Review: Age of Ultron #10

Written by Brian Michael Bendis
Art by Alex Maleev, Bryan Hitch, Butch Guice, Brandon Peterson, Carlos Pacheco, David Marquez, Joe Quesada and others
Published by Marvel Comics

With Wolverine's plot to assassinate Hank Pym averted, the Marvel Universe is allowed to unfold unaltered. Unfortunately, there's still the matter of a killer robot to deal with and the consequences of abusing the timeline. In saving his own world, has Wolverine damned others?

I'd like to say this was a triumphant conclusion to both the Age of Ultron and Brian Michael Bendis' time with the Avengers, but I can't. At least not in good conscience. As sad as it is to report, the man who turned around the entire franchise with his New Avengers relaunch back in 2004, has turned in one of the worst event comics of all-time. Remember how jumbled, confusing and unsatisfying Grant Morrison's Final Crisis was? Well it's got nothing on Age of Ultron, which is lazily plotted, disappointingly resolved, schizophrenically-drawn and far more concerned with what comes next than what's happening in the present.

The issue opens with a brief sequence of Heroic Age Hank Pym working in his lab, being gifted with the knowledge to avert the Age of Ultron, literally delivered to his doorstep. Apparently, he'd developed the relevant programs to put down Ultron years earlier, during Wolverine and Sue Storm's visit, but had the information wiped from his memory so to allow the Marvel Universe to develop undisturbed. It's a wonderfully drawn sequence by Alex Maleev, who could draw two people sharing a cup of coffee and it'd hold my attention. However, it's hard to escape the fact he's had the story's Deus Ex Machina placed in his hands, ready for use. It robs the entire event of all tension and may as well have been a big red button reading "ULTRON ON/OFF SWITCH".

Sufficed to say, there's a prolonged fight scene between the Avengers and the reawakened Ultron, but knowing Pym has the answer stashed in his back pocket, I spent the majority of the issue screaming "GET ON WITH IT!". Bendis tries his best to make us believe that the virus won't work and Ultron will still end up taking over the Earth, but at issue 10 of a series, who is he trying to fool. Pym uploads the virus in the nick of time and the robot falls out of the sky like a tin can. This scene can only be described as going through the motions. Certain things are expected of an event finale and a giant battle is one of them. Taking down Ultron was a foregone conclusion, but the structure of comic books dictated we needed a few extra pages of Thor swinging his hammer to go home happy. If I had to guess, even Bendis himself was disinterested by this point of the story and wanted to move on to juicier subjects i.e. the cliffhangers.

With Ultron defeated and the world saved, Wolverine and Sue Storm are back in the present day, patting each other on the back for a job well done. Or at least they thought it well done. Just when it couldn't get worse, the entire time space continuum shatters panel by panel, causing everyone to convulse in pain. Despite time travel being a long-time trope of superhero comics, this was one time too many. Wolverine's abuse of the timeline has sent tears careening through the Multiverse, even being felt as far away as the Ultimate Universe (who now have 616 Galactus to deal with!). This was clearly Bendis' endgame for the series (and several others if All-New X-Men is anything to go by) and he couldn't get there fast enough. I'm all for wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey shenanigans (I'm a fan of Doctor Who after all), but I'll be damned if these hiccups have any rhyme or reason. It's far more akin to the writer throwing all his toys in the air and seeing where they land. Especially, the bizzare random addition to the Marvel Universe on the final page.

While time travel stories can be a lot of fun when done right, when done poorly they can be utterly disastrous. This genre is a double-edged sword and Bendis' Age of Ultron came down on the wrong side. No real lesson has been learned, no characters can remember it, hell, besides a few upcoming crossovers between realities, this may as well have never happened. That is the biggest sin a time travel story can ever commit - making the journey utterly pointless.

3 out of 10

Review: Age of Ultron #8

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Brandon Peterson
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Finding themselves captured by the Defenders, Wolverine and the Invisible Woman must escape their Starkguard captors and try to make sense of this new world of their own creation.

While there is nothing technically wrong with the Age of Ultron, as we enter the home stretch, I can't help but feel the entire exercise has been utterly redundant. After the last few issues worth of reality-shifting, we've been introduced to a radically different Marvel Universe. One featuring a bizarrely mutilated Iron Man, his personal Starkguard army and Captain America's merry band of rebel Defenders. All brilliant reinterpretations in their own right, but given how little time we're likely to spend with them in the final two issues, I'm struggling to care as to their fates or even their current plight. They're given just enough panels to react to how strange it is to know they're living in a broken timeline, before protagonists Wolverine and Sue Storm break out and seek to change everything back again.

