13 Years Ago, Marvel Created an Almost-Perfect Ultron Story and It’s Still a Huge Missed Opportunity

The Avengers are Marvel Comics‘ greatest team, brought together to defend the universe against the worst enemies out there. Their villains are some of the most interesting and dangerous in comics and the best of them is easily Ultron (sorry, Kang fans; also to Thanos fans – he’s not actually an Avengers villain, MCU fans – or Doom, who also isn’t actually an Avengers villain). Created by founding Avenger Hank Pym, the sentient robot decided to destroy humanity when Pym tried to turn him off. Since then, the adamantium-clad terror has starred in some of the best Avengers stories, like “Ultron Unlimited”. A great Ultron story is something special, which is why Age of Ultron is so disappointing.

The 2013 10-issue event book (the movie was named after it and not vice versa), by Brian Michael Bendis, Bryan Hitch, Brandon Peterson, and Carlos Pacheco with numerous artists filling in on the last issue, was the villain’s return to battling Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. However, much like the movie that was named after it, the story is one of the more maligned Ultron tales of all time. The book is usually numbered among the worst event books of 21st century, but I think that’s unfair. While the story does make a massive misstep that changes it completely, there’s still the kernel of a very cool story there, making it one of the biggest missed opportunities in Marvel history.

Age of Ultron Was an Amazing Idea That Got Away From the Creators

Ultron had been out in space with the Phalanx after Annihilation: Conquest. He returned to Earth in Avengers (Vol. 4) #12.1, from Bendis and Hitch, the villain disappearing, promising to return for revenge. Age of Ultron was that revenge and it opened up in media res, with Ultron and an army of drones having attacked the planet, destroying most of the human race in a matter of days, with only a small team of Avengers hiding out to try to figure out a way to stop him. Now, this is an awesome premise. It has that “Days of Future Past” feel – a future where AI has run wild; the main difference is that Ultron hates everyone, unlike the racist Sentinels – that Marvel does so well.

This was definitely going to be a time travel story at some point in the narrative, since the Avengers had already lost and billions were dead. The Avengers come up with a plan to go back in time and stop him when he returned to Earth, but Wolverine and Invisible Woman decided that they would be better off going back in time and killing Hank Pym before he ever created Ultron. They do that, but change the history of the world completely. Without Hank Pym, things got very bad, with a war between Doctor Doom and Morgan Le Fay endangering the entire world, forcing them to go back in time and stop themselves from killing him. However, their temporal shenanigans end up breaking time, which was mostly just an excuse to bring Angela into the Marvel Universe and tease Miracleman maybe showing up.

Age of Ultron tried to weld together two different X-Men stories – the aforementioned “Days of Future Past” and “Age of Apocalypse” – together and kind of ruined what made both of them great. The first stage of the story in the Ultron-ravaged world is honestly pretty cool and had a lot of potential. Bendis has never been that good of an action writer, but Hitch’s pencils in this section make everything look amazing, especially what little action there is. However, the book’s turning point kind of ruins the whole thing. The alternate universe sections in the book and the “AU” tie-in issues have their charms, but it’s honestly a pretty standard Marvel Universe; the biggest change is that the Defenders are the main team and the war between Doom and Le Fay. It just wasn’t really interesting and that hurt the book overall, especially since we spent numerous issues there.

The Avengers don’t have too many dystopian future stories and this story was the perfect opportunity to give them one. A world under the thumb of Ultron is a very interesting setting, one that should have been more explored. The alternate universe sections aren’t anywhere as intriguing and ruin the flow of the whole story. You get the feeling that Marvel thought they could get two fan-favorite alternate universes to play with, but what really happened is that they created one future that could have famous – and they tried to use it again in Secret Wars as part of Battleworld – but ruined it by welding it to an alternate timeline that had nothing at all interesting going on under the hood.

I’m not going to sit here and say that Age of Ultron is some kind of hidden gem. It won’t ever be confused with the best Marvel events of all time. It’s not even the best Ultron story of the 21st century – that’s Rage of Ultron. However, it had potential. I’ve always felt that part of the problem with the book was Bendis not ever wanting to write the actual Ultron; during his Avengers run, he had only one Ultron story and it was a thirst trap where the android turned into a naked Wasp to fight the team. I don’t think he was very interested in the Ultron part of this story – the villain hardly appears in the book, don’t let the covers fool you – and was trying again to create an alternate reality that fans liked, much like he had tried (and failed) to do years before with House of M. Regardless of why it happened, Age of Ultron ended up jettisoning any hope of being a beloved story.

Age of Ultron Is Fun and Frustrating

Age of Ultron is a tale of two stories, both of which were in some way inspired by better X-Men comics, and that’s always been its main problem. The dystopian Ultron future is pretty cliche, but it’s cliche in a very fun way. It’s always fun to see the odds stacked against the heroes and how they deal with it. Plus, it was an event book starring Ultron. He’s a simple yet awesome villain and a story that revolved around him as the big bad could have had legs. However, Marvel decided that they should let the guy who was best at street-level stories to write some big time-traveling, alternate universe book in the form of Bendis and we got what we got – a fun yet frustrating event book.

I got lucky, in that I skipped the event back in the day – I’m not a fan of Bendis Avengers or events – and bought the hardcover when it was on sale for a fraction of the cover price. I was ready to be underwhelmed and I was, but I was also struck by the potential that the book could have had. It was never going to be some kind of amazing story, but it definitely could have been a fun popcorn movie of a comic. Instead, we got a book that sacrificed any hope of giving us a great story to give us two alternate realities, only one of which was worth visiting.

The 7 Best Ultron Storylines in Marvel Comics, Ranked by Impact