rhodey and Tony fight, and the final battle against the drones. While his motivation is understandable, Whiplash was a cheesy and forgettable villain. Overall, the film, while not unwatchable, isn’t that great.
8. What If…?
Since Bettany’s role in the MCU started as solely voicework, it makes sense that he would be one of the actors to return for Marvel Studios’ first animated series. However, unlike most of the cast, he got to pull double duty, playing Vision in one episode and J.A.R.V.I.S. in another.
The first episode he appears in, “What If…Zombies!?” sees the world fall victim to a zombie outbreak after Hank Pym journeys into the quantum realm to find his wife only to discover that she contracted a virus while down there. He emerges, infecting many heroes and leaving a resistance of only a handful of survivors.
The survivors receive a signal from an old SHIELD base and make their way there while battling through a horde of zombies, including Captain America, Iron Man, and Hawkeye. When they arrive, they find Vision, who tells them that the mind stone can reverse the effects of the virus, having used it on the head of Scott Lang.
While there, Bucky discovers an injured T’Challa, who reveals that Vision has been keeping him alive and slowly feeding him to an infected Wanda since he couldn’t cure her. Feeling guilty, Vision gives them the mind stone so that they can use it to heal others and a Quadjet to help them get away from Wanda.
Some stay behind to fight her and ensure the rest’s escape, leaving only T’Challa, Spider-Man, and Ant-Man’s disembodied head. The trio heads towards Wakanda, where unbeknownst to them, a zombified Thanos is waiting with a completed Infinity Gauntlet.
The second episode Bettany’s voice is in, “What If…Killmonger Rescued Tony Stark?,” shows Erik Killmonger saving and befriending Tony Stark before he gets captured by the Ten Rings. After exposing Obidiah Stane and having him arrested, Killmonger gets invited to work with Tony at Stark Industries.
Throughout the episode, we learn Killmonger’s ulterior motive of playing the long game to become ruler of Wakanda by using Stark’s resources to ignite a war with the United States. It ends with him becoming Wakanda’s protector and receiving the heart-shaped herb while Shuri approaches Pepper with a plan to expose Killmonger’s true nature.
While Vision has a more critical role in the “Zombies” episode and even has an arc, J.A.R.V.I.S. is just used to provide random technical jargon in the other. Although J.A.R.V.I.S. usually has more to do in the actual movies, the contrast of both episodes shows the drastic difference between the characters Bettany has played in the MCU.
7. Iron Man 3
Still reeling from the events of The Avengers, Tony continued tinkering, creating over 35 suits since then, which puts a strain on his relationship with Pepper. He also began suffering from severe panic attacks making it more difficult for him to go out in public.
His home gets attacked and destroyed when he challenges the terrorist leader of the Ten Rings, the Mandarin, and gives his address. While trying to rescue Pepper and take on the attackers, Tony gets caught in the destruction and sinks to the bottom of the sea.
Luckily, J.A.R.V.I.S. manages to pilot the suit and rescue him, taking him to Tennessee. However, once there, J.A.R.V.I.S. shuts down due to the damage, leaving Stark entirely alone and with a non-functional suit, forcing him to rely on his skills as an inventor and engineer.
Tony discovers that “The Mandarin” is actually an actor hired by Aldrich Killian, a scientist he once ignored at a New Year’s Eve party in 1999, who went on to found Advanced Idea Mechanics and helped create Extremis.
During the final battle, Tony has J.A.R.V.I.S. activate the “House Party” protocol, summoning an army of various Iron Man suits to help him against Killian and his Extremis army. After defeating Killian, with help from an Extremis-infused Pepper, Tony orders J.A.R.V.I.S. to destroy all his suits.
After getting the Extremis removed from Pepper, Tony finally has the shrapnel removed from his chest, something he had been putting off for years. It ends with him throwing his arc reactor into the ocean and giving himself a fresh start.
Iron Man 3 is the most controversial film in the trilogy. While people generally agree that the first film was good and the second wasn’t, the third generated mixed responses. The Mandarin twist rubbed people the wrong way, and they felt like it cheapened one of Iron Man’s most popular comic villains. Although it’s not perfect, it still was a pretty good conclusion to the Iron Man trilogy and a satisfying end to Tony’s arc in these films.
6. Avengers: Age of Ultron
The film starts with the Avengers on a mission to recover Loki’s scepter from HYDRA. J.A.R.V.I.S. is now in control of the Iron Legion, an army of droids that Tony created to help protect civilians during the team’s missions.
