Age of Ultron #10 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

I...have no idea what we're supposed to think here.

If you look at the "Flashpoint"-esque ending of this issue, it appears that the whole point of the "Age of Ultron" was to send Galactus to the "Ultimate" universe and to introduce Angela to the Marvel Universe.  It also hints at the possibility that it will be easier for the various universes to blend into one another given the tears in the space-time continuum created by Wolverine, though it's unclear where Marvel really intends to go with that possibility.  For the time being, Galactus and Angela appear to be the only concrete outcomes.

I know nothing about Angela, other than the fact that Neil Gaiman apparently won her in some sort of legal settlement with Todd McFarlane.  Her inclusion here is suitably bizarre, since it forces the reader to be aware of (and excited about) a secondary character from another company to understand the impact of one of the two outcomes of this story.  (It wasn't like an alternate Jean Grey suddenly sauntered into our universe.)  Moreover, I'm pretty sure the settlement occurred well after Bendis envisioned the event.  The obvious question, then, is whether Marvel originally intended the Galactus switch to be the only real consequence of this event but decided to shoehorn Angela into it or if her inclusion displaced some other outcome (such as the transfer of Spider-Man 2099 to our universe).

Either way, it feels remarkably anticlimactic.  Sure, it was sort of cool to see how important "Avengers" #12.1 wound up being.  But, if I'm not going to get Miguel O'Hara, why do I care?  It reminds me of every Avengers story that Bendis ever told, ones that had all the trappings of an epic but never really delivered a story with any sort of lasting impact.  Parker Robbins escaped from jail, obtained the Infinity Gauntlet, lost the Infinity Gauntlet, and returned to jail.  In order words, everything ends where it started.  The world was fine, Ultron invaded, the world was destroyed, the Invisible Woman and Wolverine traveled into the past to fix it, they traveled to the future to see the results, the world was destroyed, Wolverine traveled into the past to fix it, they traveled to the future to see the results, the world was fine.  Lather, rinse, repeat.

Taking another tack here, the failure of this event to shake up the status quo shows how differently the Avengers line has fared when compared to the X-Men line.  Events like "House of M," "Second Coming, "Messiah Complex," "Schism," and "Avengers vs. X-Men" provoked real change in the X-Men.  Scott assumed leadership of the X-Men, moved them to Utopia, fought about the direction of the team with Wolverine, led the more militant group, tried to save mutantkind with the Phoenix but lost himself, and currently finds himself an outlaw trying to save the dream (as he sees it).  We're talking change here.  Other characters, such as Havok and Rogue, have had their own heroes' trials that organically moved them from one place to a significantly different place.  In the "Avengers," Cap still throws a shield, Tony still makes wise-ass remarks, and Thor still speaks in a different font.  That's about it.  I'm hard pressed to find any concrete change that the Avengers have experienced over the last few years other than the constantly changing roster.  Whereas the X-Men are the "Dragon Age" of the Marvel Universe, the Avengers are the "Street Fighter."

In other words, I think this event is my last "Avengers" event for a while.  I know I'm supposed to be all excited about "Infinity," but, really, I'm hard pressed to find the energy (or money) to devote to another event that seems unlikely to change anything.

Age of Ultron #9 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

All right, so, somewhat as expected, Bendis uses future Tony Stark's time-bomb suggestion as the potential solution to the Ultron problem.  He actually manages to sell it pretty well here, with the Logans and Sue convincing Hank that he has to allow all the other damage that Ultron does before the "Age of Ultron" to happen, so that they don't change the existing timeline.  In this way, Bendis walks us to the brink of "Flashpoint" without actually seemingly crossing that line; if Hank does what he's told to do, nothing really will change in the Marvel Universe that we know.  At this point, it would be easy to cry over spilled milk, lamenting how we got here that our best solution means the total preservation of the status quo that existed before this event started.  But, taking the story on face value, this solution is probably the one that makes the most sense, so I'll give Bendis credit for that.

At this stage, the final question, of course, is if Hank does what he's supposed to do.  The cover for the next (and last) issue shows the heroes battling Ultron, which raises several questions.  After all, if Hank's plan works the way that it's supposed to work, we wouldn't see this battle:  Ultron would suddenly self-destruct in the future, since it's from the future where he launches the attack.  As such, it's unclear how the heroes would find themselves in some sort of face-to-face confrontation with Ultron (assuming the cover depicts actual events).  Did Hank deviate from the plan?  Or, is it just an unexpected consequence?