Even more distressing is the apparent death of this universe as well. If it wasn't bad enough that Ultron trashed the regular universe, we're now witnessing an entirely new scenario of everything going to hell. As in the final pages, the Starkguard's mortal enemy, Morgana Le Fey attacks New York with her Doom/Loki hybrids and two Helicarriers crash into one another, taking the entire City with them. This new universe won't even get the chance to come back in future stories ala House of M or the Age of Apocalypse, it's done and dusted within two issues of it's creation. This seems utterly wasteful on Bendis' part. Why introduced all these new concepts, simply to eradicate them with a wave of a hand.

My favourite part of the issue comes when this new version of Tony Stark, more machine than man, marvels at the original universe and like any sane individual, points out all the ways this mess could've been easily averted. I know Wolverine has never been the smartest guy in the world, but his whole "kill Hank Pym early" plan is so full of holes, even the characters within the story are pointing them out! Tony rightfully asks whether Logan attempted to talk his colleague out of creating Ultron or could've planted a time-release virus in Ultron's programming, that would've allowed the Marvel Universe to unfold as it once did. Of course, being the same old stubborn Canuck we're used to, Wolverine would much rather solve the problem with his claws, Butterfly Effect be damned.

Don't get me wrong, the story is wonderfully written and aptly drawn, but the Marvel Universe as a whole has passed this story by. Most series had a single AU issue to their credit, but then carried on with regular storylines as if nothing ever happened. The final two issues of this jaunt will have to pull off some major twists and turns if this story is to become anything more than a footnote in continuity. The idea would've been better served as an isolated arc during Bendis' reign over the Avengers titles. As an event though, it's woefully short-sighted and easily dismissed. Just look at how all the attention is going on Jonathan Hickman's 'Infinity' instead of the end of 'Age of Ultron'. Wrap this one up quickly and it'll be no more remembered by the audience, as by the time-warped combatants.

5 out 10

Review: Age of Ultron #6

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Brandon Peterson and Carlos Pacheco
Publisher: Marvel Comics

Now the survivors have split into their respective teams, with their own unique ideas as to how to stop Ultron, it's backwards and forwards, as we travel to the far-flung future and back to the early days of the Marvel Universe itself. Continuity is officially swiss-cheese!

As mentioned in my last review, the far more linear side of things is handled by Captain America's team, who've elected to travel to the far future and attack Ultron at the source. But that's frustratingly narrow thinking for a team that includes a futurist like Tony Stark. They shouldn't be thinking about avenging the havoc already wrought, they should instead be focusing their efforts on making sure it never happened in the first place. But more on that later. The future team don't really have a lot to do, truth be told. They arrive at their destination, make a bolt for what's left of New York, are promptly attacked and most likely killed. Ultron isn't known for his mercy and he shows none here. Captain America takes an especially nasty hit, which may have outright vaporised his head, but that could just be awkward art, as it was a little unclear. I did however enjoy the Iron Man beats that came before the attack. As someone who deals in technology day in, day out, Tony Stark has a unique perspective on what Ultron has done with the world in their absence. It's beautiful. Completely devoid of life, but damn does the robot do machines justice.

While I'm loathe to agree with another of Wolverine's infamous "let's murder the threat, even if it's innocent" plans, the tiny Canuck definitely has a point with his plan to eliminate Hank Pym and it's this begrudging acceptance that leaves his time-travel partner, Sue Storm, conflicted for the whole of the issue. The Invisible Woman has just suffered the loss of her entire family at the hands of Ultron and despite initially being drafted to the future team, inexplicably finds herself drawn towards the assassination side of things. This is a Sue Storm unlike any one we've met before, as she's clearly stricken with grief and willing to entertain any notion that brings her loved ones back. There are shades of the moral woman we've been reading about for the past fifty years, but like all human beings, we're oh so flawed and that leads to our favourite heroine looking the other way at a vital juncture.

The consequences of Wolverine's murderous act are likely to be far-reaching, creating a Marvel Universe entirely unlike the one we've come to know and love. What does the world look like minus one Hank Pym? Numerous adventures over the course of five decades have hinged upon the quick thinking of this man. While Logan and Sue may have put an end to the Ultron threat for the moment, they've opened a whole new can of worms, which may be impossible to put back the way they were. Just in recent memory alone, the entire Skrull invasion hinged on his involvement, he deftly led the Mighty Avengers into battle multiple times and even mentored the next generation at Avengers Academy. There's no telling which one of those situations would have proved lethal to the world without Hank at the helm. For all the evil the man unleashed upon the world, he did just as much good trying to redeem himself.