Afterward, motivated by a vision given to him by Wanda Maximoff and a desire to create a world where the Avengers aren’t necessary, Tony constructs a new peacekeeping system named Ultron. Ultron first emerges while the team celebrates recovering the specter, seemingly killing J.A.R.V.I.S. and immediately determining that the way to bring peace is to end humanity.
With the help of Helen Cho, Ultron makes a new body out of Vibranium that he obtained from Ulysses Klaue. After The Avengers manage to steal it from him before he can fully transfer his consciousness, Tony decides they should upload J.A.R.V.I.S. into it after learning that he didn’t die and had been secretly helping them by changing the nuclear codes, preventing Ultron from launching them to destroy the world.
Stark successfully convinces Bruce to go along with the idea despite his reservations. When the rest of the team learns about their plans, a scuffle breaks out, and the cradle is unplugged by Quicksilver, halting the process. However, Thor returns and uses Mjolnir to charge the cradle, bringing Vision to life.
After awakening disoriented, Vision momentarily lunges Thor before calming down and adjusting. At first, the team is unsure if they can trust him, but that immediately changes after he lifts Mjolnir, something they all tried and failed to do earlier in the movie, proving his worthiness.
Tony replaces J.A.R.V.I.S. with F.R.I.D.A.Y., a new female AI to control his suit. Vision joins the team in Sokovia for their battle against Ultron and his army made of hundreds of Iron Legion bots. After the Avengers’ victory, Vision officially joins the team alongside Wanda, War Machine, and Falcon.
Out of all the projects Paul Bettany has appeared in, Age of Ultron has been the most important to the evolution of the actor’s role in the franchise. Since J.A.R.V.I.S was a voice role, this was Paul Bettany’s first time portraying a live-action character in the franchise. While aspects of J.A.R.V.I.S.’s personality are present, Bettany still plays Vision as an almost entirely new character.
5. WandaVision
Despite his death in Infinity War, the series opens with newlyweds Vision and Wanda arriving at their new home in the town of Westview. As the series progresses, we see him noticing that something is off about their new life and trying to unravel the mystery of what that is, leading to some conflict with Wanda.
We learn that this version of Vision is actually a construct that Wanda made out of grief while creating the Hex around the town in an effort to give herself the perfect life and family. After failing to convince Wanda to release everyone, SWORD sends in Spectral Vision, made from the original’s body that got taken apart and rebuilt multiple times, to eliminate her.
Vision fights him while Wanda fights Agatha, the witch that had been manipulating her to try and steal her power. Unsurprisingly, the fight between the two Visions becomes a verbal debate that ends with the Construct giving Spectral Vision all of his memories before he ends up flying off. Ultimately, Wanda realizes she has to let her family go, and we get a heartfelt goodbye between the couple before Wanda brings down the Hex and leaves the town altogether.
As the first phase 4 project, WandaVision was a bold new step for the MCU. It was the first MCU show which already made it unique, but the genre, which paid homage to classic sitcoms from different eras, made it even more so. Because of those inspirations, the series allowed Bettany to showcase his comedic abilities, especially in the first few episodes. It also showed us Vision as a dad for the first time, a side to the character we couldn’t have gotten otherwise.
4. Iron Man
In addition to being the dawn of the MCU, Iron Man introduced us to Tony Stark and the characters that made up his supporting cast for the first time, including J.A.R.V.I.S. At this point, J.A.R.V.I.S. was mainly responsible for running the security of Tony’s home and assisting him in his laboratory.
We first meet him when Tony returns home after escaping captivity at the hands of the Ten Rings using the Mark I armor and being rescued by the military. J.A.R.V.I.S. was instrumental in creating the Mark II, the first official Iron Man suit, which Stark later uploads him into to help operate.
After Tony learns Obadiah Stane, his business partner, was the one behind the kidnapping, he dons the Mark III suit and confronts Stane, who’s wearing his version of the Iron Man armor, at Stark Industries. The two fight, but Stark wins due to having more experience with the suit.
Since he is just voicing an AI, Bettany’s role in the film is relatively small, with him only being used to interject lines of dialogue and give Tony someone to bounce ideas off of and talk to. However, Bettany still gives J.A.R.V.I.S. a distinct personality that makes him feel different from other movie AIs.
3. The Avengers
After years of buildup, fans finally got to see Iron Man, Hulk, Black Widow, Thor, Hawkeye, and Captain America unite to form the Avengers after Fury decides it’s finally time to bring them all together when Loki breaks into S.H.I.E.L.D. and steals the Tesseract.
