VILLAINOUS
The Avengers take on Ultron as comics meet screen.
“Avengers: Age of Ultron,” premiering Friday, introduces four major villains — three of them destined to be Avengers themselves.
In the comics, anyway. What happens in the movie is yet to be seen. But from the avalanche of advance material, it seems that director Joss Whedon will channel the spirit of the comics, if not the specifics.
ULTRON
In the comics: The “Living Automaton” — his words — was first introduced in a convoluted story in “Avengers” No. 54-55 (1968) involving Avengers Mansion butler Edwin Jarvis (alive today in the comics, long dead in the movies) and a second identity as “The Crimson Cowl.” As the Cowl, he persuaded a group of bad guys to call themselves the Masters of Evil and attack the Avengers. That ended in failure, of course, but all we really learned about this new bad guy, who called himself Ultron-5, was that he was a living robot and that he really hated the Avengers.
It’s important to note that the Avengers’ ranks at this point included as their strongman a hero who could grow or shrink to dramatic sizes, a scientist named Hank Pym. Pym began his superhero career as Ant-Man, but by ’68 he had learned to grow as well as shrink, and was going by the nom du combat “Goliath.”
That came into play in the second Ultron story a few issues later, when the Avengers were attacked by an artificial man — a “synthezoid” — who called himself The Vision. But the new guy switched sides and joined the team he had been sent to destroy. Curious about their new member, the Avengers
investigated his origins — and discovered those of Ultron-5.
It turned out that Ultron was an artificial intelligence created by Pym himself, months previous. Upon becoming self-aware, Ultron spoke his first words: “Da Da.” Very quickly, though, his speech patterns progressed to those of an adult, whereupon he attacked his “father.” Rendering Pym helpless, Ultron hypnotized the hapless scientist into forgetting the whole scenario and boarding up his lab.
Left to his own devices in the abandoned building, Ultron upgraded himself four times to Ultron-5. All the while, he remained focused on his mission: Destroy the “inferior” human race, starting with Pym. The Avengers defeated Ultron a second time, and seemed to finish the job by decapitating the Living Robot.
But they’d soon learn to their chagrin that killing Ultron was like stopping a computer virus — his consciousness could always escape to another location electronically. He returned in 1969 as Ultron-6, an upgraded version made from the new, unbreakable metal adamantium (the stuff Wolverine’s claws are made of), and gave even Thor a beat-down. Once again, he was determined to off his “daddy,” then the rest of the human race. Once again, Ultron was seemingly destroyed, this time blown to smithereens.
And that has remained the pattern to this day. The Avengers would seemingly eradicate Ultron, he’d go underground to upgrade himself, and then the battle would resume.
In the movies: It looks like “Age of Ultron” contains most of what the comics established about the Living Robot. Ultron (James Spader) appears to be an artificial intelligence created by an Avenger, who turns against his “father,” invents The Vision, surrounds himself with supervillains (Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch) and sets out to depopulate the globe. He’s a metal Frankenstein monster who is lethal, a bit child-like and, frankly, more than a little nuts.
The one major difference is that Ultron will be created by Tony “Iron Man” Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) instead of Hank Pym. Given that Pym (Michael Douglas) won’t be introduced until the “Ant-Man” movie on July 17, someone else had to be Ultron’s daddy, and engineer Stark is a better choice than biochemist Pym anyway. Further, it doesn’t radically change anything important.
QUICKSILVER AND THE SCARLET WITCH
In the comics: Ask a comics fan who Pietro and Wanda Maximoff are, and you’ll get a different answer depending on when that fan was reading Marvel.
The duo were introduced in 1964 “X-Men” comics, as members of Magneto’s Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. They were reluctant members, though, serving only because the Master of Magnetism had saved their lives from a homicidal mob in their native Eastern Europe. Aggressive, abrasive Quicksilver was a super-speedster (not quite “Flash” level, but fast enough) and shy, retiring Wanda could alter probability — in effect, giving her foes bad luck.
But a year later they were fed up with being mutant terrorists, and tried to turn their lives around by petitioning to join the Avengers. Once accepted, they had long careers with Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, especially Scarlet Witch, whose powers evolved into the ability to alter reality. Wanda even married (and later divorced) The Vision!
During their long runs, various origins were ascribed to the pair, including being the mutant children of Magneto. That last one has been dumped, though, in favor of something else, with the money riding on their being Inhumans, like the superpowered characters popping up in the “Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD” TV show. Why? Because ...
In the movies: Marvel Comics made some missteps in the late 1990s when they were going through bankruptcy, including the sale to Twentieth Century Fox of the movie rights to the X-Men and all related properties. Currently, Fox has the rights to all things mutant — including Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch ...
... unless Q&SW aren’t mutants! So in the comics, they’re being retroactively declared something else, and in the movies, they’ll be something else, thanks to Baron von Strucker’s experiments. Whatever they are, though, they won’t be mutants in Marvel Films. (Although they will continue to be mutants in the X-movies!)
Otherwise, the spirit of the comics is intact, as Pietro (Aaron Taylor-Johnson) and Wanda (Elizabeth Olsen) will begin as super-powered henchmen (for Ultron instead of Magneto) and then perform a heel-to-hero turn.
THE VISION
In the comics: As noted, The Vision was created by Ultron to destroy the Avengers but had a change of (artificial) heart and joined them instead. He has the power to alter his density, from ghost-like to rock solid.
In the movies: Marvel Films has been keeping its cards close to its chest regarding the synthezoid, but it’s probably no coincidence that the actor playing him (Paul Bettany) is also the voice of the long-dead Edwin Jarvis, now an artificial intelligence running Iron Man’s armor. Methinks Jarvis will live again, after a fashion.