It was the worst of all times in the comic industry. The collapse of the market and the exceedingly subpar level of quality led to a dark age.Ultron Unlimited (Part 1 of 4)
Much has been written about Kurt Busiek’s and Georgs Pérez’ run on the “Avengers”. But I do not believe that it is enough. So I shall flood the interwebs with more info on the climax of their run, the four part “Ultron Unlimited” story (“Avengers” #19 to #22).
Let’s start with a bit of history.
Avengers reborn after “Heroes Reborn”
In the mid-90’s the comic industry was stuck in a rut. The collector/investor bubble burst and suddenly the great sales of the early 90’s collapsed. Some of you may remember the large print runs of first issues like “Spider-Man” #1 (2.5 million), “X-Force” #1 (5 million) and “X-Men” #1 (8 million) the whole market tumbled into a downward spiral.
The creators of these high-sellers believed that they could repeat their success using their own characters. So Todd MacFarlane, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Marc Silvestri and a couple of others founded their own studio Image Comics.
Initially they were very successful. Particularly Todd MacFarlane managed to leverage his fame and made his creation “Spawn” into a successful comic book franchise spawning (heh!) an ongoing comic series, a short lived animated series and a motion picture.
While being produced by different creators the Image characters had a few things in common. They were all to “grim and gritty” and “in your face”. Unlike characters from the DC Comics stable (e.g. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman) they had no moral code. They would not refrain from killing villains if it struck their fancy.
Alas this high was only temporary and Image Comics also took the hit, but due to lower overhead costs compared to other publishers managed to muster the crisis better than others.
In the meantime Marvel Comics was going down the drain. The quality of their books was so low that some characters were unrecognizable. Iron Man had been replaced by his time-travelling younger self. Thor was turned into a disco-dressing Fabio look-alike. Even the venerable Dr. Strange was turned into an imitation of Spawn.
Now that Marvel turning its characters into cheap replica of Image’s “heroes” had not brought about the desired success, the powers-that-be at America’s largest publisher (arrogantly calling itself the “House of Ideas”) turned to the actual creators for the much needed sales boost.
After getting rid of their Marvels major heroes the Fantastic Four, the Avengers (including Captain America and Iron Man) in a confusing “Onslaught” crossover event the respective titles were re-booted as “Heroes Reborn” in an “alternate universe”. A universe in which the Image creators Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee could do as they please with the characters.
Needless to say that particularly Rob Liefeld’s take on Captain America and the Avengers was badly drawn, highly maligned and controversial in the worst way. One unconfirmed rumor has it that a reader clawed out his own eyes, because Liefeld’s work was so terrible.
Jim Lee’s ideas for the Fantastic Four and Iron Man were interesting and the books had an overarching story line that unified them. In a final analysis they were retreads of classic tales, their relevance not being apparent beyond making a quick buck. While “Heroes Reborn” might have been an interesting experiment and a sales success, the characters were seemingly irreversibly damaged.
Another crossover chimed in the end of this alternate universe. This time “Heroes Reborn: The Return” sent the heroes back into the Marvel Universe proper and gave them new series.
But which creative teams could return “Captain America”, “Iron Man”, “Fantastic Four” and “Avengers” to greatness?
Cap hit the ground running with the same good creative team taking over that had successfully chronicled his adventures before “Heroes Reborn”. Unfortunately “Iron Man” and the “Fantastic Four” took many years to return to a semblance of readability.
As for the Avengers… The legends return.
Obstetricians of another Rebirth
Writer Kurt Busiek is something of a super-fanboy gone pro. He not only harbors a great love for Marvel characters, but has enough common sense to keep his own geekness from spoiling his stories. His writing might not be as jovial and flamboyant as Stan Lees, but it has the necessary earnestness and gravitas of Chris Claremont without the wordiness or the repeating phrases. Busieks encyclopedic knowledge of the Marvel Universe and its continuity is second only to Mark Gruenwald’s. Taking the Avengers with their elaborate and often convoluted history and spinning intriguing and fun tales is a challenge he is well suited for.
Artist George Pérez is a comic book legend in his own right. He has penciled “Fantastic Four” and “Avengers” in the late 70’s and early 80’s. He has co-created “Teen Titans”, one of the most successful DC Comics series at the time. His highly detailed drawing style is admired throughout the industry. Without being deconstructive and disrespectful to the character Pérez has continously pushed the boundaries of mainstream superhero comics by experimenting with page layouts, inking styles and story telling. He can probably pack more action onto one page than anyone else in the industry.
Together with inker Al Vey the two gentlemen took it upon themselves to re-boot the Avengers who had been re-booted to death before. They started by assembling the Avengers in their own series that started with a new number one issue.
Within a couple of issues it was apparent: Busiek and Pérez had accomplished their goal and more. The series started off with a bang and kept going strong. The Avengers were back for good.
Ultron - The ultimate Avengers villain
A year and a half into their critically acclaimed series. Busiek and Pérez decided it was time to pit “Earth’s Mightiest Heroes” against their ultimate adversary: Ultron, the indestructible robot.
What makes Ultron such a great villain?
It is the unique combination of his own motivation, the personal involvement of the Avengers in bringing him down, his extreme threat level and good oldfashioned coolness!
Let’s take a deeper look into these factors:
1. Motivation
Ultron is a robot that hates all organic life on Earth. Thus he wants to eradicate all life as we know it. But in the end he does not want to be left alone. Knowing that he cannot create a mate for himself all by his lonesome, he has forced others to construct female robots with the “brain patterns” of other humans. The first was Jocasta fashioned on the Wasp. Ultimately Jocasta turned against Ultron leading to his defeat in previous encounters.
