Joss Whedon Really Fought to Show Vision’s Hog in ‘Age of Ultron’
In the very popular, very influential and very good comic book Watchmen, Doctor Manhattan is completely naked in all of his scenes in the present day, with his big blue hog flapping in the wind. This was done for a reason, as through flashbacks we see Manhattan wearing less and less as his powers and the perspective they bring make him feel more distant from humanity.
Joss Whedon wanted to show Vision’s penis in Avengers: Age of Ultron because penises are funny or something. I don’t know the reasoning.
What I do know is that in an appearance on the Lights, Camera, Pod podcast, Paul Bettany recalled that Whedon was emphatic about Marvel’s Merry Moviegoers getting an eyeful of the Vision’s manhood. Androidhood. Cybernetic robodong.
We talked to Paul Bettany about #WandaVision and ended up with a story about how Joss Whedon wanted Vision to look when he first appeared in ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’.
“He was like, ‘He has to have a penis.’”
INTERVIEW: https://t.co/DpjuUp7a2E pic.twitter.com/WxeiERrVWv
— Lights, Camera, Barstool (@LightsCameraPod) January 26, 2021
I really don’t know what to make of this. It’s a really amusing clip and Whedon realized he was wrong eventually, but he did make Marvel’s concept artists do multiple renditions of Vision’s penis.
I do really question why. My best guess is that it’s because Watchmen had a penis in it, but as I already explained, like everything that happened in Watchmen, it happened for a reason.
I remember the days when Joss Whedon could do no wrong, at least as far as genre entertainment went. Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Firefly were near-masterpieces of genre fiction that had action, heart and wit in equal measures, and Whedon was able to deliver that again with Avengers.
I really wish I knew what happened that changed him from that guy to a J. Jonah Jameson meme yelling about pictures of Vision’s dick instead of Spider-Man.
