Age Of Ultron (#1-10) PART TWO

"You think this world is a better place?  You absolute fool" - Tony Stark

Wrapping up the second half of this 2013 Marvel Event Comic, that has nothing to do with the film Avengers: Age Of Ultron except they both have Ultron doing bad things in them.  Ultron launched a massive attack on Earth targetting all the major cities with biomechanial machines, flattening them and using his Ultron army to patrol and deal with any survivors.  The few heroes left in New York, minus many of the heavies like Thor, Hulk and Ben Grimm who were all killed, gathered under Central Park.  They formulated a plan that got Luke Cage into Ultron's base where he found the top half of Vision overseeing things. Ultron is using him to attack from the future.  Luke Cage is mortally wounded by the nuclear blast that his escape triggers but makes it to the Savage Land to pass that information on to the other heroes who arrive there after him.  They then break into Nick Fury's bunker where he was waiting for them.  He tells them he is going to take them into the future and take the fight to Ultron directly using Doctor Doom's time machine.  Wolverine says they should be going back in time and killing Dr. Henry "Ant Man" Pym who was the one who created the A.I. that evolved into Ultron. After Fury and his merry band take off to the future, Wolverine pops his claws and says he wants to be sent back, no arguments, this is what will happen. So now the conclusion.  Writer is Brian Michael Bendis, art is by Brian Hitch and is joined by Brandon Peterson and Carlos Pacheco.  They styles blend quite well thanks to the millions of inkers, but the other two pencillers render their heroes less rugged and gritty looking and not so much detail.  The story now tightens its focus and Wolverine and Sue Richards step up to carry the rest of the storyline.

We begin with Wolverine in the Savage Land, Antartica, "Years Ago". He notes that everything is alive so that's a good sign, then he says "you can show yourself" and Sue Richards who can turn invisible as one of her many psychic powers.   She asks if his mutant senses detected her and he says it was that and the fact neither have showered in at least a week.  He then asks what she is doing here, "I thought you went on the future time suicide mission with Fury and the others."

She says she had a last minute change of heart. She saw the look in his eye and knew the moment he was told not to try something like this he was going to to something like this.  He asks if she is here to stop him, but she surpises him by saying "honestly, I don't know.  I know in my heart there is a right thing and a wrong thing..."  Wolverine says it isn't complicated, she says it is, but he asks her if she would kill someone to save her kids?  Because this is it times a billion.

Sue: "I lost my children and... and my husband and my brother... and I didn't get to say goodbye."

Wolverine says to keep those feelings and use them. Then he grabs her and tells her to cloak them.   They spot Nick Fury landing in his flying car and going into a cave.  So Sue and Wolverine car-jack him and start flying to New York.

Logan and Sue, the dynamic duo.

In the future the heroes have arrived and they realise Sue is missing.  Nick is vexed because she was the stealth component of the mission.  But Tony says that her cloaking abilities wouldn't have worked against Ultron.  So Fury orders Quicksilver to do a speedrun to Manhattan to check things out, the rest are going to follow by flying courtesty of Storm's wind manipulation powers.

Wolverine and Sue land in New York, and we cut to Henry Pym in his lab, he analysing a monster dead on his table. As he does so he goes on a very long monologue about artificial intelligence and comes up with the idea of creating an A.I. that can learn and grow into "something greater than the human mind can even imagine".  He thinks it would enhance other technology and end war and disease, "it's the best thing that could happen to us... as a people.  As a species".

Wolverine interupts him saying "it just happened didn't it?"  That this was the moment Henry doomed the world. When Henry asks who he is, Wolverine says "I'm the ghost of christmas future." Henry says he picked the wrong place to break into, but coldly Wolverine says that he comes from a place where everything he knows and loves will be gone, because of Henry Pym.   Henry asks if he knows who he is, Wolverine says that evryone knows who he is.

Wolverine: "And I know enough to know ain't nothin' gonna stop you from being you. And any small chance you would is a chance I ain't willing to take."

