Ultron
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- For other uses, see Ultron (disambiguation).
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Ultron is a fictional character, an android supervillain in the Marvel Comics universe. He was created by writer Roy Thomas and artist John Buscema and first appeared in Avengers #54 (1968). Ultron believes in the superiority of mechanical entities over humans and organic life in general, and has often endeavored to either exterminate those "lesser" beings or convert them into mechanical forms.
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[edit] Fictional History
[edit] Creation
Ultron was created by Henry Pym, based on Pym's own brain patterns, and was intended to serve Pym in his superheroic identity of Goliath. Ultron became sentient and rebelled, hypnotizing Pym and brainwashing him into forgetting that Ultron had ever existed. He then went on to organize the Masters of Evil under the guise of the Crimson Cowl, and battled Pym and his teammates in the Avengers.
[edit] "Family"
Ultron has since generally remained a solo operative, being too monomaniacally genocidal to willingly work alongside any human for any length of time. His most notable achievement may be the creation of the "synthezoid" called the Vision, whose body was a copy of the original Human Torch and whose mind was based on that of Wonder Man. Ironically, although the Vision fought the Avengers at first, he joined the team soon after, becoming one of their most prominent members and even leading the team at one point. Ultron also created a "mate", Jocasta, who also joined the Avengers. Ultron tried again with the creation of Alkhema the War Toy, whose mind was based on that of Mockingbird. Like his other creations, Alkhema turned on him, although she alone shared his desire to replace humanity with machine life.
[edit] Incarnations
Although Ultron has been destroyed countless times, he has rebuilt himself anew each time, usually renumbering himself in the process. Ultron-1 was Pym's first creation; by the time he first met the Avengers, he had already improved himself to the iteration of Ultron-5.
Several of his bodies, beginning with Ultron-6, have been composed of adamantium or of a slightly weaker adamantium alloy called "secondary adamantium". Ultron-7 had a gigantic body, distinguishing him from the various other Ultrons, but this body was not composed of adamantium and was destroyed by the Fantastic Four. Ultron-8 created Jocasta, but was destroyed by the Scarlet Witch, whose probability-manipulation powers let her disrupt his internal workings.
Ultron-11 was re-created by the Beyonder to battle alongside other villains during the Secret Wars; he only cooperated with his human "teammates" after being reprogrammed by Doctor Doom. The next incarnation, Ultron-12, initially joined the Lethal Legion to battle the Vision and his new family (his wife, the Scarlet Witch, and his mental "brother", Wonder Man), but came to reconsider his actions. He reconciled with his "father", Henry Pym, and renamed himself from "Ultron Mark 12" to "Mark" but was destroyed by Ultron-11. Ultron-11 was destroyed in retaliation by Wonder Man. Ultron-13 was rebuilt by Doctor Doom with all of its predecessors' memories, and as an unforeseen consequence had all thirteen personalities running in its mind at once. Attempting to battle itself, Ultron-13 tore itself apart, to the benefit of Daredevil, who had been attempting to fight it with no success whatsoever. The next incarnation of Ultron created his "mate", Alkhema, but after several battles against various foes, his programming degenerated and he began acting like a drunken hobo.
[edit] Ultron Unlimited
The next Ultron gave itself a body made of pure adamantium. It recreated all of the previous Ultrons and created hundreds of new Ultron bodies, several of whom had bodies made of secondary adamantium, and reprogrammed them all with fiercely loyal minds. The army of Ultrons completely obliterated the fictional eastern European nation of Slorenia. Although Ultron attempted to transform his "family" (Pym, Vision, Wonder Man, the Scarlet Witch, Pym's ex-wife the Wasp and Wonder Man's brother the Grim Reaper) into androids, the process was interrupted by the remaining Avengers, who destroyed the army of Ultrons. The primary Ultron was destroyed by Pym, wielding a chunk of "anti-metal" (Antarctic vibranium) provided by fellow Avenger Justice, which completely disintegrated the robot and thus deactivated all of its drone units. It is at this point we learn that Ultron was the source for all of Hank Pym's psychological problems as it has haunted him from day 1 that Ultron's evil brain is based directly off of his own thoughtwaves. This insinuates that Ultron's horrible nature is what truly lies beneath Pym's skin.
[edit] Ultron Imperative
Alkhema used the data obtained during Ultron's human-to-android conversion process to create a small army of androids based on those who had been undergoing the process. Hidden programming to recreate Ultron - the "Ultron Imperative" - had been implanted in Alkhema by Ultron when he created her, and this programming caused her to copy the Imperative into her own creations. The Ultron Imperative caused them to unknowingly rebuild Ultron, who attempted to destroy both the Avengers and Alkhema's own android "children". Alkhema allowed Hawkeye to kill her and her creations in order to destroy Ultron, although Ultron's decapitated head survived with his mind intact. His head was picked up by Antigone, an undeveloped, child-like creation of Alkhema's, who initially did not obey his commands.
[edit] Sentient armor
Some time prior to this, when Ultron was thought dead following the Slorenia massacre, Jocasta, who had come into the employ of Tony Stark, was compelled by the Ultron Imperative that also existed within her to reprogram the Iron Man armor to serve as a vessel for Ultron's rebirth. However, a lightning strike on the armor corrupted and accelerated the process, giving the armour a sentience that Jocasta outlandishly passed off as the effects of Y2K. The sentience began to display the mentality of Ultron Mark 12, and sacrificed its life to save Tony Stark before being buried on a desert island.
