"Gah Lak Tus was the very definition of "monster" to me. But then I met you, doctor Tarleton. Definition — amended."
— Vision
Ultimate Vision was a 2007 comic book by Mike Carey and Brandon Peterson. It is set in the Ultimate Marvel universe, in the aftermath of the Ultimate Galactus Trilogy.
Issue #0 is set after the recovery of the Vision in Ultimate Nightmare. She completes self repairs, reveals her true form, and narrates her story. For half a billion years, she has been going to each world in Gah Lak Tus' way, warning about the upcoming destruction, but always failed to save them. Those stories had been published earlier as epilogues in the several ongoing Ultimate titles (Ultimate X Men, Ultimate Spider-Man, Ultimate Fantastic Four, etc), before the climax of the crossover event.
After the crossover event, Gah Lak Tus has finally been defeated. He had to leave Earth, unable to destroy it. But he still lives, so the Vision prepares to jump to the space and continue warning other worlds. But when she leaves the atmosphere she notices a call from a nearby satellite. A.I.M., led by Dr. Tarleton, secured a damaged and inert unit of the Gah Lak Tus swarm, and tries to retrieve its secrets. Vision interfaces with it, thinking that they intend to find out how to destroy Gah Lak Tus, but she was deceived: Tarleton wants to control the unit. He enhances himself with it, and blasts her. She manages to self-repair with the help of Dima, an artificial girl created there, but things soon turn into a disaster: Tarleton becomes a slave of Gah Lak Tus' will, all the others turn into purple monsters, and the unit arranges for the satellite to fall to the planet. The unit then tries to proceed to Gah Lak Tus' original goal, by digging into the planet's core and making a planetary explosion. It is finally destroyed by Vision, Tarleton and Sam.
Vision was injured during the whole adventure, and repairs will take a month. So she will stay with Falcon during that time.
Tropes
- Aesop Amnesia: The story started because A.I.M. captured a Gah Lak Tus module and tried to study it. By the end of the story, the module has been destroyed, and S.H.I.E.L.D. is picking up the remains...to study them.
- Analogy Backfire: Tarleton mentioned that those in the satellite live like monks. He then had to clarify that they are not motivated by religion, that he only made the monk comparison because of the reclusion.
- Artificial Human: Dima is a girl completely made of plastic polymers. The experiment was going fine, but she ceased to grow at the age of 6.
- The Atoner: Vision restored Tarleton's sanity. He accepted that he made a big mistake, and helped to defeat Gah Lak Tus from then on.
- Batman Can Breathe in Space: Vision and Dima are both artificial beings, so of course they can survive the vacuum of space and simply leave the doomed satellite.
- The Cameo: Stephen Hawking was among the selected conclave of thinkers trying to come up with a solution against Gah Lak Tus.
- Cover Innocent Eyes and Ears: When the Gah Lak Tus purple monsters show up, Vision takes the axe from Dima and orders her to close her eyes.
- Cruel Mercy: Tarleton, under orders of Gah Lak Tus, drops the AIM satellite out of orbit, killing the people with reentry.
- Death of a Child: During the final battle Tarleton overrides Dima's personality and turns her into a living bomb, that blows up the Gah Lak Tus module. It granted victory and saved the world, but enraged Vision.
- Desk Sweep of Rage: When Dima was with Vision, and away from the scientists, she destroyed the computer that instructed her to do endless block configurations with an axe.
- The Determinator: Vision has been warning worlds about Gah Lak Tus since half a billion years. Nobody ever survived, but she continues all the same.
- Deus ex Machina: During the battle, Vision wishes that she was saved somehow, but accepts that "strict logic does not admit of angels". Then Sam joins the fight.
- Distant Prologue: The story of the Vision starts half a billion years ago, in a world with an unpronounceable name.
- Do Not Adjust Your Set: Tarleton tried to deliver one, but the power supply was failing.
