Disney+ is about to make MCU history with the villain roster assembled for its next WandaVision sequel. The upcoming Disney+ series brings Paul Bettany back as White Vision, the synthetic Avenger fighting to recover his memories and his humanity after his strange resurrection in WandaVision and the events of Agatha All Along. Marvel stocked the show with antagonists old and new, and that mix has set a franchise record no Disney+ series has pulled off before.
VisionQuest, which premieres October 14, lines up a villain roster that stretches across more of the MCU timeline than any Disney+ project before it. Faran Tahir returns as Raza, the Ten Rings commander who captured Tony Stark in 2008’s Iron Man, the movie that started the entire franchise. This single piece of casting makes Raza the earliest-debuting MCU villain ever to return on Disney+. The show then pairs him with several brand-new villains arriving in Phase 6, the franchise’s current era. This means VisionQuest is the first Disney+ show to feature villains from Phases 1 and 6 of the MCU.
VisionQuest’s Villain Lineup Makes the MCU’s History
Tahir last played the character almost two decades ago, when Obadiah Stane incapacitated him and left him for dead inside the Ten Rings camp. His return raises immediate questions, since fans long assumed the warlord died. Marvel revealed Tahir’s return in early 2025 and kept his exact role quiet for months, a hint that the studio wants his part in Vision’s story to come as a surprise. With Vision being a Tony Stark creation and Raza playing such a big role in the early stages of Stark's life as a hero, he's likely to influence Vision's memories in some capacity.
As intriguing as Raza's return is, he's not the biggest villain in VisionQuest. James Spader headlines the returning threats as Ultron, the genocidal artificial intelligence he voiced in 2015’s Avengers: Age of Ultron. Matalas has teased that Ultron comes back in an unusual way, appearing both in his classic robotic shell and in a human form that Spader plays on screen.
The fresh faces in VisionQuest also add a touch of modernity. T’Nia Miller plays Jocasta, an android that Ultron creates in the comics to serve as his bride before she turns on him, a history that hints at where her loyalties might shift to in the eight episodes.
Todd Stashwick also joins as Paladin, a mercenary hunting Vision for his advanced technology, and Matalas described the character as a Boba Fett-style tracker. Diane Morgan has also been cast as an unnamed associate of Paladin and is likely to aid in his villainous ambitions.
Lauren Morais brings another antagonist into the mix as Lisa Molinari, the Marvel Comics figure who goes by Coat of Arms. She belongs to the Young Masters, a team meant to rival the Young Avengers, and her tie to Ruaridh Mollica’s Tommy Maximoff could set up a clash with Vision’s speedster son. Every one of these newcomers steps into the MCU for the first time in Phase 6, the newest corner of the timeline, while Raza reaches back to its very beginning.
Until now, the record for the earliest returning villain belonged to Helmut Zemo. Daniel Brühl introduced the character in 2016’s Captain America: Civil War, a Phase 3 film, and brought him back as the main antagonist of The Falcon and the Winter Soldier in 2021. That gap of roughly five years felt large at the time, but Raza blows past it, since Iron Man arrived in 2008 and launched the franchise itself.
Some fans will be quick to point to Abomination as an earlier example. Tim Roth first played Emil Blonsky in 2008’s The Incredible Hulk, then resurfaced on Disney+ in She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. However, in She-Hulk, Blonsky worked as a supporting figure and a client to Jennifer Walters. He is depicted as a reformed wellness guru and doesn’t appear in a villain capacity, so his comeback doesn’t really count as a returning main threat from Phase 1.
This distinction gives Raza the honor outright. Pairing him with multiple Phase 6 debuts gives VisionQuest arguably the broadest rogues' gallery in MCU history, and it does so as the Multiverse Saga marches toward Avengers: Doomsday in December. This diverse villain roster rewards viewers who stuck around since the first film while pulling deep comic book names like Jocasta and Coat of Arms into live action.
How Interesting Will VisionQuest Be?
The biggest draw of VisionQuest is the clash between Vision and Ultron. Vision owes his existence partly to the same artificial intelligence that once tried to end the world, and fans have been itching for a proper showdown between the two since Age of Ultron. Putting them in one room, with Ultron now wearing a human face, promises a heated mental battle between the two. Also, since Bettany first voiced JARVIS in Iron Man, Raza's return adds another interesting detail for longtime fans by involving two names from the film that started it all.
Aside from the battle between Vision and Ultron and how Raza plays into the series, the other villains on the roster will also make the show intriguing. Jocasta and Molinari are making their live-action debuts, leaving fans guessing about what kind of villains they will be. While the comics offer some clues, Marvel is notorious for heavily altering comic book antagonists, so it's hard to predict how they'll behave in the show. Meanwhile, White Vision looked incredibly formidable and menacing at the end of WandaVision, and it will be exciting to see this powerful version back in action.
Geraldo Amartey is a writer at The Direct. He joined the team in 2025, bringing with him four years of experience covering entertainment news, pop culture, and fan-favorite franchises for sites like YEN, Briefly and Tuko.
