Never underestimate the importance of a story being told in exactly the correct medium. And The Vision, a series that takes the Avengers’ longtime android member and turns him into the patriarch of his own android family, can only be properly told as a comic book.

Sequential comic book art can most effectively convey how eerie and alien this family is, and the excellent artwork of Gabriel Hernandez Walta does just that. The Visions appear cold and stiff, almost wooden, but still very much alive. In a live-action movie, the characters might look silly or cartoonish, whereas in comic book art they exist on the same plane as the rest their environment. No need to add or polish them during post-production.

Animation? Maybe, but animation wouldn’t be able to match writer Tom King’s effective use of caption narration. Issue #5 juxtaposes an officer interrogating Vision and a list of the 37 times the Vision has saved the world—something that would be extraordinarily difficult to pull off on the screen or in a novel.

This comic is something different and special, and I’m looking forward to seeing where it goes.

Writer: Tom King

Artist: Gabriel Hernandez Walta

Publisher: Marvel Comics

How to Read It: recent back issues; Marvel Unlimited; Comixology; included in The Vision vol. 1: Little Worse Than a Man (TPB)

Appropriate For: ages 14 and up