And he pops his claws, so Henry grows to giant size and grabs hold of Wolverine.  In the future, the hero brigade arrive at New York City to find it a mass of technological buildings which Tony can't help but call "beautiful."  But there is no humans left, only Ultron.

Henry Pym doesn't just grow smaller.

Red Hulk says they are too close then suddenly a flock of Ultrons home in on them and battle commences in the sky.   They manage to take out the first wave, but more missiles start flying and the heroes begin to die, Captain America being graphically decapitated being a highlight.

In the past, Henry drops Wolverine yelling "what are you made of?" at him.  Wolverine slashes his gut and Henry ends up bent double.  Wolverine says he knows Henry did good in the world so this isn't easy for him.  Before he can strike the deathblow, Sue comes in.  Henry recognises her and begs for her help.  She stammers that there has to be a line they do not cross.

Wolverine holds his claws to Henry's head and shouts at Sue to remember her husband and kids if he doesn't do this they will all end up gone.  And Sue sheds a tear whispering "all those people".  And Wolverine shoves his claws right through Henry's head.  She looks unwell and asks Wolverine "now what?"  He says they go home and know that whatever is waiting for them "we know it's got to be better than what we left."

Henry gets stabbed to death.

Travelling back to the time machine in the Savage Land, Sue is quiet.  Wolverine says she chose to get herself involved.  She asks him how many people he has killed in his life and he says "nobody who didn't have it coming".  She tartly responds that they struck down a true hero in the prime of his life, that Ultron created Vision and he was one of the greatest Avengers, "without them, what will the world be like?"

Wolverine insists it has got to be better than what they left behind.  He parks the car a way away from the hideout in the hope that Nick Fury in this time period won't use it so they can pick it up when the return to the future. Present. Future present. 

Suddenly a Tyranosaur!  Wolverine is about to slay it but Sue creates a temporary forcefield bubble round it's jaws and it wanders off leaving them alone. They reach the time machine and travel to their own time.  And they find the Savage Land is now a graveyard of wrecked spaceships.  They find a Skrull skull and Sue says some of the ship look Kree.  Sue ponders that the Kree/Skrull war must have reached Earth in this reality whereas before the Avengers stopped it before that happened. 

They overhear several guards in red and gold armour talking about working for "Starkguard".  Sue queries this to Wolverine who just mutters he'll get the car. They reach New York in the flying car to find the ominous prescence of multiple helicarriers, some greay, some red and gold.  "What have we done?!" says Sue holding her head in her hands.  Grumpily Wolverine says "the world's still here ain't it?" Then their car is hit by an energy blast.  Sue and Wolverine crashland the car and suddenly an eye-patched Captain America, brown costume Wolverine, Thing, Hulk, Wasp, Dr. Strange and a couple of others I don't recognise fly down saying they can't just waltz into American airspace, "not without The Defenders having something to say about it!"

The defensive Defenders.

Wasp says the pair of them are "dumb Skrulls". Thing says to Sue, "are you back?"  One of the others says he doesn't think they are Skrulls, it's some other weird thing.  So she says maybe it's a "Le Fey trick".  Brown Wolverine holds his claws to Wolverine's throat and tells him to start talking.  Sue blasts them and she and Wolverine take off.  Thing says that it might really be Sue, while brown Wolverine says Wolverine smells just like him.

As Sue and Wolverine run, he says it's hopeless to try and evade the other him once he's got the scent.  The Defenders catch them up, and Sue and Dr Strange do a bit of of psychic stuff at each other, while both Wolverines fight.  Hulk manages to grab hold of Sue saying if she knew anything about Sue and Reed Richards she'd know they left and haven't been back to Earth in ages.

She manages to escape him, only to be blasted by Wasp.  Meanwhile Wolverine decides to end the fight between him and his alt by crushing his face into a wall then practically slicing him in half.  As he stands over brown Wolverine he says that he'll heal, he'll ave his team and his friends and maybe a girl in the future, "it cost us our souls to have this, so try to make the most of it."

