AVENGERS 2 – WHO IS ULTRON ?

At Comic-Con 2013, Joss Whedon appeared on stage at the Marvel to show a quick teaser trailer that revealed the title of ‘Avengers 2‘ – ‘Age of Ultron.’ But Who is this Supervillain ULTRON well we are going to find out about it won’t we ?

Ultron was a creation of Dr. Henry Pym (Ant-Man) as he experimented with sentient robots. His creation was a little too successful and, inhabited with Pym’s own brain waves, became self-aware. While he possessed his creators supreme intelligence, he lacked any of his compassion and conscience and almost immediately became fueled with a hatred for Pym. He rebuilt himself four times, becoming increasingly more powerful. He eventually recruited a group of Avengers villains to form the Masters of Evil.

In the “Age of Ultron” crossover event in the comic books, Ultron had rebuilt himself so many times, he was powerful enough to take over the world. The actual story involves a number of characters not in the current ‘Avengers’ movie universe (including Spider-Man, Wolverine and She-Hulk) and involves a decent deal of time travel, so we’ll imagine it’s just a launching point for the film, rather than a straight adaptation.

Those of us who were watching these films develop would have imagined that Ant-Man would have come out prior to Ultron being introduced to The Avengers as a foe. But as we mentioned above, maybe this is all being done to strengthen Ant-Man’s character and therefore his solo film which hits theaters just months after The Avengers: Age of Ultron’s release date, May 1, 2015.

Ultron’s powers include the Encephalo-ray, which places victims into a death-like coma and allows him to manipulate their minds (possibly only to be activated at a later time). Like Iron Man, he also has a number of blasts and repulsors, as well as super strength and the ability to fly at supersonic speeds. His outer shell is composed as adamantium (the same metal fused to Wolverine’s skeleton) and is virtually indestructible.

Long-time Marvel fans shouldn’t be surprised that Ultron is being introduced into the universe, but those who aren’t as familiar should know that it is surprising that we’re seeing him so early in the line of films.

What’s interesting though is that Marvel’s president of production, Kevin Feige, has said that Ultron’s name is “borrowed,” but that his story could be entirely different from the comics. Avengers director, Joss Whedon, recently said, “We’re doing our own version of the origin story for Ultron.” He went on to say that Henry Pym (Ant-Man) won’t be introduced in the film.

As for anyone wondering what happened to Thanos (big purple alien at the end of The Avengers end credits), don’t worry, he’ll still be involved. We’ll most likely be seeing him in Guardians of the Galaxy.