The story itself remains consistent with the previous five issues, keeping the same decompressed pace that Bendis' Avengers comics are renowned for. However, with Bryan Hitch leaving the series with last week's issue 5, all visual continuity is out the window. Peterson and Pacheco are wonderful artists in their own right, but struggle to match the realism of Hitch's issues. To look at it, it feels less like an event and more like filler. Certainly not carrying the weight that the events involved deserved. If they had been the art team from the beginning, things probably would've been different, with the story coming together as a coherent whole. But in it's current form, it's as though three series were meshed as one. Comic book publishers are becoming far too concerned with the scheduling of their series, meaning the end product gets rushed in a effort to meet a certain date. It's clearly taken Hitch several years to complete the first five issues, yet Peterson and Pacheco could've knocked this one out in the past month. It's a change of pace that's difficult to ignore.

Don't get me wrong though, I enjoyed this issue far more than the others, simply due to the increased plot progression. The heroes have felt remarkably static for the past five issues, not truly taking any action against their mechanical menace. The actions they do take here, while flawed and sure to end badly, at least they're up off their asses and doing something. The time for wallowing in self-pity is over, now it's time to kick some ass!

7 out of 10

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Review: Age of Ultron #5

Writer: Brian Michael Bendis
Artist: Bryan Hitch
Publisher: Marvel Comics

We reach the halfway point of Marvel's 2013 summer event and the story that's been quietly simmering for four issues finally boils over, bringing us to the crux of the series - time travel. After last issue's big Vision-shaped discovery by Luke Cage, namely that big bad Ultron isn't even in the same time-frame as our heroes, the survivors weigh up their options from the comfort of Nick Fury's super-secret Savage Land hideaway.

Once arriving, the question isn't so much how the heroes will strike back against Ultron, but when. As it turns out, Fury has been stashing one of Doctor Doom's old time platforms for a rainy day and it doesn't get more rainy than a shower of shiny golden robots systematically destroying the world. If memory serves correct, said time platform doesn't affect the current timeline, merely create a new alternate one. I vaguely recall a Fantastic Four annual hinging on a future Johnny Storm coming back to avert a tragedy, but rather than save his own family, he merely created a world where they continued to live. But that might just be my fanboy mind picking holes in Bendis' chosen plot device.

With the method of the remaining heroes' kamikaze mission decided, they then have to choose the perfect moment to strike at Ultron and the survivors are of two minds on the matter. While the linear side of things is covered nicely by Nick Fury's strike team, heading off into the far-flung future to attack the Ultron directly responsible for this assault, the far more interesting approach comes in the final pages, as Wolverine declares his intention to travel back and kill Hank Pym (aka Ant-Man aka Ultron's creator), before he can birth this monstrous AI upon the world. The small hairy canuck aims to misbehave and there's no telling what affect he'll have on Marvel Universe continuity as a result.

As explored in the opening pages, to much wordier effect, Pym himself had even considered travelling back to a time before Ultron and warn his past self of the horrors his creation will inflict. But as correctly pointed out by his fellow scientists, Tony Stark and Reed Richards, where does one draw the line when "correcting" past mistakes? Do they leave it at Ultron or do they travel back even further and stop Hitler from kickstarting World War II or do they go back even further and knock that insidious apple out of Eve's hand. The message Bendis is trying to relay is that altering time is a slippery slope and there's no clear end in sight. As much as the ability may aid the heroes in this time of need, it's just as likely to be abused by the wrong people. Hell, in this case, the heroes ARE the wrong people. They want to murder a founding Avenger!

Age of Ultron #5 marks a profound turning point in the course of this series, not only with the changing stakes of the situation, but behind the scenes as well. The first half of this ten part story was written nearly three years ago at this point, making for numerous visual and character inconsistencies in the opening salvo. Wrong costumes for the most part, but wrong characterisation entirely in Spider-Man's case, who fails to reflect his new "Superior" attitude. Like most characters in the book, their current status quo's weren't even an inkling in their creator's eye while Bendis was writing and Hitch was illustrating way back in 2010. As such, issue five brings to a close Bryan Hitch's work on the series, gracefully departing with some fine work, before the story kicks into another gear entirely. I'll miss the consistency of his artwork on the book going forward, but I'll be grateful for an up-to-date artist who isn't trying to jam old ideas into present day continuity. It's Marvel NOW, not Marvel THEN.

The story itself continues to tick over, giving us enough to keep our interest, but not really engaging at the same time. There's an inherent flaw in time travel stories, whereby at the back of your mind, you know everything will snap back to "how it should be". Marvel have so many plates spinning at the moment, I can't believe they'd let a three year old pet project dictate their entire line's future. This is basically Bendis wrapping up a few loose ends from his legendary run on the Avengers franchise. It's more of an encore, than a beginning. Play the hits one last time, then respectfully leave the stage. After all, Jonathan Hickman's Avengers series has shot off in another direction entirely. So much so, Age of Ultron is squarely in the rear view mirror, even as it continues.

6 out of 10