But as he goes to leave the restaurant kitchen they crashed into, Thing punches him through the door knocking him out.   Wasp says they can't be Skrulls because they turn back into their alien form when unconcious. Captain America, who is actually Colonel America in this reality asks Dr. Strange if he has ever seen anything like this before.  Dr. Strange says "I think we need to talk to him".  And then Tony Stark, look way more bionic than usual appears, backed up by a horde of flying robots and says "who wants to tell their Uncle Tony exactly what's going on around here?"

And Uncle Tony Starkguard.

We then jump to a while later, Tony is suspended in the air examining the memories of Sue and Wolverine who are imprisoned aboard his helicarrier.  The memories are floating around him across a double page spread showing various famous incidence from the prime reality. He seems almost overwhelmed by what he sees, telling Jarvis "it's not every day you see an entire alternate timeline unfold in front of you."

He has Professor Charles Xavier and Emma Frost with him whose telepathic abilities extracted the memories. Tony asks Xavier to tell him it isn't real and he's just gone mad.   But Xavier and Emma say Wolverine is Wolverine, "just not our Wolverine".  Just as the Sue Richards isn't the same as the one from this reality.

Xavier: "The narrative inside each of their heads is identical... you cannot... you cannot fake that kind of psychic synchronicity."

Emma also says that the past few weeks they've both experienced the same kind of horrible memories.  Tony asks if Morgana Le Fey could have planted these memories.  Could they be a clone/trojan horse about to blow up in their faces?  Emma says if Morgana is that good, "she wins".

Xavier says that he thinks this is exactly what it appears to be, and Tony says these lunatics "have broken the timeline".  Emma says at least they are not dead at the hands of a homicidal A.I. Brown Wolverine wants to interrogate Wolverine but Tony says to send The Defenders away, especially Colonel America, "last thing I need is an earful of his mouth".  And he wants no one else knowing about this.

Emma asks if he wants her to wipe the memories from The Defenders' brains.  Xavier says he doesn't want her doing that.  Tony asks for an old S.H.I.E.L.D files on the investigation into Henry Pym's death.  The lab security footage especially.  Then we cut to him standing over Wolverine who is shackled to a chair.  He tells him that for a long time they thought Henry was murdered by Skrulls. When Wolverine asks for a beer, Tony tells him "you're so like yourself it's scary".

Wolverine asks what happened to Tony's body.  Tony tells him he lost half of it in the Latveria-Asgard wars, which was the last time he saw Thor.  He was ripped in half trying to stop Morgana Le Fey from conquering half of the world including Europe.   It seems none of this would have happened if Henry was alive.  He shows the security footage to Wolverine.

Tony: "You killed my very good friend.  The Avengers broke up soon after this.  Magic won in a battle against technology.  Asgard abandoned us. You broke the world."

Sue is also shackled to a chair in another room though she has been left on her own.  When no one comes to speak to her she begins to use her powers to free her from the dampening cuffs she is bound with, straining so hard she gets a nosebleed.

Sue begins to escape.

Back with Tony and Wolverine, Wolverine asks to go but Tony says where wil he go?  Wolverine asks if he is under arrest now.  Tony changes the subject asking is he knows what the butterfly effect is?  Wolverine says that's his whole life, did he think he did the wrong thing because he killed the man who left his world dead because he made a robot in his basement.

Tony says it was not a robot, it was an A.I.  Did he try and talk Henry out of it?  Wolverine says it didn't take, building things to people like him and Tony is like a religion to them. So you killed him says Tony.  "That's my religion" says Wolverine.  When Tony asks if he thinks he is the selfless hero who saved the world, Wolverine just says "bub, I ain't proud of myself."

On the Stark helicarrier deck, The Defenders are getting restless. Emma Frost and Professor Xavier come up to talk to them and politely tells them to get lost. Brown Wolverine is pissed at this, Emma tells him to settle down.  But as they argue, Thing suddenly pushes past saying "screw this" he wants to talk with Sue.  Emma tells him to stop or she'll shut down his brain, but Dr. Strange casts a disorientation spell on her and Xavier and they run inside the helicarrier.

