Avengers: Age Of Ultron Featured Cameo By Little Known Marvel Character

Warning: Spoilers ahead for Avengers: Age of Ultron.

Most fans didn’t notice that in Avengers: Age of Ultron, there was indeed another female hero added to the film with a little bit of Marvel Universe backstory.

At one point in the film, when J.A.R.V.I.S. is out of commission and Iron Man needs to return to action, he loads up F.R.I.D.A.Y., a female voice in his helmet that helps him through the third act of the movie, including the climactic battle with Ultron.

F.R.I.D.A.Y. may have struck some moviegoers (including this writer) as just “his girl Friday,” not worth a lot of thought, but in fact Iron Man has a “girl Friday” in the comics — and it’s an AI who has more in common with Ultron than with the F.R.I.D.A.Y. in the movie.

Appearing in Iron Man: Iron Protocols from X-O Manowar writer Robert Venditti, Friday was created to be a virtual assistant to Tony Stark/Iron Man. When he eventually lost interest and stopped interacting with her, she came back with a spiteful streak.

The bubbly, friendly AI with a youthful disposition had evolved into a bitter teenager, frustrated by parental abandonment. Tony Stark saw Friday as a child who needed to learn and be nurtured. With help of his butler Edwin Jarvis, he began raising Friday as a sort of adopted daughter.

Of course, none of that is remembered anyway, since Tony shortly thereafter had to go on the run from S.H.I.E.L.D. and there has been no mention of Friday since. If we ever see her again, she’ll probably think that he abandoned her a second time.