Iron Man Villain Officially Returns To The MCU After 18 Years

Published Oct 27, 2026, 10:00 PM EDT

Felipe Rangel is a Movie and TV Journalist ScreenRant. He has been writing about movies and TV since 2021. Felipe joined ScreenRant in 2022, working across different teams, covering everything from breaking news to features to reviews and more.

Felipe is a writer who is an avid film and TV fan, with superhero movies and series being his biggest passion. He graduated from college in 2019, having studied Journalism. Before college, he spent a month studying at the Oxford English Centre. His superhero knowledge expands to the comics, with his undergraduate thesis being "Politics Reflected In American Comics."

Warning! This article contains SPOILERS for VisionQuest episodes 5 and 6.VisionQuest's third and final batch of two episodes has been released on Disney+, with episodes 7 and 8 set to drop individually on the streaming service over the next two weeks. In last weekend's VisionQuest episodes, the Marvel Cinematic Universe series finally marked the debut of Jocasta, who is played by The Haunting of Bly Manor's T'Nia Miller. The Marvel TV show explained her backstory, revealing who was Doctor Josephine Carrington, and the revenge mission Jocasta was on. VisionQuest episodes 3 and 4 were also big for another of Marvel's evil synthetics, as James Spader's Ultron managed to convince Vision to hand him control.

The last batch of episodes of the Marvel series ended with Paul Betanny's Vision and the other AIs trapped inside his Mind Place, while Ultron was the captain of the ship. The Marvel villain wanted to talk to Vision's son, Ruaridh Mollica's Tommy, and that plays out in VisionQuest's new episodes. That said, there are also a lot of new developments in this new batch of episodes, with VisionQuest bringing back an Iron Man movie villain, a key location related to the X-Men, seemingly teasing a Marvel Comics villain arc, and more. VisionQuest episodes 5 and 6 came with major surprises.

Iron Man Villain Raza's MCU Return Explained

The biggest surprise in VisionQuest's new episodes is the MCU return of Raza, played by Faran Tahir, who previously served as one of the villains of 2008's Iron Man, the first movie in the Marvel Studios franchise. In the Robert Downey Jr. MCU movie, Raza was introduced as a leader of the Ten Rings organization, ruling over a local cell. VisionQuest reveals that after he was betrayed by Obadiah Stane, he spent several years in the Ten Rings' torture chamber.

The organization's role in the MCU grew exponentially with the release of 2021's Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, which debuted Tony Leung's Xu Wenwu, the leader of the ancient Ten Rings organization. Right now, the group is under the command of Xu Xialing, Shang-Chi's sister. When he returns to the MCU in VisionQuest, Raza shows up with an army, ready to kill Paladin and take Vision by force. However, at the end of the day, Raza and his men were not a match for Vision.

Is Ultron Fully Onboard With Jocasta's Plan?

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Ultron was one of the MCU's biggest villains when he appeared in 2015's Avengers: Age of Ultron. That said, VisionQuest has teased that the character might no longer be full-on evil after the long time he has spent in Vision's Mind Place. In fact, during the events of VisionQuest episode 6, viewers learn that Ultron no longer wants to kill humanity, which was his goal after taking a look at human history in the Marvel villain's MCU debut. Ultron has changed.

However, Ultron seems to be developing a tight bond with Jocasta, which is a given, as the two kiss at the end of VisionQuest episode 6. While Jocasta does not have the same plan as Ultron once did, meaning she does not necessarily want to kill humanity, Jocasta has revealed that her ultimate goal is to use nanotechnology to get all humans to think as one — a hive mind. As such, it remains to be seen whether Ultron is fully onboard with her plan — he did stop Jocasta from infecting Tommy with the nanotech.

Is Marvel Setting Up Lisa Molinari's Comics Fate?

Image credit: Dennys Ilic

While Ultron directed Jocasta's sights away from Tommy, the new MCU villain went ahead and had her nanotech take over Tommy's love interest, Lisa Molinari. Up to this point, Lisa had been a regular human in the MCU series, with Tommy's super speed making him the only super-powered character out of the two. However, now that she is infected with the nanotech, all bets are off. It is possible that the MCU has started the character down the path to her Marvel Comics fate.

Lisa Molinari started as a grey character in the comics, exploring what heroes and villains were made of in the Marvel universe. However, with time, Lisa and her team would start to operate in connection with the Masters of Evil, a super-villain team that has historically featured members like Zemo, Ultron, Scorpion, Shocker, Titania, Yellowjacket, Doctor Octopus, and many more. If Vision and Tommy do not manage to get Lisa back to the way she was, there is a chance that VisionQuest could be setting her up to be Tommy's nemesis.

Madripoor's MCU Connection Explained

Madripoor is back in full force in the MCU in VisionQuest's new episodes, with the Raza confrontation taking place in the neon-soaked location. Madripoor first appeared in the MCU in another Disney+ series, 2021's The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, which saw Zemo take Sam Wilson, the MCU's current Captain America, and Bucky Barnes to the island to look into the Super Soldier Serum. More recently, Madripoor made an appearance in 2024's Deadpool & Wolverine.

It was only for a quick cameo, as Ryan Reynolds' Deadpool found a multiversal variant of Hugh Jackman's Wolverine, dressed as Logan's Patch persona from Marvel Comics, betting in a casino in Madripoor. That was the way the MCU found to honor the location's connection to the X-Men in the comics. After all, Madripoor has been tied to the criminal underworld and acted as a landing spot for mutants on the run, or those needing information, for a long time.

VisionQuest Reveals Major JARVIS And Paladin Details

Finally, VisionQuest's two new episodes came with a couple of major reveals for two characters. While he sacrificed himself to save Vision and the other AIs early in the series, J.A.R.V.I.S. just had his origin revealed in VisionQuest. Josephine Carrington used a scan of her own brain to complete Phineas Horton's code, which in turn created the base code for all the MCU AIs. After being sold to Stark Industries, that would be the code that would be used to birth J.A.R.V.I.S.

As for what VisionQuest episodes 5 and 6 reveal about Paladin, the Marvel series confirmed that Paladin has a daughter and that he has not seen her in years. The reason for that is how Paladin was one of the MCU characters who was snapped out of existence by Thanos, joining a roster of players not in Avengers: Infinity War that includes Florence Pugh's Yelena Belova, Teyonah Parris' Monica Rambeau, and more, choosing to keep her safe and far from him after Paladin returned. VisionQuest keeps deepening the MCU's lore, while setting up an explosive final two episodes.