Tony is still talking to Wolverine saying why didn't he think of suggesting something like a time release virus?  If both Reed Richards and Tony Stark had been alive they could have helped create one. "Well he wasn't and you didn't" retorts Wolverine.  As The Defenders crash their way through the carrier, Tony suggests another approach they could have gone back in time and had Henry Pym installed something in his original Ultron program.  The world would have unravelled as it was supposed to, "and just as this artificial intelligence was about to achieve his ultimate goal..."

Tony interrogates Wolverine.

But he's cut off by The Defenders arriving at the cell area, Thing demands Sue's cell be opened.  Suddenly the carrier goes into lockdown and Tony cries "you son of a bitch. That was quite a trick Le Fey!" Much to Wolverine's utter confusion.   Inside Sue's cell however is an empty chair and unlocked shackles.  As they have opened the door she sneaks out while invsible.

But Tony says he can see her and he's going to kill her for what she's done.  He calls Emma Frost to keep The Defenders aboard, she has just recovered from the brain scrambling.  Tony tells Sue she was on a suicide mission, she just says "I have no idea what you're talking about. I just want to see my kids!"

Then we get a double-page spread of Morgana Le Fey riding a dragon, followed by many flying knights.  The Defenders fly out to engage her despite Colonel America saying "we're not ready!  We're not nearly ready!"  Then a couple of montage pages of the battle in the sky as all the heroes clash with Morgana Le Fey.  Tony yells he doesn't know what her timeline plan of hers is but it won't work.  She says she has no idea what he's talking about but he should turn around because she doesn't want him to miss what happens next.  And she sends two helicarriers careening into each other and they go down in flames together.

Oh dear.

In the rubble of the Daily Bugle lie the smashed and broken bodies of all the heroes,  Wolverine comes around in  a killing rage and deals with an attacking Le Fey soldier.  Then a half crushed Tony grabs his leg and weakly says he knows Wolverine is going to travel back in time again to try and fix this, but he mustn't. There is a reason why although they have access to time travel they don't do it to change things the way they want because they can't:

Tony: "Time is an organism.  It's part of us.  It lives and breathes and everytime you travel through it. You rip it.  You tear it.  You hurt it.  If you keep doing it eventually you will kill it.  You'll break it beyond repair.  What will happen when time is dead.  What happens when you kill it?  It's not just us... we're not alone in the universe."

And he dies.  Wolverine walks resolutely off.  We then get a repeat of the scene where the Wolverine who travelled back in time with Sue is confronting Henry Pym, who once again turns huge and grabs him.  Outside Sue is wrestling with her conscience.  Then a passing figure knocks her out.  Inside Wolverine is about to jam his claws through Pym's head when his future self who travelled back from the Morgana Le Fey future appears clad in his original yellow suit which was all he could find to wear in Nick Fury's bunker.

Yellow Wolverine tells Wolverine that killing Pym won't work.  Henry breaks free and demands to know what is going on.  Yellow Wolverine tells him to stand down and listen.  He then tells Wolverine he kills Pym and he'll go home to a mess as big as the one he is trying to stop.  Wolverine is suspicious of him and thinks he might be sent by Captain America or Ultron, so Yellow Wolverine reveals a name that only the real Wolverine would know the meaning of.

Time for a better plan.

Henry Pym sits now somewhat fascinated.  He asks who they are and how they are travelling through time.  Yellow Wolverine says that Tony Stark gave him a plan but he can't execute it, he tells Henry he's an Avenger and knows everyone Henry knows.  The A.I. he is going to make will turn into Ultron, when Henry says he won't make it, Yellow Wolverine tells him that he has too, but just not the part where "Ultron mops the world with us."

How could that possibly work asks Henry?  Yellow Wolverine tells him Tony's idea, something he puts in it now but doesn't activate until the thing is about "to go full blown".  But before that happens there will have to be several close calls and Henry says if he knows, how can he allow those to happen?  Sue then appears saying "you'll have to make yourself forget."

