Unless you were a hardcore comic book reader, you probably asked yourself "Avengers: Age of WHO?" when writer/director Joss Whedon took the Marvel Studios' stage in Hall H at the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con International to announce the official title of Avengers: Age of Ultron. But if you were a comic book reader, when Whedon announced the official title of the sequel to The Avengers, a part of you probably shrieked like a little child. (I did but only on the inside... for about a day straight.)
Less than a year away from its May 1, 2015 release date, Avengers: Age of Ultron is set to be heavily featured at next week's 2014 Comic-Con International in San Diego. With reports of some footage already shown of the sequel, over in the U.K. to a select group of media outlets, it is pretty much a guarantee that Comic-Con fans will get to see the first glimpse of Avengers: Age of Ultron.
But who is Ultron?
In a new column by Entertainment Weekly, Ultron's movie origin is revealed. EW wrote:
"He (the pronoun he prefers) was built to be both sentient and all-consuming in his quest for knowledge. He’s even programmed to feel emotions—although he gravitated toward rage rather than compassion. He could evolve and rebuild himself into bigger and stronger forms, but empathy was a struggle. Once he went rogue, Ultron was also hard to kill. Destroy one form, and he merely uploaded his consciousness into another form, like a robotic horcrux.
"In Age of Ultron, those origins details remain the same, but the person who created him has changed. In the comics, Ultron was built by scientist Hank Pym (a.k.a. the first Ant-Man). This time, he is the handiwork of Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark—devised, essentially, as the ultimate drone, a way for Iron Man to abdicate his duties and offload them onto a fully mechanized protector.
"The Avengers sequel begins with Stark’s latest plan to fix the world: Ultron will be an all-seeing, all-knowing captain of a planetary police force known as the Iron Legion, a team of robotic beat cops who resemble blue-and-white versions of the Iron Man suit but have no human core—and less soul than a Carpenters album. If it all works out, the superheroes can rest easy.
"In a bid to give his creation a dose of humanity, Stark programs Ultron (performed and voiced by his Less Than Zero brat pack costar James Spader) with elements of his own personality—which proves to be Mistake No. 1.
"The problem is that our new robot overlord is an absolutist, who inherits Stark’s cynicism, but not his sympathy. 'It’s not the good version that could’ve come from [Stark's] intellect and personality,' says Chris Hemsworth, returning as the hammer-hurling Thor. 'It’s the bad son.'"
That's not all that was revealed about Ultron. Whedon gave a direct Ultron quote to Entertainment Weekly and at some point in the movie the villain says:
“I know you’re ‘good’ people,” he tells them. “I know you mean well… but you just didn’t think it through… There is only one path to peace… your extermination.”
Finally, and this is a SPOILERY part, if you want to read a short scene description from early on in Avengers: Age of Ultron, click right here to head over to Entertainment Weekly to read it.
Excited yet?! If not, check your pulse for a heartbeat.
AVENGERS: AGE OF ULTRON Spoiler! Origin of VISION Revealed [UPDATED]