- Evil Is Not a Toy: Everybody, from the Vision to his fellow scientists, told Tarleton that toying with the Gah Lak Tus unit would be a massively bad idea. He refused to listen and the module nearly destroyed the world.
- Fling a Light into the Future: Vision was created as a herald warning planets of the coming of Gah Lak Tus. She's failed countless times, but has been upgraded by some of the species she's encountered.
- Gender Flip: In the mainstream comics, Vision is male. Here, she is female.
- Gollum Made Me Do It: Tarleton added Gah Lak Tus technology to his own body, to become a powerful cyborg, but became his agent instead, plotting to help him destroy the world. When Vision restored his sanity, he said that Gah Lak Tus was making him do all that, and became The Atoner (and he could still hear his voice, even if he ignored it now). Vision did not take much comfort in that: he had already proved to be a monster before messing with that tech.
- Godzilla Threshold: The satellite is blowing up, and a message that a scientist managed to send included the words "Gah Lak". Nick Fury ordered to deploy the bombers codenamed Ares.Technician: Ares? Colonel, we can't use nukes so close to a major population center. Not without presidential authorization.Nick Fury: Good point. I'll raise it at my next confession
- Harbinger of Impending Doom: Vision goes planet after planet, warning them against the coming of Gah Lak Tus. so that they can prepare their defenses. It has always been useless, nobody ever survived, but she continues anyway.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: The Vision's power is to talk. But she talks in all the alien languages available, and in some cases, for aliens who developed language in exceedingly inhospitable environments, mere words are weapons in themselves.
- I Cannot Self-Terminate: Gah Lak Tus is programmed to caused untold kinds of deaths and destruction, but not its own one. Not even if that will allow him to kill others.
- It's All About Me: Do not mix Tarleton in a middle of a "we" phrase, specially not if you are talking about a success. It's always something that he, and he alone, did.
- It's Quiet… Too Quiet: The Gah Lak Tus module landed in a military base. Vision and Tarleton arrive to the place. No guards, nobody around. Even the comms chatter ceased, except for the automated distress calls.
- Lensman Arms Race: The Gah Lak Tus module has destroyed the bombers. Colonel Fury, orders?Nick Fury: As grandma Fury used to say, back in the day, when in doubt, escalate.
- Let's Get Dangerous!: Almost destroyed and unable to self-repair, Vision asks Dima for help. An articial girl, aged 6.
- Living Ark: Vision continuously serves as this trope for alien cultures, having warned worlds about Gah Lak Tus since half a billion years prior. Nobody ever survived, but she continues all the same, downloading a complete record of the planet she fails to help before moving on to the next. She even did the same for Earth, before she managed to successfully ward off Gah Lak Tus with Earth's help.
- Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: Of all the women Sam could have fallen in love with, did he had to do it with a female alien robot?
- Losing Your Head: Vision cut Tarleton's head for killing Dima, and threw it to the horizon. That doesn't kill him, but left him in a highly uncomfortable position.
- Mass "Oh, Crap!"
- A group of scientists saw the gah lak tus aliens outside the window.
- Vision and Sam see a growing forcefield coming from the Gah Lak Tus module. They escape from there.
- Mythology Gag: The cover of the #4 issue makes reference to Fantastic Four #49, during The Coming of Galactus.
- No-Sell: Several planes fired atomic weapons to the Gah Lak Tus module. Its forcefield was barely scratched.
- Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: Tarleton tried to manipulate the Vision with this. It did not work. She has no problem to say that she is afraid of Gah Lak Tus.
- Nothing Is the Same Anymore: Vision is proud of the victory of the human race, and how it will allow other planets to survive with a similar method. But then, the rest of the story started, and she had to delay the good news to other planets.
- Off with His Head!: Vision cut Tarleton's head for killing Dima, and threw it to the horizon.
- Oh, Crap!: Vision finds that those humans are keeping a Gah Lak Tus unit in storage. She goes nuts.
- Plague Zombie: People exposed to the Gah Lak Tus virus become demonic creatures that do his will.
