Blogging A to Z Day 24: Ultron

The title villain of the upcoming Avengers: Age of Ultron, who is he? What is he? Why should we care? Other than being freaked out by James Spader’s amazing voice acting…

The Ultron reveal from Avengers #55.
Image found on a comicbookresources.com article.

Ultron first appeared in Avengers #54 in 1968, with a full reveal in #55. He is a a robot, an android – but also so much more than this. He is a program, an artificial intelligence – which, when it reached the point of enough intelligence, improved itself. Himself. Itself.

He also has daddy issues, having been created by Hank Pym – the original Ant-Man and sometimes Avenger. Ultron expresses this both by attempting to destroy the Avengers whenever he gets the chance, and by imitating what his father did – create.

One of the things that Ultron is most known for is for creating the android known as the Vision, another Avenger. Vision just didn’t come out evil like his father Ultron…

Because Ultron is more than just a robot, because he is a program that can be replicated and backed-up and transmitted… he is basically impossible to fully destroy. And so, he attacks, he learns, he fails, he learns, he attacks again, better. Several recent storylines have included Ultron time traveling, or in other ways affecting the timeline – attacking from the future, where he is himself safe from harm.

Indeed, that was the plot of the recent Age of Ultron comic storyline. Ultron manipulates the present from the future, instantly creating a robot utopia (which is a human dystopia). Fighting fire with fire, the heroes try time travel themselves – some going forward in time to punch Ultron (because that always works), and some going back to stop the original creation of Ultron…

Team Punch in action – Age of Ultron #10 from Marvel.com

Which they succeed at by killing Hank Pym, only to find out that things are just as bad if not worse with him – and without the Vision. It turns out that this led to two Avengers no longer being around, and then every good thing they accomplished was undone – but hey, no Ultron. Anyway, they undo that time change, and let Team Punch do their thing.

Of course, this was just the next phase of a previous Ultron plan, just the next try from him to take control of the timeline and win, forever, against everyone. Because, given enough time, he can. He’s the unkillable kill, and his goal is domination.

A future timeline from 2010 in Avengers by Brian Michael Bendis. Click for a larger version!
I used this on my review of Marvel’s Heroic Age and Marvel Now!

He’s a perfect sort of villain to throw in every once in a while – what new plan does he have? What do the heroes have to do to stop him? How will he escape to come up with his next plan? He doesn’t require resurrection or crazy explanations like other villains returning, he doesn’t have to break out of Arkham again like the Joker is always doing. He’s always going to escape, and he’s always going to come back. It’s inevitable as clockwork.

This post was by @CompGeeksDavid of the Comparative Geeks and regular Sourcerer contributor. For more A to Z geekery, check out Comparative Geeks.