The real question post-"Age of Ultron" is what effect it will have on the Marvel Universe.  The advertisement for "Age of Ultron" #10 A.I. says that it's the beginning of the Marvel Universe's "next evolution."  If true, it would imply that we do actually have a Flashpoint moment on our hands.  Something happens that permanently changes the past and the characters that we used to know are no longer the characters that we knew.  I'd be surprised if Marvel totally committed to such a scheme, given that it hasn't really worked out that well for DC.

In other words, we need to see why Marvel bothered.  Is it a "Fear Itself" type of event simply to boost sales?  Or, are we really going to see something different?  If so, how is that going to happen?  This next issue could somewhat save this event, if it gives us a believable conclusion that leads to reasonable changes.  If not, and we really do return to the status quo, hopefully it will bolster my commitment to stop reading all these events.  I guess we'll see.

Age of Ultron #8 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

OK, here's the thing.  This issue was actually better than the last few ones have been.  I felt like Bendis built some real intrigue by not only making it unclear what future Tony's motivations were but also by revealing the tension between Tony and the Defenders.  After all, if Tony really were the man keeping the world safe from Morgana Le Fey (as he believes he is), why do the Defenders seem to have reservations about him?  I also thought that the idea that this world was destroyed by a war between magic and technology (where magic largely won) was an interesting counterpoint to the previous reality, where it was destroyed by technology run amok.  It hinted at something Marvel hasn't really explored but perhaps should.

But, I don't understand why Tony was unable to see why Logan did what he had to do.  Stark is furious at Logan for creating a world where he lost half his body and Thor departed Earth with the rest of the Asgardians, but, as Xavier himself notes, at least they're all still alive. Sure, I get that Stark is scarred (physically and mentally) by the experience, but, given that he has access to Logan and Sue's memories, it's pretty clear that even his broken world is better than a completely devastated one.  I mean, I do get why he'd think that it was all a trick of Morgana Le Fey's, particularly when she (conveniently) appears with an armada to attack as Tony's interrogating present Logan.  But, why think that Logan should've just left the world a devastated wasteland (and, by the way, Tony without even the half of his body that he has in the new reality) rather than create this new reality?  It's these inconsistencies that just continue to weigh down this event.

At this point, it seems like Tony is going to send Logan back in time (again) to convince Hank to introduce that time bomb into Ultron, allowing us to see Ultron's actual invasion (which we haven't really seen) and give us the deus ex machina that we all know is coming when he explodes at the climatic moment. The obvious question is why didn't old Tony think of that, but I'll withhold judgment until Bendis actually tells the story.

Age of Ultron #7 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

So, we traded Ultron for Tony.  I have the sinking suspicion that this revelation is supposed to be more shocking than it actually is and Bendis doesn't really have anything else up his sleeve.  If I had to guess, Logan and Sue are going to escape from the Defenders next issue, then rally them to their side in issue #9, and set back everything the way it was before Ultron invaded in issue #10.  I'm actually so sure that something along these lines is going to happen that I'm wondering if it's even worth spending the $11.97 on these issues.

Age of Ultron #6 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

This issue is a complicated one.  On one hand, it's seriously ballsy, but, on the other hand, it was somewhat predictable and occasionally sloppy.

Bendis takes the interesting step of refocusing the past storyline on just Wolverine and Sue Storm.  (Unfortunately, he never explains where the other characters who traveled into the past with them went or why a young Nick Fury just conveniently arrived at his Savage Land base when Logan and Sue desperately needed a vehicle.)  Bendis uses this narrowed focus to have Logan and Sue argue the ethical dilemma at the core of the mission, weighing the life of Hank Pym against the lives of Ultron's victims.  (On a continuity point, Sue mentions that Ultron killed her children, but, per "Fantastic Four" #5 AU, I thought they were just stranded in space.  Did she just forget that she left them there?)  However, the predictability part comes into play with the end result; it seemed pretty unlikely that Sue would stop Logan from killing Hank with all those lives on the line.  (Continuing the parenthetical notations of sloppiness, one of my problems with this issue was the fight scene itself, since Bendis has Logan announce his presence to Hank.  Although I get that it sets up Sue's moral dilemma later in the issue, it seems unlikely that Logan would've taken that chance.  It would've been better to have an alarm sound or something.)