- Planetary Core Manipulation: The Gah Lak Tus swarm was defeated and driven away during the Ultimate Galactus Trilogy, but one of the modules was left behind. Unable to do the things the whole swarm would do, it tried to dig into the core of the planet to make a planetary explosion.
- Planet of Hats: One of the planets the Vision visited was composed entirely of engineers, all of them focused on stopping the threat of Gah Lak Tus. They covered their whole planet in armor, and bobby trapped their solar system. Alas, it was not enough.
- Professor Guinea Pig: Tarleton experimented on himself, even before the Gah Lak Tus unit showed up.
- Quarantine with Extreme Prejudice: When the Gah Lak Tus module released the virus, the whole section is locked. Two full work units must be killed, but there's no other way.
- Rasputinian Death: Vision damaged the Gah Lak Tus module, so it hide into a military base and attempted to dig into earth's core. When attacked again, Dima exploded and greatly damaged it. And yet, it was still alive; but Vision took advantage that its core was exposed to finish it for good.
- Right Behind Me: A scientist in the quarantined zone describes the problem they are into. Everyone has an Oh, Crap! face. Something he said? No, the alien monsters outside the window.
- Sanity Strengthening: Rather than attack Tarleton, Vision removed the insanity induced by Gah Lak Tus. He got normal again... even if still an android, and still hearing Gah Lak Tus' voice in his head.
- Screw the Rules, It's the Apocalypse!: Turning Dima, a 6 years girl, into a living bomb would be a horrible action in most circumstances. But the Gah Lak Tus module will destroy the world if it is not destroyed, and she's just a plastic artificial human, anyway. This is Tarleton's view of it, anyway. Vision does not share it.
- Sealed Evil in a Can: The Gah Lak Tus unit. Tarleton needed to activate it for his plan to work. He did, and all hell broke loose.
- Shoot the Messenger
- One of the scientists reminded Tarleton that the "Northern Directorate" will not approve of Tarleton merging with the Gah Lak Tus unit. Tarleton killed that scientist.
- Another one said there was a problem with the power supply. Tarleton killed him too.
- The Social Darwinist: In Tarleton's proposed utopia, people would only breed with people arranged by the government, based on genetic compatibility.
- The Stars Are Going Out: This is the first sign that the coming of Gah Lak Tus is nigh.
- Taking You with Me: Gah Lak Tus seems to be about to destroy itself to cause a massive destruction. Or is that the plan?
- Utopia Justifies the Means: Tarleton plans on creating a technological utopia on earth. Of course, those unfit for it will be killed...in a painless manner.
- The Virus: Gah Lak Tus has one, that turns people into purple monsters that do his will.
- Weapons-Grade Vocabulary: Ultimate Vision is a space probe modified successively over billions of years to adapt and assimilate the appearance and language of every alien species she encounters. Naturally the more exotic ones have equally exotic forms of language which she weaponizes. She can speak in neurotransmitters to rewrite your brain back to sanity or curse you out with microwave laser or sing songs with gravity singularities for lyrics.
- We Come in Peace — Shoot to Kill: The Gah Lak Tus drone may be armed, but it's alone, separated from the swarm, which is a hundred million miles away and going even farther. Vision asks for a truce. Of course, there is only one answer to that...
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Dima is an artificial human made of plastic, created by A.I.M.. For Tarleton and all the scientists, she's s just a tool. For Vision, she's a life form, as worthy of her life as any other one.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Tarleton turned Dima into a living bomb and sent her against the Gah Lak Tus module. It destroyed it, but Vision was so enraged that she cut his head and threw it to the horizon.
- You're Insane!: One of the scientists could not believe that Tarleton had fused the Gah Lak Tus tech into his own cyborg components. He asked for clarification: "insane" is hardly a scientific term.
- You Monster!Vision: Gah Lak Tus was the very definition of "monster" to me. But then I met you, Doctor Tarleton. Definition — amended.