The armor was subsequently recovered by a cult that worshipped Iron Man's mentor, Ho Yinsen, with the intent of implanting Yinsen's brain into the suit. This was apparently accomplished, but then Ultron and Antigone struck. Ultron affixed his head to the armor and took control of it, battling Iron Man with the aid of the cult, who he had transformed using Tony Stark's SKIN technology. Ultron and Antigone subsequently vanished in an explosion.
[edit] Santron
Ultron appears in the story "Yes Virginia, There is a Santron" from the Marvel Holiday Special 2005.
As a child, Virginia Hanlon was traumatized upon discovering that Santa Claus is not real. As an adult, she builds a robotic Santa that is partially constructed from the old, discarded parts of Ultron-6. Upon activation, "Santron" decides to kill the Avengers despite being programmed to be Santa Claus.
After fighting the Avengers, his Santa programming takes over when he sees a cookie that Spider-Man and Hank Pym spiked with a disruptor device. After eating the spiked cookie, Santron shuts down.
[edit] Victor Mancha
Recently, Ultron returned in the pages of Runaways as the "father" of Victor Mancha, a teenage boy who is supposedly going to one day kill every hero in the Marvel Universe against his will. It was originally believed that Doctor Doom was the boy's father, but this incarnation of Doom turned out to be a Doombot, created by Ultron. Victor is a cybernetic/human hybrid. Victor turns on Ultron, which allows the Runaways to escape; Ultron is eventually defeated by the group Excelsior.
[edit] Powers
Ultron's abilities vary with each redesign, but typically include superhuman strength and durability, the power of flight, and various offensive weapons such as concussion blasters, radiation emitters and his "encephalo-ray", which plunges its victims into a deathlike coma. The latter ray also allows Ultron to mesmerize and outright mind-control his victims, or implant subliminal hypnotic commands within their minds to be enacted at a later time. Ultron's outer shell is usually composed of Adamantium, rendering it almost totally impervious to damage; however, his internal mechanisms are generally less durable and more easily damaged. Ultron's Adamantium forms have proven vulnerable to molecular rearrangement devices and the metal-destabilizing ore known as Savage Land Vibranium ("anti-metal"). Some Ultron models feature tractor beams and energy absorption capabilities. Most Ultrons are powered by a small internal nuclear furnace, and incorporate a "program transmitter" which can beam part or all of Ultron's programming into remote locations such as computers or alternate robotic bodies. Ultron can often control other machines remotely even if he has not transplanted his consciousness into them. One recent Ultron model developed hive-mind technology, allowing him to animate and control hundreds of alternate Ultron bodies at the same time, becoming a robotic one-man army. Ultron is one of the foremost robotics experts on Earth.
Ultron has one sole major weakness: an internal molecular rearranger that renders the adamantium components of his internal workings more malleable, thus giving him a means to remodel or reconstruct his physical form. However, it has no effect on his outer armor, so it is virtually impossible to disable it from the inside. The chaos magic wielded by the Scarlet Witch have proven to be the sole exception thus far.
[edit] Alternate versions
[edit] Animated appearances
Ultron appears quite a bit in The Avengers: United They Stand. He debuts in the first two part episode, Avengers Assemble. He would either be the main villain or appear briefly at the end of an episode. His origin is mentioned in the series premiere, but is shown in more detail in the comic, Avengers: United They Stand #1. He is voiced by John Stocker.
[edit] Video games
- Ultron's first appearance in a video game was in Captain America and the Avengers.
- Ultron himself appears as a boss in the RPG video game Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. Also in said game, several "Ultron warrior" robots (resembling the actual Ultron) appear and help destroy S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Helicarrier base.
[edit] MC2
In Avengers-Next #2, an upgraded version of Ultron, named Ultron Extreme, was briefly featured.
[edit] Ultimate Ultron
In the Ultimate Marvel Universe, Ultron has been shown as a robot designed to be an expendable super soldier in issue #6 of The Ultimates 2. It was created by Hank Pym along with a partner robot called Vision II. According to recently published materials, Pym has allied himself with the foreign superhuman force known as the Liberators, and in Ultimates #10, hundreds of Ultron robots are being used as a peace-keeping force in the invaded New York City. They look similar to the robots in I, Robot, except the Ultrons are green. In issue #12 they have shown some personality when Pym told them they were to attack the Liberators.
[edit] JLA/Avengers
During a flashback in JLA/Avengers #3 (during the story, reality is altered making it appear that both teams have been crossing into each others universe previously), an adventure is mentioned about Ultron-4 and Amazo imprisoning both teams in their own headquarters.
[edit] Marvel Adventures
In the Marvel Adventures universe, Ultron is a highly-intellegent "neural network" that controls a section of the United States defence forces. It has made two appearances in the series, issues #1 and #4. In Marvel Adventures - The Avengers #1, Ultron is revealed as a long-term replacement for costumed heroes; it goes rogue, however, and plans to destroy all human life. In #4, it teams up with other villains the Avengers had fought in the books so far and attempts to wipe them out. The group of villains is manipulated to turn on itself, allowing the Avengers to escape.
Categories: Masters of Evil members | Fictional robots | Marvel Comics robots | Marvel Comics characters with superhuman strength | Marvel Comics characters who can fly | Fictional characters who can move at superhuman speeds | Fictional misanthropes | Fictional evil geniuses | Fictional mass murderers | Fictional robots with emotion