Henry is surprised to see her especially looking older. Then she points at Yellow Wolverine saying "you hit me!"  He says he was just trying to stop her from not stopping him killing Henry.  Sue says she was going to stop him killing Henry and Wolverine says "no. You weren't."  She wants to call Reed but Wolverine says it's better if they keep things to themselves.  Henry lays it out, he has to create an A.I. that doesn't exist yet.  Put a time release program in it that doesn't exist yet.  Make himself forget about it and get on with his life.  How does he do this exactly?

We then jump forward a short while to both Wolverines and Sue close to Fury's safehouse in the Savage Land.  Sue asks if both of them are coming back with her now, which would be a paradox.  But grimly Yellow Wolverine agrees to die to prevent that.  He tells Wolverine he didn't see what he saw in the Le Fey timeline, "we don't wanna live with it" when asked if what he saw was bad.  "This is going to haunt me" says Wolverine and he pops his claws as the other says, "you know exactly what to do."

Wolverine returns to Sue alone, blood dripping from his claws while we see a montage of Henry Pym creating something. Wen Sue sees Wolverines bloody claws and just the one of him she is shocked. Wearily Wolverine just says "let's just go back from where we came from."  We then see Pym sitting on the floor of his lab only to be startled by a cylindrical robot that says "no need to plug me in daddy... I'm alive... just like you..."

Ultron should have conquered the world looking like this.

So we begin the final chapter "Some months ago" in Henry Pym's New York Laboratory. Suddenly a message pings on his computer which says "Open Your Door, Doctor".  With some trepidation he does so and finds a small package.  Inside is a storage device that says "Play Me."

What comes up on screen is the younger Henry Pym, he tells him that he won't remember making the video it was very important he didn't remember until today.

Past Henry: "The world had to keep turning.  Everything had to get to this day.  It wasa probably, hopefully for the best.  But if you're seeing this video that means at least we still have a fighting chance."

He tells him that it's because of Ultron and the worst has happened, or is about to happen.  Of all the things they messed up in their lives, this was the big one.  To make it right they have one chance, so this is what's going to happen...

He tells Present Day Pym that a special Avengers operation is going to lead to a hideout where a group of intelligent criminal masterminds have teamed up.  They call themselves the intelligentsia, Pym won't be part of either team.  Then we see the current line-up of the Avengers "assemble" which includes a Yellow suited Wolverine (hey... doesn't that mean Logan and Sue returning from the past are going to arrive in this timeline where they already exist?), Ms. Marvel, Thor, Beast and Iron Man amongst others are on the team. 

Turned out they kidnapped Jessica Jones and Ms. Marvel dishes out some righteous punching for that to the Intelligentsia who give up without much of a fight.  One of them was a Spaceknight whose energy trail they were able to follow to find her.  Then Henry calls Tony up and tells him he's sending him something.

Meanwhile golden lights start shimmering round a figure where the Intelligentsia were which they insist just turned itself on by itself.  Henry sends him code, as Tony queries it Henry promises to explain later.  He tells Tony:

Henry: "Tony! Listen to me.  This is it.  Don't ask me how I know.  But this is the moment.  This is our nightmare.  Launch the code Tony, or we're all going to die.  Ultron is back."

And Ultron stands wreathed in light.  As the rest of the Avengers get stuck in fighting. Henry tell Tony it has to be now, it's a kill code that is very specific to a backdoor code portal built into him.  Into the deepest recesses of his primary program.

Less dorky Ultron.

Ultron starts to get distracted as the Avengers hammer on him and the code is uploaded into him.  Ultron demands to know how they were so prepared for him, "this has more ingenuity than you are capable of, Anthony Stark.  I feel my father's hand in this."  Ultron says he has made updates to his program too since he gave birth to him.  He says he is decoding the code as it is uploaded, closing the backdoor as he opens it, "you anger me.  You insult me." Tony says he is not sure he can hold out much longer, but the upload hits 99%, then installing. Then...