Suspecting that Fury is keeping secrets from them, Tony uses J.A.R.V.I.S. to hack into S.H.I.E.L.D.’s systems and learns that the organization used the Tesseract to make weapons. The revelation causes the team to be at each other’s throats more than they already were.
Eventually, when Agent Coulson gets killed, the team bands together to confront Loki, who uses the Tesseract to open a portal for his Chitauri army to come through and invade the city.
When the World Security Council votes to nuke the city to stop the Chitauri, Tony decides to fly it through the wormhole in space and use it to destroy the Chitauri mothership. In what he believes to be his final moments, he has J.A.R.V.I.S. call Pepper, but she misses it while watching the events unfold on the news.
Hulk saves Tony as he falls to Earth before reuniting with the team. Together, they apprehend Loki before going their separate ways. The post-credit scene teases Thanos for the first time and is the first real hint to Infinity War which wouldn’t happen for another six years.
The Avengers is one of the most iconic MCU movies since it set the standard for all future crossovers in the series and showed the potential the franchise had. Even though many comic book movies have surpassed the bar set by the film, it has stood the test of time and still holds up years later.
2. Captain America: Civil War
The movie’s primary conflict sees the Avengers divided after being ordered to sign the Sokovia Accords, documents subjecting the team to governmental supervision and control with the hope of limiting the number of casualties from the team’s battles.
Due to their different backgrounds and experiences with the government, the team has differing ideas about whether or not they should sign. Their ideological battle becomes physical, with Vision siding with Iron Man and subscribing to the belief that the Avengers need oversight to prevent more disasters.
In this movie, we start to see hints of a romantic relationship forming between him and Wanda Maximoff. After the incident in Lagos causes the media blames her for the deaths of a couple of dozen civilians, Vision attempts to comfort her.
That relationship gets tested a bit when the two fight each other when Hawkeye comes to rescue her from the Avengers Compound, where Vision is keeping her under Tony’s orders. Wanda ultimately defeats him by overpowering the Mind Stone, forcing him to change his density, and pushing him through several floors.
They find themselves in another battle when Iron Man’s team attempts to apprehend Team Cap before they can fly to Siberia and stop Zemo from unleashing a group of supersoldiers on the world. After seeing the battle go farther than either of them intended, Vision and Wanda apologize to one another.
While Age of Ultron introduced the character, Civil War further expanded him. We get more emotional range from the synthezoid than we saw in his previous appearance. We see him show regret for accidentally knocking him out of the sky and injuring him, concern and care for Wanda, and confusion about the stone in his head and exactly what it does.
Bettany’s performance before was pretty stoic, with brief glimpses of personality here and there. However, in this movie, it felt like we were getting to see the character slowly become more human. While Tony and Steve’s fight is at the forefront, his arc is just as compelling.
1. Avengers: Infinity War
At the start of Avengers: Infinity War, most of the Avengers are separated due to the events of Civil War. When we first see Vison in the movie, he’s staying in Scotland with Wanda, the pair now officially in a romantic relationship.
While on a walk in the city, they’re attacked by Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight, two members of Thanos’ Black Order who came to collect the Mind Stone from Vision’s forehead. Wanda struggles to fend them off and protect an injured Vision before being rescued by Captain America, Black Widow, and Falcon.
After returning to the Avengers compound for the first time in years and being filled in by Bruce about Thanos, they decide to take Vision to Wakanda to protect him and see if Shuri can remove the mind stone from his forehead and fix him.
As a result, the final stand against Thanos’ army takes place in Wakanda, with the Avengers defending the Country’s borders from Ourtriders. Although Wanda stays by Vision’s side most of the time while Shuri operates on him, she gets called to the battlefield, leaving them both unguarded and open to an attack from Corvus Glaive, interrupting the stone removal process.
Vision, still injured, battles Glaive but is once again helped by Captain America, who distracts the villain long enough for Vision to get the upper hand, stabbing and killing Glaive with his own spear. Moments later, Thanos arrives and starts taking on all of the Avengers with his nearly-full gauntlet.
Realizing that the team wouldn’t be able to stop him, Vision instructs Wanda to use her powers to shatter the stone, which would kill him in the process. She refuses at first, but after some convincing, she does it. Unfortunately, Thanos uses the time stone to reverse and undo the destruction, forcefully plucking the stone from Vision’s forehead and killing him again anyway.
Although Vision gets taken out of commission pretty early, Bettany still has a decent amount to do in the film. The emotional work between him and Elizabeth Olsen in their final scene is one of the film’s best and most emotionally heavy scenes. It perfectly captures the development of Vision as an individual and them as a couple.