With Hank now dead and the future team defeated, it appears that we're going to be entering the Marvel Universe's version of the DCnU.  (That's the ballsy part.)  Assuming that Marvel isn't actually taking that step, Bendis now has two actions to undo to restore the Marvel Universe we all know.  First, he has to unkill Hank Pym and, second, he has to stop Ultron before he invades.  My guess is that Logan and Sue will serve the same role that Bishop did in "Age of Apocalypse," the institutional memory of the previous reality.  Sue seems the most likely candidate for getting the MnU's heroes to undo what's happened, but I'll admit that I'm not sure how excited I am about it.  It seems increasingly unlikely that anything from this event is going to persist after it concludes, sapping some of the energy from the book.  I mean, I'm not saying that should be the measure of how good the event itself is, given that I am overall enjoying it.  But, I'm starting to wonder whether the ending is going to be worth the effort.

Age of Ultron #5 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Well, the wheels went off this bus pretty quickly.

My first gripe with this issue is the sudden disappearance of Nick Fury's alleged master plan.  At the end of last issue, Red Hulk, Moon Knight, and Black Widow arrived declaring that Nick Fury had a plan that they could use to defeat Ultron.  I mean, their exact words were:  "And we wipe even the idea of him out of existence."  "Entirely."  "And God bless Nick Fury, because we know just how to do it."  We don't really have a lot of ambiguity in those statements.  They know how to defeat Ultron, how to "wipe even the idea of him out of existence."  However, that knowledge seems to be completely forgotten in this issue.  Instead, all they seem to know is that Nick Fury has a secret bunker in the Savage Land.  Moreover, when they eventually find the bunker and Fury himself, Nick doesn't actually have a doomsday plan.  Sure, he has a plan to use a Doom Platform to go the future to take out Ultron.  But, he only has that plan because he knows that Ultron is attacking from the future as a result of some data he was able to obtain when Ultron attacked S.H.I.E.L.D.  Nothing in this issue implies that Fury had some sort of pre-existing plan that could have given the group some advantage in the fight with Ultron.  Plus, even if the plan did exist, it seems likely that it was to go into the past to destroy Ultron, not to go into the future to do it, as Fury actually recommends here, given that it seems unlikely that Fury would've predicted that he was attacking from the future.

But, beyond even the sudden loss of a plan that happens between these two issues, I'm not entirely sure what Fury and his team are expecting to accomplish in the future.  After all, if they defeat Ultron, they're still left with a completely devastated world.  It seems unlikely that they could ever possibly rebuild Earth, given the destruction that we've already seen.  As such, Wolverine seems to be on the right path, believing that they should go into the past to kill Hank Pym before he can invent Ultron.  However, to give Bendis credit, he makes it clear why this strategy is so problematic.  In a flashback, Hank Pym mentions to Iron Man and Mr. Fantastic that he wished sometimes that he could into the past and convince himself not to make Ultron.  (Somewhat hilariously, Mr. Fantastic admits that he would go into the past and be nicer to Dr. Doom in college.)  But, all three acknowledge that at some point you're going to go to "the Garden of Eden and smack that apple out of Eve's hand."  Even beyond these ethical considerations, Spider-Man makes it clear that the Butterfly Effect of destroying an Avenger would be enormous.  Wolverine, however, isn't exactly concerned with the metaphysical ramifications, convincingly arguing that it seems difficult to believe that a different present could possibly be worse.  So, we're now facing down two time-travel stories in the coming months.

The problem, at this point, is that it's unclear where Marvel is going with this story.  We do have the potential for a "New 52!" reboot here, if Marvel were to have Wolverine and his team be successful in killing Hank Pym before he invents Ultron.  Moreover, it seems the only likely possibility since, as I said, even if Fury and his team succeed in the future, it's not going to undo the damage caused by Ultron in the present.  On some level, I'm intrigued to see what they do, since I honestly can't tell how we're going to revolve this problem short of the creation of a MnU.  But, the problem is that I'm not really hopeful that I'm going to like the answer, given the likelihood that it'll be a third option that leaves the pre-"Age of Ultron" status quo unchanged.  Bendis is clearly struggling to keep control over this story and juggling two time-travel stories doesn't seem like it's going to make it an easier on him.  Given the liberal use of deus ex machinas in last issue and the lack of attention to detail in this one, I am not hopeful that we're going anywhere good here.

Age of Ultron #4 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

My history professor is fond of saying that you need to ask not only why something happened in history but also why it happened when it did.  In this issue, the first is a lot easier to explain than the second.

