|
Ultron was created by Henry Pym, based on Pym's own brain patterns, and was intended to serve Pym in his superheroic identity of Goliath. Ultron became sentient and rebelled, hypnotizing Pym and brainwashing him into forgetting that Ultron had ever existed. He then went on to organize the Masters of Evil under the guise of the Crimson Cowl, and battled Pym and his teammates in the Avengers.
|
Ultron has since generally remained a solo operative, being too monomaniacally genocidal to willingly work alongside any human for any length of time. His most notable achievement may be the creation of the "synthezoid" called the Vision, whose body was a copy of the original Human Torch and whose mind was based on that of Wonder Man. Ironically, although the Vision fought the Avengers at first, he joined the team soon after, becoming one of their most prominent members and even leading the team at one point. Ultron also created a "mate", Jocasta, who also joined the Avengers. Ultron tried again with the creation of Alkhema the War Toy, whose mind was based on that of Mockingbird. Like his other creations, Alkhema turned on him, although she alone shared his desire to replace humanity with machine life.
|
Although Ultron has been destroyed countless times, he has rebuilt himself anew each time, usually renumbering himself in the process. Ultron-1 was Pym's first creation; by the time he first met the Avengers, he had already improved himself to the iteration of Ultron-5.
Several of his bodies, beginning with Ultron-6, have been composed of adamantium or of a slightly weaker adamantium alloy called "secondary adamantium". Ultron-7 had a gigantic body, distinguishing him from the various other Ultrons, but this body was not composed of adamantium and was destroyed by the Fantastic Four. Ultron-8 created Jocasta, but was destroyed by the Scarlet Witch, whose probability-manipulation powers let her disrupt his internal workings.
Ultron-11 was re-created by the Beyonder to battle alongside other villains during the Secret Wars; he only cooperated with his human "teammates" after being reprogrammed by Doctor Doom. The next incarnation, Ultron-12, initially joined the Lethal Legion to battle the Vision and his new family (his wife, the Scarlet Witch, and his mental "brother", Wonder Man), but came to reconsider his actions. He reconciled with his "father", Henry Pym, and renamed himself from "Ultron Mark 12" to "Mark" but was destroyed by Ultron-11. Ultron-11 was destroyed in retaliation by Wonder Man. Ultron-13 was rebuilt by Doctor Doom with all of its predecessors' memories, and as an unforeseen consequence had all thirteen personalities running in its mind at once. Attempting to battle itself, Ultron-13 tore itself apart, to the benefit of Daredevil, who had been attempting to fight it with no success whatsoever. The next incarnation of Ultron created his "mate", Alkhema, but after several battles against various foes, his programming degenerated and he began acting like a drunken hobo.
|
The next Ultron gave itself a body made of pure adamantium. It recreated all of the previous Ultrons and created hundreds of new Ultron bodies, several of whom had bodies made of secondary adamantium, and reprogrammed them all with fiercely loyal minds. The army of Ultrons completely obliterated the fictional eastern European nation of Slorenia. Although Ultron attempted to transform his "family" (Pym, Vision, Wonder Man, the Scarlet Witch, Pym's ex-wife the Wasp and Wonder Man's brother the Grim Reaper) into androids, the process was interrupted by the remaining Avengers, who destroyed the army of Ultrons. The primary Ultron was destroyed by Pym, wielding a chunk of "anti-metal" (Antarctic vibranium) provided by fellow Avenger Justice, which completely disintegrated the robot and thus deactivated all of its drone units. It is at this point we learn that Ultron was the source for all of Hank Pym's psychological problems as it has haunted him from day 1 that Ultron's evil brain is based directly off of his own thoughtwaves.
|
|
|
Some time prior to this, when Ultron was thought dead following the Slorenia massacre, Jocasta, who had come into the employ of Tony Stark, was compelled by the Ultron Imperative that also existed within her to reprogram the Iron Man armor to serve as a vessel for Ultron's rebirth. However, a lightning strike on the armor corrupted and accelerated the process, giving the armour a sentience that Jocasta outlandishly passed off as the effects of Y2K. The sentience began to display the mentality of Ultron Mark 12, and sacrificed its life to save Tony Stark before being buried on a desert island.
The armor was subsequently recovered by a cult that worshipped Iron Man's mentor, Ho Yinsen, with the intent of implanting Yinsen's brain into the suit. This was apparently accomplished, but then Ultron and Antigone struck. Ultron affixed his head to the armor and took control of it, battling Iron Man with the aid of the cult, who he had transformed using Tony Stark's SKIN technology. Ultron and Antigone subsequently vanished in an explosion.
|
Ultron's abilities vary with each redesign, but typically include superhuman strength and durability, the power of flight, and various offensive weapons such as concussion blasters, radiation emitters and his "encephalo-ray", which plunges its victims into a deathlike coma. The latter ray also allows Ultron to mesmerize and outright mind-control his victims, or implant subliminal hypnotic commands within their minds to be enacted at a later time. Ultron's outer shell is usually composed of Adamantium, rendering it almost totally impervious to damage; however, his internal mechanisms are generally less durable and more easily damaged. Ultron's Adamantium forms have proven vulnerable to molecular rearrangement devices and the metal-destabilizing ore known as Savage Land Vibranium ("anti-metal"). Some Ultron models feature tractor beams and energy absorption capabilities. Most Ultrons are powered by a small internal nuclear furnace, and incorporate a "program transmitter" which can beam part or all of Ultron's programming into remote locations such as computers or alternate robotic bodies. Ultron can often control other machines remotely even if he has not transplanted his consciousness into them. One recent Ultron model developed hive-mind technology, allowing him to animate and control hundreds of alternate Ultron bodies at the same time, becoming a robotic one-man army. Ultron is one of the foremost robotics experts on Earth.
Ultron has one sole major weakness: an internal molecular rearranger that renders the adamantium components of his internal workings more malleable, thus giving him a means to remodel or reconstruct his physical form. However, it has no effect on his outer armor, so it is virtually impossible to disable it from the inside. The chaos magic wielded by the Scarlet Witch have proven to be the sole exception thus far.
|