Issue(s): Avengers #348
Cover Date: Jun 92
Title: "Familial connections"
Credits:
Bob Harras - Writer
Kirk Jarvinen - Penciler
Tom Palmer - Inker
Pat Garrahy - Assistant Editor
Ralph Macchio - Editor

Review/plot:
Steve Epting is taking a break, and Bob Harras gives us a mostly downtime issue focused on the Vision. The story opens with a classic version of the Vision kissing the Scarlet Witch.

But it turns out to be a hologram created by the Vision, using Mr. Fantastic's encephalo-helmet.

I assume the Black Knight and Crystal are too distracted by that to give him a little talking to after his actions during Galactic Storm ("Listen, Vision, letting a bomb detonate that will wipe out an entire civilization is not cool, ok?"). They instead talk about the Vision's (lack of a) love life, and the Vision notes that the Black Knight seems to have feelings for Crystal, although he denies it. The Vision is then approached by Luna's nanny, Marilla...

...who tells him that Laura Lipton is here to see him. Lipton is the wife of the deceased Alex, who the Vision got his personality replacement from (not that any of her husband's actual personality is evident in the Vision). She informs Vision that her father, Miles, the scientist that performed the personality transplant, is dying, and he'd like to see the Vision one last time.

Meanwhile, Black Knight and Hercules go to a bar, and they spot a woman that looks like Magdalene, the woman they fought with Swordsman a few issues back. The woman they think is Magdalene may or may not be hiding a troupe of circus monkeys in her coat in the panel below.

The woman claims no knowledge of the Avengers, but the Knight and Herc follow her back to her apartment. We (the audience) see the woman, who turns out to be this dimension's analogue to Magdalene, being confronted by Magdalene and Proctor...

...but when Herc and the Knight hear a scream and bust into the apartment, it's empty.

Meanwhile, Crystal accompanies the Vision to the Lipton place. Miles has devised a way to temporarily bring Alex's personality back to the forefront, and the Vision allows him to use it so that Miles can talk to his son again before he dies.

Miles then passes away. But Vision remains Alex for a bit and spends time with Laura.

Crystal later suggests that the Vision was just faking it to be nice to Miles and Laura.

The Vision's tear possibly suggests otherwise. But hey, Vision, if you can fake it, maybe you could do so just a little bit all the time? Maybe just enough so that i could pretend you were still the old Vision?

Quality Rating: C-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References:

• No footnote, but Mr. Fantastic's helmet was first seen in Fantastic Four #27.
  
• The Vision's personality transplant was in Avengers Spotlight #40.
  
• The Black Knight tells Hercules that Captain America taking a leave of absence bothers him, with a reference to Captain America #401. Black Widow suggested that Cap take a leave of absence in that issue, but Cap doesn't actually agree until issue #402. However, since #402 begins a story that leads into Infinity War, i'm accepting the footnote as accurate, with maybe people thinking that Cap has agreed to the LOA already.
  
• The Avengers fought Magdalene in Avengers #343-344.
  
• Binary was wounded in Quasar #34 and is recuperating at Avengers Mansion. She lost her original Ms. Marvel powers and her persona in Avengers annual #10.

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Shouldn't the Vision not be able to wear that helmet while flying? He becomes intangible to fly, so how could he hold/manipulate something?

Vision has been able to make himself (or parts of himself) semi-solid before to be able to carry objects or occasionally people when flying.

He makes his skin diamond hard and the rest of his body intangible so he is essential a man-shaped dirigible. He then uses the jewel on his forehead for propulsion in a manner too complicated for mere humans to understand.

Vision's intangibility-bases flight is so interesting, I generally write-off the times he carries something while airborne as mistakes.

The Vision's ability to fly is a power independent of his intangibility.

When going over Vision's powers in the issues he first appeared, Ultron says he can "become light enough to float on the air itself." The handbooks also ascribe his flight to his density powers. And for an example not too long before this issue, Avengers #332 has Vision suffer from some unintended consequences of his low density while flying, so it still applies to his white rebuilt body.

Obviously, scenes like the one with the helmet above can suggest otherwise, but since Vision's density-based flight was established early and allows for scenarios you wouldn't get with other flying characters, I tend to write those off. Since Reed built this helmet, it'd be easy to say he made it with unstable molecules or its own flight system.

There's also a scene in Avengers 121 where the Vision has to catch Mantis when she's been thrown off the top of a building. Engelhart makes a point of the fact that Vision can't fly without being intangible, so he has to become diamond hard and punch his hand into the side of the building to slow them down (gouging a long hole the wall in the process).

The Vision does have the limited ability to make things he touches intangible, so you could say he made the helmet intangible too. Or you could shrug and say "because comics".

Vision managed to carry the Serpent Crown in order to (deliberately) drop it in the Pacific Ocean in Avengers #154. To build on what Andrew says, i like the idea that he can bring things into an intangible state when he's transforming from being solid, but he can't turn something intangible when he's already intangible, which would explain why he couldn't catch Mantis in #121. (I suppose he could have turned solid, caught her, and then turned intangible again, but there might not have been enough time for that.)

Black Knight and Hercules had a steady run as Avengers with little interruption, right?? From the Stern era and i had no idea they were still full time members into 1992

@Hunter: not exactly. Dane was absent for a long time, dealing with his sword curse thing. Herc was gone after his Masters of Evil beating until the Evolutionary War annual where he rejoins briefly, "dies" for a minute, and comes back IIRC in the 340s. I guess they're both reservists during that period but as far as being active members appearing in the book every month, they were both gone for 30+ issues.

By the way, is this the first appearance of the infamous "Avegers jackets?"

We first saw the jackets in Avengers #346 and they even (sort of) have an in-story explanation.