UFO and Outer Space #21

You're at least nominally familiar with the first appearance of Marvel's Vision character, right? From Avengers #57...

As you might also be aware, the character design and pose is loosely based on the first appearance of the Golden Age version of the Vision as seen in Marvel Mysetery Comics #13...

Because Avengers #57 was the modern character's first appearance AND a pretty iconic cover, it's been homaged a number of times, particularly when it's a story relating somehow to the Vision. I won't share every instance, but here's a few...

Interestingly, writer Chuck Miller posted another cover on Tuesday that seems to me to have been directly sourced from Avengers #57 but I've never seen recognized as such. This issue of UFO & Outer Space came about a full decade after the modern Vision had been around and borrows not only the pose but much of the character design as well...

Now, whether artist Chuck Liese borrowed the elements of his own accord or editor Michael Teitelbaum handed him a copy of Avengers #57 and said, "Base the character off this," I don't know. Given that Liese only did a handful of covers in the late 1970s and all of them for Western/Gold Key/Whitman, I suspect the idea wasn't entirely his. He doesn't seem well connected to the comics industry, and the cover/story wouldn't be reprinted in the US until a few years later, so it was well out of common circulation at the time. (The story had actually been printed in the UK a few years prior, but Liese was based out of New York City for most of his life and would have been unlikely to have seen that.)

Interestingly, the original art for this came up for auction back in 2005 and sold for less than $400. Again, no mention is made of any reference to Avengers #57 or the Vision, but I can't see how it wasn't a direct reference.

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