This article contains spoilers for VisionQuest season 1 episodes 5 and 6.
For its first four episodes, VisionQuest pit its heroes against a mysterious figure hidden under a cloak. We’ve watched her attack various members of an AI advancement research team led by scientist Katerina Wells (Mary McDonnell). But so far, we’ve only known her by a frightening name chosen by the press: the Butcherbird Killer.
Now with its latest episodes, VisionQuest tells us what anyone who has been paying attention to the casting already knew. The Butcherbird Killer is in fact Jocasta, an android who bears more than a passing resemblance to Ultron. T’Nia Miller was announced as Jocasta long ago. But anyone who knows Marvel Comics knows that whenever Ultron and Vision are around, Jocasta can’t be far behind. And they also know how weird Jocasta’s story is, made stranger by her association with the Avengers.
Jocasta made her debut well after Ultron and Vision, first appearing in 1977’s Avengers #162, by Jim Shooter and George Pérez. Although her name comes from the mother of Oedipus in Greek Myth, the title of Avengers #162, “The Bride of Ultron,” reveals its debt to the Frankenstein story. The mad scientist/Ant-Man Henry Pym (not Tony Stark in the comics) made his monster in Ultron, a creature that emulated his father by making Vision. And now he wants a bride; one befitting the son of Hank Pym.
Ultron builds a female robot body and attempts to copy the brain waves of Hank Pym’s wife at the time, Janet Van Dyne a.k.a. the Wasp, to create Jocasta. But upon realizing that her life will result in the death of the Wasp, Jocasta chooses to sacrifice herself, an act that allows the Avengers to defeat Ultron.
Or so they thought. A year later, in Avengers #170, Ultron uses a remote control to reactivate Jocasta and force him to become his bride. Once again, however, Jocasta rebelled and sided with the Avengers, eventually joining them as an auxiliary member. However, the team refused to allow Jocasta full membership for years, despite her expressed desire to be one of them. It took until 1980’s Avengers #197, by David Michelinie and Carmine Infantino, for Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to recognize Jocasta as an equal.
However, by then, the damage was done. Jocasta left the team only a few years later, and has had a complicated relationship with humanity ever since. Sometimes, she will team with the Avengers or members of the Fantastic Four to stave off larger threats, including serving among a revived Skrull Kill Crew during the Secret Invasion storyline. Other times, Jocasta feels most comfortable with other AIs, forming real connections with the Machine Man or Vision.
That tempestuous relationship still has not settled, even to this day. When Hank Pym merged with Ultron during the 2015 storyline Rage of Ultron, Jocasta saw the combination as a means for making herself human, something she secretly always desired. When Arno Stark, the biological son of Howard and Maria Stark, began his crusade against his adoptive brother Tony (yeah, that’s a whole thing, and we don’t have time to get into it now), Jocasta initially sides with him because he promises to give her a human body.
Since both of those attempts failed, Jocasta has been even more committed to advocating for machines and artificial intelligences. She has participated in multiple robot uprisings, and will consistently choose other androids if forced to pick a side between them and other humans. This doesn’t mean that Jocasta wants to fight the Avengers or any other set of humans. Simply that she has learned that she cannot trust people, not even the good guys.
That development makes Jocasta an interesting reminder of the way that the Avengers operate in the world of the comics. From the very beginning, the Avengers have had members who the general public mistrusted, whether it was the Hulk in the first lineup or career criminals Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and Quicksilver in the second incarnation, dubbed Cap’s Kooky Quartet. The Avengers recognize that people make mistakes, and will often extend invitations to bad guys trying to turn over a new leaf.
However, as a group of people, the Avengers themselves sometimes make mistakes. The missed opportunities with Jocasta, and her ongoing skepticism of the Avengers in particular and humanity in general, reminds us of the cost of those mistakes. Every time Jocasta appears in a story, we see that our heroes have feet of clay. And we can only hope that Jocasta has forgiveness in her programming, lest humans find themselves crushed under feet of iron.
VisionQuest streams new episodes every Wednesday on Disney+.
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