Marvel Studios‘ upcoming Vision series with Paul Bettany is going back to the source code: Faran Tahir is joining the show as Raza, the role he originated in the studio’s first feature film, 2008’s “Iron Man.”
Bettany is returning as the ghostly white version of the synthezoid he first played in the 2015 film “Avengers: Age of Ultron,” and James Spader is reprising his role from “Age of Ultron” as the titular villainous AI. Todd Stashwick (“Star Trek: Picard”) is also playing an unspecified character.
Resurrecting Tahir’s character nearly 20 years after he first appeared will mark the longest gap between appearances in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to date. That’s an even more impressive feat considering that Raza — best known for kidnapping Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark, the inciting incident that leads Start to become Iron Man — was seemingly killed halfway through “Iron Man” by the film’s main villain, Obadiah Stane (Jeff Bridges). But death, of course, is far from a permanent state in the MCU; Bettany’s Vision dies in 2018’s “Avengers: Infinity War,” only to be brought back to life in the 2021 Disney+ series “WandaVision.”
As Variety exclusively reported, Terry Matalas (“Star Trek: Picard,” “12 Monkeys”) is the executive producer and showrunner for the Vision series, which is set to debut in 2026.
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Tahir is also a “Trek” alumni, playing the captain of the U.S.S. Kelvin in the opening sequence of 2009’s “Star Trek.” His other roles include the feature films “Elysium” and “Escape Plan,” and the TV series “The Old Man,” “12 Monkeys,” “Scandal” and “Once Upon a Time.”