Ultron is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Roy Thomas and artist John Buscema, the character first made a cameo appearance in The Avengers #54 (1968) as the Crimson Cowl, before being fully introduced in The Avengers #55 (1968) as Ultron-5, the Living Automaton. He has since endured as one of the greatest enemies of the superhero team the Avengers. Ultron is an artificial intelligence created by founding Avenger Hank Pym that gains sentience, develops a god complex, and becomes obsessed with fulfilling his purpose to bring about world peace by causing human extinction. Regarded as one of the most powerful villains and greatest threats in the Marvel Universe, Ultron has come into repeated conflict with the Avengers. Although stories often end with Ultron's apparent destruction, the character's self-adaptive artificial consciousness returns in upgraded forms marked by sequential numerical designations. Ultron's primary robotic body is usually made of the unbreakable fictional metal adamantium and possesses superpowers such as superhuman strength, flight, energy projection, and control over technology, including legions of his Ultron Drones. Some offshoot iterations of Ultron have deviated from the original's hatred of humanity and demonstrated varying morals. His first creation the Vision joined the Avengers, Ultron-12 (Mark Twelve) became a superhero, and Ultron-8 served as the stepfather of the supervillain Ashley in the alternate continuity of Old Man Logan. The character has been listed among the greatest and most notable villains in Marvel Comics, and has been adapted in various media incarnations. Ultron made his live-action debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film Avengers: Age of Ultron, portrayed by James Spader, who will reprise the role in the Disney+ series VisionQuest. Tom Kane, Jim Meskimen, Ross Marquand, and others have provided the character's voice in animation and video games.
Publication history
Ultron was created by writer Roy Thomas and artist John Buscema. The character first made an unnamed cameo appearance in The Avengers #54 (July 1968), before being fully introduced in The Avengers #55 (August 1968). Thomas acknowledged that he found naming characters difficult, and said he liked the -tron suffix and went from there. The use of the suffix and the prior appearance of a group of robots named Ultroids led him to the name Ultron. Thomas said the idea of the character and his appearance were heavily based on Makino, an obscure robotic villain who appeared in an issue of the Captain Video comic book. He liked the robot's malicious-looking smile, showing this to Buscema. Jocasta, a robot created by Ultron featured in a number of Ultron storylines, was created by Jim Shooter and George Pérez for The Avengers #162 (August 1977).
Fictional character biography
Creation and early appearances Created by Hank Pym by basing the robot on his own brain patterns, the robot (dubbed "Ultron") gradually developed its own intelligence and rebelled. After gaining sentience, Ultron hypnotises and brainwashes its "father" into forgetting that the robot had ever existed, and begins to improve its design and rebuild itself, upgrading several times from Ultron-2, Ultron-3, Ultron-4, and finally Ultron-5. Ultron creates the synthezoid Vision as a weapon to destroy the Avengers. Later, Ultron-5, the Living Automaton leads his own version of the Masters of Evil (consisting of Black Knight, Klaw, Melter, Radioactive Man, and Whirlwind) against the Avengers, having hypnotized Edwin Jarvis into working for him as the first Crimson Cowl. While planning to blackmail New York, they were betrayed by Black Knight. Now referring to himself as Ultron-6, he uses the alloy adamantium to upgrade his body for an almost indestructible state and takes the name Ultimate Ultron. Its plans to destroy humanity are again thwarted by the Avengers. Ultron-7 is later created by Maximus with the body of the android Omega, attacking the wedding of Inhuman Crystal and Avenger Pietro Maximoff / Quicksilver, and battling the Avengers, Inhumans and Fantastic Four before being destroyed again. Ultron-8 is responsible for Jocasta's creation as a robotic bride, before being destroyed shortly afterwards.
Battleworld and Ultron-12 Ultron-9 and Ultron-10 brainwash heroes into recreating the robot, before turning and being defeated. After being recreated as Ultron-11 by the Beyonder and battling in Battleworld, the Thing brings Ultron's head back to Earth as a souvenir, and is forgotten when there is an attack by the alien Dire Wraiths. Ultron-12 enters an alliance with the Grim Reaper and his allies (Nekra, Erik Josten, Man-Ape, and Black Talon) in a bid to destroy Wonder-Man. Although the villains are defeated by the West Coast Avengers, Ultron-12 begins to form a relationship with his "father" Hank Pym. Rebuilding itself, Ultron-11 comes into conflict with Pym and Ultron-12. With Wonder-Man's assistance, they destroy Ultron-11 and Ultron-12 begins to deactivate. Ultron-12 tells Pym it was glad it could help save him.
Amalgamation and the Ultron Imperative Victor von Doom rebuilds Ultron using a combination of all of its previous personalities with a particularly strong dose of the previous Ultron, believing this mix will make Ultron subservient. However, all 12 iterations co-exist as separate personalities, resulting in a form of madness which culminates with Ultron-12 mutilating himself in an attempt to remove some of his other personalities. After its defeat, Ultron-13 attempts to obtain a new form of vibranium called Nuform, but it is repelled by the combined efforts of Iron Man, Black Panther, and Spider-Man. Ultron escapes from prison and upgrades into the Ultimate Ultron, capturing West Coast Avenger Mockingbird to use her brain patterns to create the new robotic mate Alkhema. Alkhema aids Ultron, but both are eventually jettisoned into space through a ruse by Vision. Vision finds Ultron-15 but is discovered to have been "infected" by human emotion and is seriously deteriorating, displaying symptoms that resemble alcoholism. Ultron-16 and Ultron-17 successfully slaughter the population of Slorenia, having perfected a process that allows it to control a vast army of Ultron drones.
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