As any comic fan knows, Marvel just loves their events. It seems like every year we are getting a new company wide, multi-series spanning, universe altering event from the House of Ideas. This year’s (or 2013 for you future people) is Age of Ultron, bringing back the infamous automaton (and notable Avengers villain), Ultron! In a dystopian future ravaged by the robot army of Ultron, who will survive? Just who exactly is pulling the strings? Is the story worth reading? Find out the answer to at least one of these questions in your Major Spoilers review!
AGE OF ULTRON #7
Story: Brian Michael Bendis
Art: Brandon Peterson, Carlos Pacheco, Roger Martinez
Colors: Paul Mounts, Jose Villarrubia
Lettering: Cory Petit
Cover: Brandon Peterson
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
Previously in Age of Ultron: Robots are killing people and taking over. The few remaining heroes discover Ultron is orchestrating this all from the future, and a team is dispatched to travel to the future and try and stop it. Wolverine, correctly thinking it won’t work, goes to the past and kills Hank Pym before he can ever create Ultron. Now Wolverine, and his tag along Sue Storm, return to a new future than the one they left…
ALTERNATE UNIVERSE SYNDROME
It seems like, in comics, whenever we view an alternate universe or dystopian future (in this case, a little bit of both) the writers just take all of the heroes and either slightly change them to make them slightly more “dark” or mash them up with another hero. Age of Ultron #7 proves to be no different, as Wolverine and Invisible Woman explore their new reality they are attacked by, not The Avengers, but The Defenders. This new team shows the new “inspired” versions of Captain America, who is now Colonel America and dawns Nick Fury’s signature eye-patch, Janet van Dyne (previously the Wasp) who is now Captain Marvel, and Cyclops who is now Cable and uses a gun, along with shooting eye beams out of one eye and having a metal arm. The rest of the team is composed of the less radical battle-worn Thing, brown suit Wolverine, old fashion Star-Lord, somber Doctor Strange and half burnt Hulk. Honestly these character changes are just annoying, and feel like they belong in fan-fic or as fan concepts rather than an actual comic. I’m all for the mashing up and changing of characters, but when it actually means something, not when its just for the sake of change. After the introduction of this alternate universe Defenders, the rest of the issue is just pointless and useless fighting between them and the Wolverine/Sue Storm tag team, which could have been avoided if Wolverine took ten seconds to explain why they were there.
AGE OF ARTRON
The art is serviceable, but feels very robotic. It feels rushed and like the artist spent the bare minimum amount of time and effort to make sure it could pass for the art one expects from an event like this. Nothing feels special about it thought, it just feels like someone hit all the check boxes of what comic art should be.
BOTTOM LINE: EH
Every issue of this drawn out event has not been worth the money; if you want to read it wait for the trade.
DID YOU READ THIS ISSUE? RATE IT!
Reader Rating
[ratings]
7 Comments
Um…. Flashpoint. Been done. Glad I skipped this series.
So how are there two Wolverines? Did I miss something? If Wolvie came back from the past he should be the only one in the current time.
I was thinking about that too. There is this though, wolverine went back in time to kill pym. if pym didnt build ultron then he wouldnt go bak in time to kill pym. At the point he killed pym I think an alternate time line was created and he and sue are in it. A future with no ultron, vision, or pym where no one had to time travel to kill pym in the past or ultron in the future. Thants my 2 cents anyway.
actualyy it should be “A PRESENT with no ultron, vision, or pym where no one had to time travel to kill pym in the past or ultron in the future.” :)
I guess I’m in the minority, but I’m really enjoying Age of Ultron and I look forward to it each week. I don’t typically read a lot of Marvel books (just Daredevil) and I haven’t read any of the crossovers since… Jeez, maybe Atlantis Attacks? Since I was a little kid.
Now! has really sucked me in though. Hickman’s Avengers, Aaron’s Thor, Waid’s Hulk are all great. I’d include Age of Ultron as well. I’m not reading the tie ins, so it isn’t ruining anyhing else for me, and the book itself has great art and a fun dumb surprising time travel story. I love how it keeps unfolding in unexpected directions and I love the little moments Bendis slips in. (The line about “are we sure we have the right one?” In regard to Wolverine made me laugh out loud)
So I think it’s great. I learned a while ago from Back to the Future that these stories are much more fun if you dont sweat the pretend time physics. I love apocalyptic dystopian futures with angry disillusioned Spider-Men and all that jazz. Keep it coming, throw in some dinosaurs. Amp up the time travel. Keep the popcorn coming! And more Carlos Pacheco.
If you enjoy something, it doesn’t matter whether you’re in the minority or not. My questions with the book aren’t the time-travel (which is the first thing that really locked in and worked for me) but the fact that we had 3 issues of pointless build-up before someone even MENTIONED time-travel.
Yeah I dig it. I was surprised at the general consensus though.
The first three issues were there to set up how awful the future/present world was, so that readers would be SOMEWHAT sympathetic to Wolverine’s unilateral decision to kill Pym. “Anything is better than this”. Whether it was successful or not is debatable. I appreciated the She Hulk/Luke Cage stuff and I thought the Vision reveal was good. I really liked how crazy a curveball the time travel was. “Avengers are up for anything!” sort of stuff. I’m hoping the story jumps again and shows us what that crew is up to in the future.
If time travel tales have taught me anything, this is all Wolverine’s fault.