That did not make Ultron change his plans. He just tried again. This time it was Alkhema (patterned after the “brain patterns” of Mockingbird of the Avengers). Their sick semblance of “love” lasted longer. Their only point of conflict was the speed in which mankind should be eradicated. Alkhema wants to kill every single human being one by one. Ultron wants to kill them all at once.
2. Personal involvement
The Avengers share a long history with Ultron. They may have thwarted him often, but they are well aware that they are in part responsible for the destruction this killer robot has caused. After all it was the Avenger Hank Pym who first created Ultron. At that time this experimental machine was called Ultron-1. It developed its own consciousness and worse… it evolved. Every new version of Ultron mutated into a more formidable adversary.
As Kurt Busiek put it in “Avengers” #19: “It was as Ultron-6 that he gained his greatest advantage — rebuilding himself out of indestructible Adamantium.”
Had the Avengers not experimented with Artificial Intelligence then the world would have been spared the threat of Ultron. This makes it personal between the Avengers and their robotic foe.
3. Threat
I’ve got three words for you: “Adamantium” and “Programm transmitter”. Not only is Ultron’s body encased in an indestructible shell, but his consciousness can be stored and transferred. Even when the Avengers find a way to defeat him, it is only a matter of time until he resurfaces in a more advanced form.
He is capable of opening up a can of serious wuppass on the Avengers. Just take a look at the amount of different powers Ultron has according to the “Official Handbook of the Marvel Unviverse”:
- Encephalo-beam (mind control)
- Concussion Blasters (Laser channeled plasma beams)
- Tractor beams (High frequency pulsed magnetic graviton particle containment fields - whatever that’s supposed to mean!)
- Energy Absorption (converts electromagnetic radiation into electric energy)
- Molecular Rearranger (can render Adamantium as malleable as wet clay).
And this entry is from the mid-80’s. By the 90’s his powers are bound to have increased.
Most of all: Ultron is perfectly willing and capable of killing (see issue description below).
4. Coolness
Ultron simply has a badass design! This can be varied still retaining uniquely identifiable features. The eyes have it!
Before “Avengers” #19 Ultron had disappeared for a few years. His name is legend, his threat level is gobsmacking and his time has come…
This Evil Reborn…
“Avengers” #19 (cover date August 1999) does not muck about long. Already the iconic cover depicts Ultron’s return. The action starts out in a Wakanda Industries Quinjet plant off Long Island. Black Panther investigates a break in and encounters a figure we are lead to believe is Ultron.
The focus jumps to one of the less intriguing subplots at the time: During a press conference at the Avengers Mansion Captain America is confronted with allegations of racism. This subplot would later pit the team against a relifgious group blatantly modeled after the Church of Scientology. Next we see Wanda “Scarlett Witch” Maximoff do the gypsy dance and ponders her relationship with Wonder Man and her Ex, the Vision.
The story picks up steam when the Wasp crashes the press conference as a harbinger of doom. She is distraught that her ex-husband Hank Pym has been kidnapped by mysterious robots. Being the creator of Ultron, Jocasta and the Vision, Hank should be quite used to confronting robots. The pieces come together when the Avengers are alerted of Black Panthers encounter with an Adamantium coated robot.
Now this is where Busieks writing really hits its stride in this first of the four part “Ultron Unlimited” story line. Of course the reader knows that Ultron is involved. But Busiek follows one of the most important rules of story telling. The longer you take for the introduction of a character, the more foreboding and important this character appears. Needless to say that the Avengers fly to the Wakanda Industries plant to confront the Adamantium robot, but it is not Ultron! I shall not give away more…
Ultron does not appear in person in the whole issue. We only get to see his history in flashbacks. The closest we get to the actual Ultron is a video transmission of him completely whiping out a small European country (that is annoyingly called “Slorenia”, a name only Americans could come up with). Yes, read that last sentence again! This time the villain does actual damage. In most other comic books villains tend to hold long speeches about the terror and destruction they will cause, only to be stopped by the heroes before any of it can come to pass. Not so with Ultron. No speeches here, only actions.
“Avengers” being a Comic Code approved book the complete holocaust of a whole nation is only hinted upon in murky images. But the extent of these actions can be felt throughout the book. We now know that the Avengers are on their way to face a formidable foe, who will stop at nothing.
It is testimony to Busieks excellent dialogues and characterization that the Avengers ooze apprehension even fear at the thought of facing Ultron. Thus the readers feel that the impending confrontation is of particular importance.
Art and fluid Storytelling
George Pérez was in an interesting phase of his art career. On previous books he had produced so detailed artwork that in some few cases looked cluttered or even static. In the best cases he used to render a detail rich world full of elaborate backgrounds and statuesque figures. The monthly schedule of “Avengers” had apparently started to take its toll.
The artwork in this issue is more detailed than that in the average comic book. The panel count is still immense. Apart from some breathtaking near-splash pages that pull you in, Pérez manages to cram lots of panels onto a page. Still there is something different in in his art: there is a clarity and fluidity seldom seen before. Perhaps Pérez did not have the time to fill the world with details and inke Al Vey took it from there, breathing life into the world at the price of detail.
Pérez would later return to his insanely elaborate rendering in “Avengers vs. JLA”, but this period of his run proves an interesting balance between bravado, clarity and omission of unnecessary details.
This Evil unfolding…
This was a great start into a story line that establishes the history, the threat and the power level of Ultron. There is an air of anticipation penetrating the whole issue. I wonder, what will come next…
Links of interest:
Disclaimer: All characters belong to their respective copyright holders. They are only mentioned for review purposes. Please don’t sue me!
