Ahead of VisionQuest‘s release, Marvel Studios President Kevin Feige had one specific request that tied back to Iron Man. VisionQuest not only marks the third chapter in the WandaVision trilogy but also includes characters and actors who have been part of the MCU since its inception. With this in mind, it is no surprise that Feige had the MCU’s first theatrical release on his mind while helping to make this series.
VisionQuest showrunner Terry Matalas detailed Kevin Feige’s request to bring back two of Tony Stark’s AI programs, Dum-E and U, for the new Disney+ series. Speaking with New Rockstars, Matalas looked back at shows like Dexter and thought about how he could do something similar with the “other AIs that could inhabit” Vision’s mind. Discussing this with Feige, Feige then suggested Dum-E and U from the original Iron Man movie, to which Matalas responded, “That’s amazing:”
“Vision was very much about, ‘I don’t want to kill Ultron. Ultron’s in pain.’ I’m like, what if he did a backup? You cut away. Typically in film and television if you cut away from the death, even sometimes when you don’t, there’s a chance that person can survive. So, I thought it would be… I kind of saw the ‘Dexter’ thing happening, where Dexter was talking to his father and then I started to think… I saw this image of this house in my head, this weird AI thing. It’s a lot like what Will Hughes-Jones designed, that exterior. I drove him a little crazy on it and then I started to think about the other AIs that could inhabit and that Ultron would be locked like [Hannibal] Lecter in the attic as the adviser. And I was fully prepared for Kevin [Feige] and Brad [Winderbaum] to laugh me out of the room and be like, ‘Oh, go back. Try give me something else.’ And instead Kevin had this smile on his face. He’s like, ‘Well, what about DUM-E and U?’ And I was like, ‘That’s amazing. What about DUM-E and U?’ And so, yeah, it was fun. It was a lot of fun.”
EDITH actress Emily Hampshire also touched on the Tony Stark element of this show, telling GamesRadar that she “watched all the [MCU] movies from the beginning” to understand her role:
“I watched all the movies from the beginning, and Spider-Man: Far From Home, that’s her birth story,” she explains. “So I definitely, to find the E.D.I.T.H. we meet in ‘VisionQuest,’ I started with the E.D.I.T.H. who is in Spider-Man: Far From Home.”
She continued to detail how “Tony’s legacy is in there,” reflecting on him naming her character EDITH, which stands for “Even Dead, I’m The Hero.” This “informed that there’s something in her that wants to be the hero” for Hampshire’s portrayal, while she also explained how her “idea of fun is blowing things up” in this series:
“Tony’s legacy is in there, and he named her E.D.I.T.H. for ‘Even Dead, I’m The Hero,’ so that really informed that there’s something in her that wants to be the hero, but also has that sense of play that Tony has, and yet her idea of fun is blowing things up, and so that is what has created who we meet in ‘VisionQuest.'”
This show marks one of the rare times that characters like Dum-E and U have been seen outside of the Iron Man and Avengers movies. Notably, Dum-E also appeared alongside Tom Holland in Spider-Man: No Way Home, showing up in Happy Hogan’s apartment that Peter Parker and Aunt May used after Peter’s identity was revealed to the world.
Iron Man’s Influence on Disney+’s VisionQuest Show
It is no surprise to see Iron Man have an influence on VisionQuest, considering his first AI system in the MCU, Jarvis, was eventually used to create Vision in Avengers: Age of Ultron. This series dives deep into the origin story of Paul Bettany’s veteran MCU hero, as all the AI systems from Tony Stark’s history in the MCU impact his existence before and after his time in WandaVision.
This also comes just a couple of months before Downey returns to the MCU in a new role as Doctor Doom, who will be the central character in Avengers: Doomsday upon its debut on December 18. One of the biggest questions about that movie is how much Doom and Stark will be connected, which is only amplified by VisionQuest being released only weeks prior. VisionQuesthas featured plenty of Stark references throughout the series’ run, showing how Tony Stark’s legacy is still alive and well even years after his tragic passing in Avengers: Endgame.
