Creator of Ultron and The Vision Discusses Characters and Stan Lee's Reaction
Stan Lee wasn't the only guy at Marvel creating superheroes and supervillains. Two main characters being introduced in Avengers: Age of Ultron wouldn't even exist if it wasn't for Roy Thomas. He, along with artist John Buscema, created the villain Ultron and the android hero The Vision in 1968.
There is actually a scene in Age of Ultron that pays tribute to Thomas. It is placed during a dream-like sequence that Captain America is having while he's at a USO event. At that event a band is playing, and the name of the band is the Roy Thomas Players.
Thomas recently did an interview with THR in which he talked about creating Ultron and The Vision. When discussing Ultron, he said he was just looking for something to be a robot:
"He always had a smile on his face in the comic. I got the idea of his look from a Captain Video comic book from 1951. I must have showed it to the artist, John Buscema, otherwise I don't think he would have drawn the robot to look like that. It isn't the same face, but it had the same kind of malicious smile I wanted. That robot's name was Makino, who was a just in a one-shot story in Captain Video No. 3. But he was really formidable. He wanted to take over the Earth and obliterate humanity. I liked the tone of it, and that became the inspiration for Ultron."
Ultron turned out to be quite the foe for the Avengers, and he's awesomely portrayed in the movie. When asked about how The Vision was created, he talked about going to Stan Lee with idea:
"I said, 'What if I brought back The Vision from the old comics?' He said, 'Naw, just do an android.' I never asked him why. He didn't care what I did as long as it was an android, so I made up an android and called him The Vision, and he looked a lot like the old one. John Buscema added this great artistic touch, this little jewel on his forehead. I think in the movies, they are making it related to those gems of Thanos they're going to use in the next two movies, if I'm not mistaken."
He went on to talk about his influences for the character:
"I was influenced a little bit by Mr. Spock, though I didn't see any of that [Star Trek] much on TV. I used to hear it on the TV in the next room when I was playing poker on Friday nights. Also — a comic book writer who became a friend of mine in later years, Otto Binder, back in 1939 or '40, he had written the original title of the story 'I, Robot,' about a robot with human intelligence and feelings named Adam. That was one of the first sympathetic robot stories."
Stan Lee's reaction to the character wasn't 100% positive. Even though he liked it, there was one thing his didn't like.
"He liked it, but Stan hated the color of The Vision. 'Why'd you make him red? Red's not a good color!' I didn't want to make him green like The Hulk or Blue like the Atlanteans. I suppose I could have made him white, but the paper we printed on was so poor, that you would have been able to see the other side, so we didn't make things white that we didn't have to. I don't think he ever thought The Vision was a really strong name. It seems a little wimpy, but I felt Vision—it really means like a ghost or a mirage or an image."
I liked the red color on the character. It made him look like a guy you wouldn't want to mess with. Both Ultron and The Vision are great characters, and it's so cool that they were brought to life and included in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Make sure to read the rest of the interview in which he talks about what it was like for him to work at Marvel back in the day.