... a raging Ultron swearing vengeance on mankind and hatred for his father suddenly shuts down and falls from the sky.  Thor belts him and Ultron shatters into pieces. Tony asks him what he did and Henry says he sent what looked like an average backdoor trojan, but when Ultron tried to recode it, it triggered a self replicating virus that was implanted in him at his creation.  By the time he realised. Nothing was left of him.  When Tony asks why he didn't use it before, Henry says he didn't have it before. 

Wolverine and Sue fly the car back to New York and all looks well.  They land ontop of a tall building and Sue hugs Wolverine saying she takes back almost everything she said to him.  She leaves to go see her family, while Wolverine rests his arms on the wall looking out over the city expressing his desire to sleep for a millenium.  But cracks appear and we get a two page montage of various characters experiencing blurred moments of alternate reality versions of themselves.  And then space-time shatters, cracks radiating out from Earth before returning to normal.

Oopsy.

Discussing what happened, Tony, Henry and Hank McCoy have found out Wolverine managed to break time.  Although they have all time travelled before this must have been one time to many.

Tony: "These readings are insane. We're teetering on multiversal chaos."

Hank: "Plus we know we're not alone in the universe.  Imagine these tears in time and space reaching out through all of time and space.  Imagine other universes affected".

And we cut to Miles Morales, the Spider-man of the Ultimate Marvel Universe suddenly finding himself coming face-to-face with the Galactus rising out of lightning cracks in the sky.

Later Henry says he can't stop thinking about building an A.I. to help create a growing infrastructure which could support humanity's next steps.  That would help us reveal "our highest potential".  The point of Ultron was to support every thought, imagination, "I know what I did wrong now.  I know what I have to do."

Finally we hear but don't see someone out in space close to Earth saying "what is happening to me?  I don't understand.  I don't know how I got here.  I don't know who's responsible".  And we turn the page to find out that it's Miraclem... Angela?!  OK well let's go with it, she's a Neil Gaimen creation for the Spawn series and in her own words:

Angela: "I am an angel from the heavens and I will not be disrespected.  Whoever did this to me... whoever brought me here against my will... my name is Angela.  I'm coming to end you".

I could only scan half the page but she is riding a giant skull, which is pretty metal.

And with that this event comic ends.  I really enjoy this one, it's definitely one of the easiest to read without need to read an insane number of tie-ins.  I have considered covering Infinite Crisis as well, but there were so many tie-in mini's that haven't been released in trade format I would spend too much time explaining who was who and what they had previously been up to.  Like all time travel stories that deal with multiple realities there are plenty of logical flaws you could point out like the duplicate Wolverine and Sue back in the repaired present, so I am choosing to handwave that as being solved by the time crash at the end.  There was much more bang for your buck if you care about how long a comic takes to read in this five issues, but I am adamant that you needed those slow paced double page spreads of the utter destruction of the Earth to really show what the stakes were and how things had got so bad Sue could stand by and watch a man she called a friend be murdered for a mistake he had yet to make.  I liked her and Wolverine together, their waspish banter again showed how living through Ultron's holocaust had changed things for them both.  And I thought the Just As Bad Present was fascinating.  I love the old "For Want Of A Nail" trope in fiction and Henry Pym was a pretty big nail, losing him depriving the world also of Vision and the other offspring of Ultron that weren't meglomaniac mecha-Hitlers.  The artwork is much more "trad" in these issues, but perhaps it suits heavier focus on heroes at their brightly coloured best rather than tatty and grimy after weeks on the run from Ultron's enforcers.  Now I am not a Marvel scholar, but I was under the impression that this was setting things up for the universal reboot of a couple of years later that saw the end of the Ultimate Marvelverse.  As for Angela, I don't know how she fit into the mainstream Marvelverse.  She seems an odd fit for it, and I am sure my resident Marvel expert in the comments will fill me in on what happened next with her.  So if you like event comics this is definitely one of the top tier.  Epic, well written and drawn and it's nice to see a team up between two characters from series that were Marvel pariahs then because they didn't own the movie rights for them.  Top marks.