Every mini-series like this one has the issue where the author has to hit fast forward and get to the place where s/he needs to be to move into the next phase.  This issue is that one for "Age of Ultron."  Bendis brings the three groups together, but it's a somewhat bumpy ride.  The most believable sequence is the primary story, involving the main group of superheroes.  Jennifer and Luke learn from Vision that Ultron is attacking from the future, resulting in She-Hulk sacrificing herself to get that information to the heroes in the Savage Land.  Bendis has some good moments here, from making it clear that Luke's rage over Jessica and Danielle's deaths drives him to succeed to showing how weary the superheroes are when they barely comment on the nuclear explosion that the Ultrons unleash to try to stop Luke.

The secondary story, with Black Widow and Moon Knight, stretches your credulity a bit.  We not only learn that Nick Fury conveniently has a secret base in the Savage Land, but that he also has a secret plan for taking down Ultron in just this scenario.  I'm going to reserve judgment on the plan until we get more details, but the fact that Nick has a secret base in the Savage Land is the "why it happened when it did" moment that I mentioned earlier.  Although it's totally believable that he would have such a secret base, Bendis doesn't really make any attempt to address how remarkably convenient it was for Marc and Natasha to stumble across this information just in time to meet the other superheroes there.

It's the tertiary story, with Red Hulk and Taskmaster, that Bendis totally phones-in.  Red Hulk not only survived the attack from a few issues ago, but he happens to recover just as Taskmaster is strolling by him.  Moreover, despite having a distinct lack of allies, he decides to kill Taskmaster (who's doing exactly what he said that he'd do, escape Chicago with Ultron tech) and then somehow knows to go to the Savage Land.

But, I'm not going to spend too much time crying over spilled milk.  Bendis could've gotten everyone together in a lot more eloquent way, but what's done is done.  It's a transition issue and I'm willing to leave it at that.  Looking ahead, the clear question to me at this point is if Bendis is going to bring us the battle that we saw in "Avengers" #6, where Kang and Earth's heroes attack Ultron in the future.  In that arc, we learned that Kang and the heroes lose the battle and that Kang's repeated attempts to win it wind up fracturing the time stream, setting up the events of that arc.  Looking at future issues, Kang does appear on the cover of "Uncanny Avengers" #8 AU, so it seems possible that we're going here.  If so, most importantly, at the end of "Avengers" #6, old Iron Man hands young Iron Man a device to use to defeat Ultron.  Given that he now knows where Ultron is, it seems like a good time for Tony to use that device...

Age of Ultron #3 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Holy effing crap, I did not see that coming.

First, before we talk about the surprise reveal at the end, let's talk about the rest of this issue.  Looking over the course of the series so far, Bendis has done a great job of slowly building the plot step-by-step.  (It's almost irrelevant at this point how Ultron took over the world.  I find myself caring less and less about it, because I'm much more interested in watching the heroes react to this situation.)  First, Hawkeye discovers Spidey on a patrol and takes a risk by rescuing him.  Then, Spidey tells his story and it provides an opening for the heroes to get intel on Ultron that they haven't previously had.  Then, we see that plan put into action in this issue.  Cause and effect.  We don't often get that clear of a chain of action in comics (and particularly not Bendis' comics) but you really understand why we are where we are by the end of this issue.

Along the way, Bendis pays attention to the characters, making sure that they're not just chess pieces (as he used to treat them when he wrote "Avengers").  Remember when I reviewed "Fantastic Four" #5 AU and said that we hadn't gotten confirmation that anyone had died?  Well, we get it here.  We learn that Hulk and Thor are dead, but, most devastatingly, we also learn that Jessica Jones and Danielle Cage are also dead.  It's their death that motivates Luke to volunteer for the mission.  Once again:  cause and effect.  Moreover, we even see Taskmaster mourn the death of Black Panther in this issue as he and Red Hulk give their lives to get their hands on Ultron technology.  I mean, Bendis even managed to explain Ultron's motivations, reminding us that he has programmed himself to have human emotions, something that would lead him to keep around enough people to gloat about his win.  I totally bought it, since, after all, why would Ultron even bother with conquering Earth if he wasn't driven by revenge?  It helps set up a believable fatal flaw that the heroes can exploit.

