'VisionQuest,' Finally, Let's James Spader Cook as Ultron

Around the time of James Spader's casting as Ultron in Avengers: Age of Ultron, I was interviewing Marvel Studios head Kevin Feige for another MCU film (I think it was Guardians of the Galaxy) when I asked about Spader's involvement. I asked what kind of voice Spader would be doing and if it would be some sort of robotic voice. Feige, kind of amusingly annoyed, answered, "We didn't hire James Spader to do 'robot voice'" Okay, fair enough!

And, no, Ultron did not have "robot voice," but he's kind of been shuffled out of the MCU zeitgeist; he's a villain we just don't think about too often anymore. And Age of Ultron is now kind of the lost Avengers movie – even at the time receiving an, at best, lukewarm reception, especially compared to the first Avengers movie and the two to follow. Which is kind of a shame because, as Feige pointed out, they did have James Spader playing a villain.

VisionQuest¹ is being billed as a sort of sequel to WandaVision, the 2021 miniseries that put Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany) in a series of situation comedies as a coping devise for Wanda's grief over losing Vision in Avengers: Infinity War. And that's kind of, sort of true (I've seen all eight episodes). But it's truer purpose and reason for existence seems to lie much closer to, "let James Spader cook." We rarely see Ultron as his android version. I suspect budgetary concerns play a factor, but it's our gain because Spader is just an absolute delight in his "human form,²" delivering long soliloquies on the state of humanity or asking Vision if he wants to "rent a porno."

¹I really wish it wasn't called this. There should be nothing with this title that doesn't feature Louden Swain.

²See that lead image up there of Vision and Ultron? Yeah, don't get used to that, you don't see them looking like that much.

(This is a free post for "free tier" subscribers. The Hard Pass only exists because of paid subscribers. If you do become a paid subscriber, you can read about the story a famous person told me about Tom Cruise, which is now my favorite Tom Cruise story. And the time I accidentally tricked a Lost actor into revealing the ending.)