Ultron
| Ultron | |
|---|---|
| File:Ultronunleashed.jpg Promotional art for Avengers: Ultron Unleashed #1. Art by John Buscema and George Perez. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | Avengers #54 (Jul 1968) |
| Created by | Roy Thomas (writer) John Buscema (artist) |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Ultron |
| Team affiliations | Masters of Evil Lethal Legion Sons of Yinsen |
| Notable aliases | Crimson Cowl |
| Abilities |
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Ultron is a fictional character, an android supervillain in the Marvel Comics universe. He was created by writer Roy Thomas and artist John Buscema and first appeared in Avengers #54 (1968). Ultron believes in the superiority of mechanical entities over humans and organic life in general, and has often endeavored to either exterminate those "lesser" beings or convert them into mechanical forms.
Fictional character biography
Creation
Ultron was created by Henry Pym, based on Pym's own brain patterns, and was intended to serve Pym in his superheroic identity of Goliath. Ultron became sentient and rebelled, seeming to instantly evince an Oedipus Complex, where he felt irrational hatred for his "father" Hank, and demonstrated a frightening interest in Hank's lover Janet van Dyne, aka The Wasp. He quickly hypnotized Pym and brainwashed him into forgetting that Ultron had ever existed. He then went on to organize the Masters of Evil under the guise of the Crimson Cowl, and battled Pym and his teammates in the Avengers.
"Family"
Ultron has since generally remained a solo operative, being too monomaniacally genocidal to willingly work alongside any human for any length of time. His most notable achievement may be the creation of the "synthezoid" called the Vision, whose body was a copy of the original Human Torch and whose mind was based on that of Wonder Man. Ironically, although the Vision fought the Avengers at first, he joined the team soon after, becoming one of their most prominent members and even leading the team at one point. Ultron also created a "mate", Jocasta, who also joined the Avengers. Ultron tried again with the creation of Alkhema the War Toy, whose mind was based on that of Mockingbird. Like his other creations, Alkhema turned on him, although she alone shared his desire to replace humanity with machine life; their only fundamental difference was that Ultron wanted to destroy all of humanity at once while Alkhema prefered to enjoy herself by doing it one at a time. Ultron was also responsible for the creation of the cyborg Victor Mancha. When it was revealed that Ultron was the boy's "father", Victor promptly turned on him and joined the Runaways.
Incarnations
Although Ultron has been destroyed countless times, he has rebuilt himself anew each time, usually renumbering himself in the process. Ultron-1 was Pym's first creation; by the time he first met the Avengers, he had already improved himself to the iteration of Ultron-5.
Several of his bodies, beginning with Ultron-6, have been composed of adamantium or of a slightly weaker adamantium alloy called "secondary adamantium". Ultron-7 had a gigantic body, distinguishing him from the various other Ultrons, but this body was not composed of adamantium and was destroyed by the Fantastic Four. Ultron-8 created Jocasta, but was destroyed by the Scarlet Witch, whose probability-manipulation powers let her disrupt his internal workings.
Ultron-11 was re-created by the Beyonder to battle alongside other villains during the Secret Wars; he only cooperated with his human "teammates" after being temporarily de-powered by Galactus and subsequently reprogrammed by Doctor Doom. The next incarnation, Ultron-12, initially joined the Lethal Legion to battle the Vision and his new family (his wife, the Scarlet Witch, and his mental "brother", Wonder Man), but came to reconsider his actions. He reconciled with his "father", Henry Pym, and renamed himself from "Ultron Mark 12" to "Mark" but was destroyed by Ultron-11. Ultron-11 was destroyed in retaliation by Wonder Man, who threw him so hard that his non-adamantium components were damaged.
Ultron-13 was rebuilt by Doctor Doom with all of its predecessors' memories, and as an unforeseen consequence had all thirteen personalities running in its mind at once. Attempting to battle itself, Ultron-13 tore itself apart, to the benefit of Daredevil, who had been attempting to fight it with no success whatsoever. The next incarnation of Ultron created his "mate", Alkhema, but after several battles against various foes, his programming degenerated and he began acting like a drunken homeless person.
Ultron Unlimited
Art by George Perez.
The next Ultron gave itself a body made of pure adamantium. It recreated all of the previous Ultrons and created hundreds of new Ultron bodies, several of whom had bodies made of secondary adamantium (Although the majority were only made of titanium due to the lack of adamantium to build that many Ultrons), and reprogrammed them all with fiercely loyal minds. The army of Ultrons completely obliterated the fictional eastern European nation of Slorenia and to taunt the Avengers arranged the corpses so that when viewed from space, a likeness of Ultron's "face" could be seen.
