Marvel Sets James Spader For Ultron Return In Vision Disney+ Series

Things are going from "pretty bad, guys" to pretty bad guys over in the recently rejuvenated MCU right about now! With Robert Downey Jr. set to get his Victor Von Doom on in Avengers: Doomsday and Secret Wars, Ralph Ineson prepping to play planet eater Galactus in The Fantastic Four: First Steps, and other ne'er-do-wells on their way including the motley crew of Thunderbolts*, Giancarlo Esposito's Captain America: Brave New World supervillain Sidewinder, and the titular witch of Agatha All Along all on Marvel Studios' horizon, Kang the Conqueror is but a distant memory already. And now, per THR's reporting, we're getting news that a familiar robotic foe from the MCU's past is readying a villainous return. That's right folks — James Spader's bionic big-bad Ultron is set to make a comeback in WandaVision's as-yet-untitled Vision spin-off series.

Last seen seemingly being destroyed in 2015's Avengers: Age Of Ultron, Spader's creepy-voiced baddie — the defence-program-gone-awry progeny of one Tony Stark — is the guy who created Paul Bettany's android Vision in the first place. And whilst we don't quite know just yet how Ultron is coming back, the fact that Star Trek: Picard showrunner Terry Matalas' upcoming Vision series is set to explore 'White Vision''s search for purpose in a post-Thanos, post-Wanda world means there's plenty of room for Bettany and Spader's testy father-son relationship to be examined anew here.

According to THR's reporting, this new Vision series has been conceived as the third part in a trilogy also comprising WandaVision and the imminently dropping Agatha All Along, though plot specifics — and any word on a potential return for Elizabeth Olsen's Wanda Maximoff/Scarlett Witch — are being kept firmly under wraps at this stage. What we do know however is that the show is circling an early 2025 shoot in London, Paul Bettany and James Spader are in it, and the series has bagged itself one of the best genre showrunners in the business to guide it. And for that alone, well, you've gotta admire Marvel Studios' *ahem* Vision.