But, of course, the scene stealer is the reveal that Luke isn't "selling" She-Hulk to Ultron, as planned, but to Vision.  It seems entirely plausible that Vision has been put to work by Ultron as his middle man, though, given Vision's track record, it's also entirely possible that he really is in cahoots with Ultron.  We'll see soon enough.

Bendis is definitely really building something here.  This issue was tense; you really felt like you were in that bunker with the heroes, desperate to find any small edge.  But, the idea that they've found that edge sets off a spark that we haven't seen and I love the idea that their moving bases to the Savage Land, a desperate ploy just to get them more time.  Part of what makes it exciting is that Bendis makes it clear that it's probably unlikely that they're going to be able to get there without trouble.

All in all, this issue really kicks up this series a notch.  Great stuff all around.

Age of Ultron #2 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Bendis tells us the story of Ultron's invasion in this issue, revealing it to have been a lightning-fast raid that destroyed the major cities of the world seemingly instantaneously.  We learn that Washington, DC was eliminated ("like it never existed") and Brian Hitch makes it clear that New York and San Francisco are in ruins.  Bendis also shows that the heroes know little more than we do, separated in isolated pockets across the country without a master plan.  But, it's clear that something about Spider-Man's story, about the Owl planning on selling him to Ultron, gives Captain America an idea, so we'll see where we go.

I'm enjoying this story so far, though, if I'm being honest, I'm enjoying it in part because I can still assume that it's not "real."  For example, it seems doubtful that the Black Widow will appear after this event with a scarred face and Bendis doesn't even seem to be trying to pretend that Spider-Man is really Otto Octavius.  (However, Bendis could be hinting at something in that regard, with Peter referring to the fact that he slept through the invasion and mentioning that he experienced a "flash of white" before he suddenly found himself tied to a chair.  But, it seems unlikely that Slott would allow Peter to return in an issue outside "Superior Spider-Man," so Bendis might just be creating plausible deniability, as if Peter returned momentarily before Otto re-asserted control.)  Moreover, Bendis is juggling so many characters here that it's really hard to focus on them individually.  Sure, it might be devastating to hear Iron Man lose hope, but so many people are talking that it's hard to remember even if he said something.  He's a little better with the Black Widow and Moon Knight, but we still leave them just as it's getting interesting.

I'm not really sure where I want Bendis to go from here.  To be honest, I think it would be more fun for it just to be an outside-continuity story.  I worry that it's eventually going to start to drag because Bendis is going to have to explain where the story fits in continuity, something that he generally doesn't do well.  I think that it would wind up better just to read it as almost a "What If...?" story, but I somehow doubt that it's going to go that way, unfortuantely.

Age of Ultron #1 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

I will admit to a certain reluctance to dive into a world where Bendis is writing the Avengers again, particularly since I've liked him so much now that he's writing the X-Men.  But, given that I loved "Siege," I have to hope that Bendis manages to do better here than he did on "Avengers" and "New Avengers."  Fingers crossed.

Bendis starts in media res, sidestepping the continuity question entirely.  It's unclear, therefore, whether we're dealing with an alternative timeline, such as "Age of Apocalypse," or merely a future event that hasn't happened yet.  Bendis hints that we seem to be dealing at least with a future event in that Spider-Man sounds like Peter Parker and not Otto Octavius and Emma Frost is part of the superhero resistance (and not presently a mutant terrorist), but an alternative timeline could also explain those continuity discrepancies.  But, for the time being, Bendis doesn't address that question.  Rick Remender has taken a similar approach in "Captain America," compensating for the ambiguity for telling an amazing story.  It works there, since Remender's only dealing with one character, but I do feel like Bendis is going to have to address the continuity question fairly quick in this event, given that the entire Marvel Universe roster seems involved.

But, focusing on this issue, it's a pretty simple story, showing Hawkeye rescuing Spider-Man after he's been captured by Hammerhead and the Owl.  In telling this story, we learn that the super-villains are paying some sort of ransom to Ultron to keep operating and that Ultron itself has some sort of virus that it uses to control people.  We also learn that the surviving superheroes are completely without a plan, a situation shows in its profundity by the image of Captain America sitting essentially in the fetal position in a back room.

In other words, so far, so OK.  It's not a spectacular issue, but it's a serviceable one.  Although Hitch does a great job showing the magnitude of the devastation of New York, the prolonged action sequence that takes up 2/3 of this issue actually felt somewhat slow to me, lacking the sort of explosive energy that it probably needed.  But, the stage is at least set, so we'll see where we go from here.