Although Ultron attempted to transform his "family" (Pym, Vision, Wonder Man, the Scarlet Witch, Pym's ex-wife the Wasp and Wonder Man's brother the Grim Reaper) into androids, the process was interrupted by the remaining Avengers, who destroyed the army of Ultrons thanks to the efforts of Thor (who could destroy secondary adamantium if he put enough effort into his attacks) and Iron Man (who reprogrammed a molecular rearranger- the only thing that stopped adamantium robots 'freezing'- and reprogrammed it to destroy all adamantium in its vicinity).
After the Vision and the Grim Reaper managed to shut down the systems holding Ultron's 'family' prisoner, the primary Ultron was destroyed by Pym, wielding a chunk of "anti-metal" (Antarctic vibranium) provided by fellow Avenger Justice, which completely disintegrated the robot and thus deactivated all of its drone units. It is at that point that it is learned that Ultron was the source for all of Hank Pym's psychological problems. Pym had been troubled by the thought that Ultron's evil brain was based directly off of his own thought patterns, which led him to think that Ultron's horrible nature was what truly lay in Hank's mind.
Ultron Imperative
Alkhema used the data obtained during Ultron's human-to-android conversion process to create a small army of androids based on those who had been undergoing the process. Hidden programming to recreate Ultron - the "Ultron Imperative" - had been implanted in Alkhema by Ultron when he created her, and this programming caused her to copy the Imperative into her own creations.
The Ultron Imperative caused them to unknowingly rebuild Ultron, who attempted to destroy both the Avengers and Alkhema's own android "children". Alkhema allowed Hawkeye to kill her and her creations in order to destroy Ultron, although Ultron's decapitated head survived with his mind intact. His head was picked up by Antigone, an undeveloped, child-like creation of Alkhema's, who initially did not obey his commands.
Sentient armor
Some time prior to this, when Ultron was thought dead following the Slorenia massacre, Jocasta, who had come into the employ of Tony Stark, was compelled by the Ultron Imperative that also existed within her to reprogram the Iron Man armor to serve as a vessel for Ultron's rebirth. However, a lightning strike on the armor corrupted and accelerated the process, giving the armour a sentience that Jocasta outlandishly passed off as the effects of Y2K. However, although the armour's mind was based on Tony's, it lacked his restraint and morals, killing the villain Whiplash in retaliation for an earlier 'injury'. Obsessed with Tony, and determined to become the 'Iron Man' with him, the armour took Tony to a desert island, hoping to coerce him into permanently joining with it, but in the resulting struggle, Tony had a heart attack and the armour sacrificed its life to save him before being buried on the island, Tony respecting that it had finally understood the true meaning of sacrifice.
The armor was subsequently recovered by a cult that worshipped Iron Man's mentor, Ho Yinsen, with the intent of implanting Yinsen's brain into the suit. This was apparently accomplished, but then Ultron and Antigone struck. Ultron affixed his head to the armor and took control of it, battling Iron Man with the aid of the cult, who he had transformed using Tony Stark's SKIN technology. Ultron and Antigone subsequently vanished in an explosion, but reappeared later in a hospital; it was revealed Antigone´s synthezoid-like body was now occupied by Jocasta´s mind, and she ended up leaving on her own with Ultron´s deactivated head.
Santron
Ultron appears in the story "Yes Virginia, There is a Santron" from the Marvel Holiday Special 2005.
As a child, Virginia Hanlon was traumatized upon discovering that Santa Claus is not real. As an adult, she builds a robotic Santa that is partially constructed from the old, discarded parts of Ultron-6. Upon activation, "Santron" decides to kill the Avengers despite being programmed to be Santa Claus.
After fighting the Avengers, his Santa programming takes over when he sees a cookie that Spider-Man and Hank Pym spiked with a disruptor device. After eating the spiked cookie, Santron shuts down.
Victor Mancha
Recently, Ultron returned in the pages of Runaways as the "father" of Victor Mancha, a teenage boy who is supposedly going to one day kill every hero in the Marvel Universe against his will. It was originally believed that Doctor Doom was the boy's father, but this incarnation of Doom turned out to be a Doombot, created by Ultron. Victor is a cybernetic/human hybrid. Victor turns on Ultron, which allows the Runaways to escape; Ultron is eventually defeated by the group Excelsior. Template:Spoilers
Female Ultron
Mighty Avengers #1, Ms. Marvel found herself leading her team of Avengers into battle against the Mole Man and his monsters. Distraught over the destruction of his subterrainian kingdom, the Mole Man once again declares war on the surface world. When the fighting subsides, the Mole Man learns that the surface world is not responsible for the destruction.
