Review: Age of Ultron #5 By Brian Bendis and Bryan Hitch

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Age-of-Ultron-5

Age of Ultron #5

Written by Brian Michael Bendis

Art by Bryan Hitch, Paul Neary, and Paul Mounts

 

The short of it:

Several months ago Tony Stark brought in Reed Richards and Hank Pym to look over the reassembled, and still deactivated, body of The Vision. What follows is a discussion about how, despite creating the AI itself, Pym didn’t create Ultron. That Ultron has evolved far past what Hank could have done, and that Vision is the result of that. Technology that three of the smartest men on the planet simply do not understand. It’s a discussion about Vision being the only positive of Ultron, and how impossible it would be to go back and remove him…but then Vision wakes up, and everyone is happy.

And then there’s now, where Tony finally gets the joke. That Ultron created a robot that they took in, befriended, that Wanda even married. That they took an article of his creation and put it in a position to one day be used against them in the most horrible of manners. And that’s when they find what they were looking for, the last secret bunker of Nick Fury in the heart of the Savage Land. Rulk breaks in, but is quickly dispatched. The place isn’t empty…but then again, did anybody really expect that Nick Fury Classic didn’t survive the end of the world? Not only that, but that his bunker didn’t have a plan? Doom’s Time Platform, the last hope of our heroes….but what’s the mission?

Fury, Cap, Tony…most of the more heroic and logical of the surviving number, they see a trip to the future as the answer. Find Ultron and stop him. Wolverine has a different idea. Go back in time and kill Hank Pym, because you can’t just convince him to not try if he finds out his creation destroys everything. He’d have to do it better, do it right. He’s quickly outvoted, Fury arms his troops, and they head off to the future on a suicide run to save the world.

But when has Wolverine ever listened?

 

What I liked:

 

  • Pym’s explanation of Ultron creating himself really does make sense. He created an ever evolving, self aware, artificial intelligence that would surely outgrow the potential of its creator.

  • Stuff actually happened this issue! Huzzah! I was expecting another issue or two detailing their boring journey through the Savage Land, but it was skipped right over!

  • Tony was more than solid in this issue. His humor over Vision is what’s been going through my head, and his ranting about paradoxes and how Ultron already knows that they do what they do was great. You really do need the smartest man in the room to point out the paradoxical nature of things.

  • I also loved his discovery of armor he forgot he gave Fury.

  • Hitch is the star here, however, along with Neary and Mounts. They remain the perfect choice for art chores on this book, but with the Brandon Peterson covers coming up I’m wondering (without looking) if this was his last issue.

 

What I didn’t like:

 

  • Why did we need the random destruction of Austin? Just for a Hitch splashpage? Three pages that amount to nothing but cool art.

  • So Vision’s return to life was covered here, after happening as a throwaway scene ages ago, and we still get no real explanation.

  • For as much depth as characters like Tony and Logan receive, most of the team is just there to be there.

 

Final thoughts:

So Spidey is supposed to be Ock, if the one shot is to be believed, but clearly Bendis didn’t get the memo when he wrote this. This is Peter.

I love that Cap put on the photon shield to replace his broken one. I have always been a fan of the energy shield.

It’s the end of the world, your best plan is to go to the future and stop further damage from being done, but without really thinking of a way to stop any of it from happening. For this alone, Wolverine’s idea of ‘fuck the time stream’ is appealing to me. At least he’s trying to change things for what could potentially be better.

And really, if you kill off Hank before he creates Ultron, you lose out on his hitting Jan, and his replacement during the Skrull Invasion, but what else? You don’t go kill him in the crib, you just get him before he creates Ultron. What’s the worst that can happen? With any luck one of our newer contributors, my good friend Mike Weaver, will see this and go on a rant in the Open Mike Night. He’s the biggest Hank Pym fan I know!

I never thought about Vision having feet before. I mean, yes, he obviously has feet, but I figured they were just built boot shape.

Tony says all the things that I think of when I work on my time travel project.

Oh, Mark II, how I love you too.

This was the best issue yet!

 

Overall: 7/10

A lifelong reader and self proclaimed continuity guru, Grey is the Editor in Chief of Comics Nexus. Known for his love of Booster Gold, Spider-Girl (the real one), Stephanie Brown, and The Boys. Don't miss The Gold Standard.