Synopsis
Young Avengers Presents #4 synopsis by
Rob Johnson
Rating:
This issue focuses on the new Vision but equally concerns Stature.
Stature (Cassie Lang) is apart from the other Young Avengers because she chose to Register during the Civil War and is now in the Initiative training in Camp Hammond. Though apparently she's also keeping herself apart here. We see invisible Vision watching her through a chainlink fence. Then Tony Stark arrives at the Camp for a surprise inspection and 'happens' to choose to talk to her. She reminds him they met (in a YA Special flashback set just before YA#1). He gives a quick glimpse of his real Vision-face and then takes her (in civvies) off-campus for a meal.
Cassie is worried and conflicted. She should turn Vision in but she doesn't. She asks why he's here. He says the him that was created in the YA series would have replied with the exact chain of logic that led him here, but he's evolved and his answer now is that he thought she'd be pleased to see him. She says she is a bit but still can't get past the fact that he chose the wrong side in the Civil War. But she thinks he was influenced by the other YAers, and if he hands himself in and Registers then he can join the Initiative and everything will be fine.
But in the meantime she's freaked out by being on a date with 'Tony Stark', so he changes to the face of Iron Lad. (He has the the original Vision's operating system and Iron Lad's brain patterns while his 'body' was IL's neurokinetic armour.) This is hardly an improvement because Cassie fell in love with Nathaniel Richards before he had to go back to the future to become Kang The Conqueror. She's been resisting the idea that in some way Vision *is* IL.
Vision says he's travelled the world, using his mimicry to blend in. He's been an aid worker in Darfur, a groundskeeper for a Shinto temple in Kyoto and a female bartender in New Zealand. He also visited Wundagore where the original Vision's wife Wanda Maximoff was born to see if he had inherited feelings for her, and the answer was no. But all these experiences have allowed him to realise who he is. He wasn't 'influenced' to be Anti-Registration he *chose* it. His Vision and Iron Lad components would have taking opposite sides, *he* made his own choice.
He says he's not here to join the Initiative, he's here to check an intuition he has about her. She hasn't had him arrested. And he saw her in the Camp so alone. Cassie jumps to the conclusion that this is all to get her to defect, and goes into a rant. His side are so sure they're right, and those who've fallen for the Registration line are stupid or evil. His side are the romantic rebels and any collateral damage is worth the cause. Besides Tony Stark will pay for it all when he realises he's been wrong. But the Anti-Reg leader Captain America tried to stop the YA from being amateur vigilantes, and they proved him right by breaking Speed out of jail. She wants to become a hero the way her dad Ant-Man did by working with Stark and the Avengers. And in the end of Civil War Cap realised that the fight wasn't worth the cost and surrendered. But the YA wanted to keep on being romantic rebels (and she somehow suggests that it was that kind of thing that led Scarlet Witch to destroy the Avengers and rewrite reality in House Of M). Vision protests that she's misunderstood him ...
... which is when AIM, who've been monitoring them, break into the diner and shoot Vision through the chest. They also shoot at everyone else in the place. Cassie and Vision each asks them not to hurt the other. Then Vision reaches out to her and accidentally phases his arm right through Cassie's chest as she starts to grow. There's and energy discharge and they both discover they've lost their powers. Cassie is now slightly taller than Vision but can't change size from that, and he can't remove his arm from her body.
The AIM troopers say they're only here for the Vision, whose powers their weapon was meant to disrupt. The girl can accompany them or they'll kill her and cut his arm free form her corpse. Vision says he can't allow that. He's rerouted some of his internal system and has got his solar beam back, which he uses to destroy their guns. But that drains his power and the AIMers close in for hand-to-hand combat. Stature kicks 1 in the face and then they each tackle 1 other. She can't help commenting how he's learned to use contractions like "let's", he says it's to help pass as human. And then she uses Vision's fist to hit the last of the AIM. All 4 gather themselves together and retreat by teleportation.
Cassie says the Cape-Killers from the Camp will be here soon. Vision asks her to call him Jonas, because it's a cool name. He also asks if she wants to turn him in, and she says not and tells him to turn invisible. Later she tells the Cape-Killers that Tony Stark was a fake and lured her here so AIM could attack. Then she heads for her car trying not to walk like she's got somebody attached to her body. Then she realises that she can't drive like this so they'll catch a bus. Cassie feels she has her size-changing back but Jonas still can't go intangible to remove his arm. He has a plan and suggests they go find a large remote area.
Later they get of the bus near a farm. Stature grows extremely large, with visible Vision hanging from her back. Then he pulls his arm free, which they figure will only leave a small wound she can stick a band-aid on. Cassie shrinks and Jonas tends to the hole in her back. Meanwhile she asks him what his intuition was. He says he has come to believe that the person he is is someone she has feelings for, and he's here to tell her that her feelings for Iron Lad are reciprocated by him. And his intuition is that she will respond when he kisses her. And he does and she does. She's still conflicted but she asks him for time to think about things. He of course agrees.