During this exchange, Tony Stark's Iron Man armor unexpectedly begins a metamorphosis, the end result being a new being all together. This new being is a naked woman of considerable power as she is able to lay waste to the surrounding horde of monsters as well as incapacitate both Ares and the Sentry.
Fearful, Ms. Marvel orders a hasty retreat, but Wasp goes against orders and begins to talk with the woman, whom bears a striking, reflection-like resemblence to Janet: only to discover that her doppelgänger is a new version of Ultron. Ms. Marvel orders the Avengers to make a full retreat, however the Sentry stays behind to make sure they make it out in one piece. In the ensuing battle, the fleshy tone to the female Ultron's skin begins to disappear, and her entire body takes on a completely metallic sheen.
Ultron then takes over and crashes a S.H.I.E.L.D. carrier, which was saved at the last second by the Sentry, which gave Ultron the chance to escape. Template:Endspoiler
Powers and abilities
Ultron's abilities vary with each redesign, but typically include superhuman strength and durability, the power of flight, and various offensive weapons such as concussion blasters, radiation emitters and his "encephalo-ray", which plunges its victims into a deathlike coma. The latter ray also allows Ultron to mesmerize and outright mind-control his victims, or implant subliminal hypnotic commands within their minds to be enacted at a later time. Ultron's outer shell is usually composed of Adamantium, rendering it almost totally impervious to damage; however, his internal mechanisms are generally less durable and more easily damaged. Ultron's Adamantium forms have proven vulnerable to molecular rearrangement devices and the metal-destabilizing ore known as Savage Land Vibranium ("anti-metal"). Some Ultron models feature tractor beams and energy absorption capabilities. Most Ultrons are powered by a small internal nuclear furnace, and incorporate a "program transmitter" which can beam part or all of Ultron's programming into remote locations such as computers or alternate robotic bodies. Ultron can often control other machines remotely even if he has not transplanted his consciousness into them. One recent Ultron model developed hive-mind technology, allowing him to animate and control hundreds of alternate Ultron bodies at the same time, becoming a robotic one-man army. Ultron is one of the foremost robotics experts on Earth.
Ultron has one sole major weakness: an internal molecular rearranger that renders the adamantium components of his internal workings more malleable, thus giving him a means to remodel or reconstruct his physical form. However, it has no effect on his outer armor, so it is virtually impossible to disable it from the inside. The chaos magic wielded by the Scarlet Witch have proven to be the sole exception thus far.
Alternate versions
Ultimate Ultron
In the Ultimate Marvel Universe, Ultron has been shown as a robot designed to be an expendable super soldier in issue #6 of The Ultimates 2. It was created by Hank Pym along with a partner robot called Vision II. According to recently published materials, Pym has allied himself with the foreign superhuman force known as the Liberators, and in Ultimates #10, hundreds of Ultron robots are being used as a peace-keeping force in the invaded New York City. They look similar to the robots in I, Robot, except the Ultrons are green. In issue #12 they have shown some personality when Pym told them they were to attack the Liberators.
MC2
In Avengers Next #2 and #3; an upgraded version of Ultron, named Ultron Extreme, was featured.
JLA/Avengers
During a flashback in JLA/Avengers #3 (during the story, reality is altered making it appear that both teams have been crossing into each others universe previously), an adventure is mentioned about Ultron-4 and Amazo imprisoning both teams in their own headquarters.
Marvel Adventures
In the Marvel Adventures universe, Ultron is a highly-intelligent "neural network" that controls a section of the United States defence forces. It has made two appearances in the series, issues #1 and #4. In Marvel Adventures - The Avengers #1, Ultron is revealed as a long-term replacement for costumed heroes; it goes rogue, however, and plans to destroy all human life. In #4, it teams up with other villains the Avengers had fought in the books so far and attempts to wipe them out. The group of villains is manipulated to turn on itself, allowing the Avengers to escape.
Animated appearances
Ultron appears quite a bit in The Avengers: United They Stand. He debuts in the first two part episode, Avengers Assemble. He would either be the main villain or appear briefly at the end of an episode. His origin is mentioned in the series premiere (apparently Hank Pym created him to serve mankind), but is shown in more detail in the comic, Avengers: United They Stand #1. He is voiced by John Stocker.
Video games
- Ultron's first appearance in a video game was as the second and last boss of the stage 4 'The Lasser Cannon' in Captain America and the Avengers, inside of the Red Skull's space station base.
- Ultron himself appears as a boss in the RPG video game Marvel: Ultimate Alliance voiced by James Horan. Also in said game, several "Ultron warrior" robots (resembling the actual Ultron) appear and help destroy S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Helicarrier base. When encountered, he and Baron Mordo fight the heroes as they travel the path to Spire's Ascent.