Age of Uh.. Part Two

a "Age of Ultron" review

Last Time in The Age of Ultron: The age is established as being really crappy for everyone but really nicely drawn. Hawkeye goes off to save Spider-Man from like the only 2 villains in the whole series. We see a small band of Ultron looking robots destroy a building with their Care Bear Stare. Hawkeye & Spider-Man meet up with rest of the remaining New York based heroes is the downed SHEILD Hellicarrier. We end the issue on a shot of Captain America being all sad & stuff.

Now on to Part Two….

When I first saw the cover for issue 2 I thought that Black Widow had teamed up with Doctor Doom (who at the time was wearing a white version of his normal green costume) to fight off Ultron Bots, more bots then I think we ever see in the whole series. This would have been pretty cool: the last few remaining heroes & villains teaming up to take down a common threat. But alas that was not good ol' Doc Doom but Moon Knight. At least I think that is who that is suppose to be (it's hard to tell).

The 1st page of Issue 2 is not a slightly reworked version of the cover (I still don't understand why Issue 1 did that) but we do have a opening paragraph like in Issue 1:

Years ago, founding Avenger Henry Pym invented the artificial intelligence known as Ultron.

Once Ultron became self-aware He dedicated His life to purifying the Earth of the human condition. Every time Ultron created a plan to strike out humanity, every time Ultron attempted to destroy the Avengers. He was defeated.

Tony Stark warned that if Ultron was to continue to evolve He would find a way to destroy us.

That day has come.

Again we have a mention that Hank Pym created Ultron but Hank has yet to show up (was he one of the first to fall in this new age?). The second line seems to bring up what I brought up last time that Ultron seems to have some faulting programing (Run Program: C://settings/my documents/Destroy_Humanity.doc. Program Fail. Abort. Retry). But then that's kind of the status quo for most villains: They aren't suppose to win. They are the villain, not the hero. The Heroes are to win out in the end. Also, when did Iron man warn them? My knowledge of Iron Man is not complete so he might of done this but it seem odd to put that there. I don't think he really warns us in the series beyond some general comments but then other people make them too so I don't understand what makes him so special.

We flip a page & are presented with the how San Francisco is fairing in the Age of Ultron. The answer: not well. They don't have have a huge techno-dome built up over the city like Manhattan has but the sky is yellow (the few times we do see the sky in Issue 1 it's not yellow). Once again Bryan Hitch brings the detail to the destruction & to make sure we know it's San Francisco we see a Street Car full of dead people. They really pack to streetcars full with people. They must be piled 2 or 3  deep. On page 2 we see a hooded, cloaked woman walking the streets (this is the full 4 pages earlier then when we saw anyone in Issue 1). She looks up & see a trio of Ultron Bots (Ultrobots?). I need a better name for those things. They aren't Ultron exactly but do resemble him & are robots so at this time I'm just going to have to go with the name I got at the moment since we don't see them after a few issues.

The Bots seem to be on patrols scanning the city. We get an extreme close up on one of the Bot's faces for some reason. The hooded woman is seen sitting on a pile of dead bodies. There are a lot more dead bodies about in San Fran then there were in NYC. Not sure why she is sitting on them. Did she play dead so the Bots wouldn't hassle her? I guess they can't tell life signs, they seem to only react to movement. The woman, who we find out is Black Widow (you mean the woman on the cover is the woman we've been following this whole time?!?!?!?!) held up by gun point by a man in a business suit asking what she has. He's looking for anything. She ask where he got the gun. The man makes a comment that she needs to drop her blanket, the item I've been calling a cape (The way it's been drawn it looks more like a cape). He claims if she doesn't put her hands on her hand he's going to shoot her. She says she won't because if he was a "real man" he would have done it already. Black Widow takes off her hood to reveal her face. She has a scar tissue around her eye, something not seen on the cover (did Hitch just forget to add that on the cover?).  The mugger asks her to be stop & give him what ever she has. Then in a close up of his face, he is shot. 

We zoom out to see on a near by roof by is Grifter from WildC.A.T.S. no… wait… It's The Cluemaster from Batman!  no. We get a clear look at him & it's Moon Knight! The only reason we'd know that is the comic zooms in on his chest & we see the Moon Knight logo on his chest. You'd only know it was Moon Knight if you recognized the logo. That is until they tell you that is who he is a few pages later.

Black Widow searches the mugger's body & finds what looks to be be a Twix candy bar (Widow eats the right bar first). She also gets a bottle of water from him. She signals to Moon Knight to meet up at a safe house. The next page we see Widow trip to the safe house & already in the seven pages of Issue 2 we have had more happen then in issue 1. On Page 8 we see the return of the Ultron Bots & I think the 1st time the tag line of the series said:  Submit or Perish.  We see some people who don't submit & they are blasted by the bots. This time not via a Care Bear Stare but via some sort of death beam coming out of the Bot's face. Widow manages to avoid the bots as she gets into the safe house which looks to be barber shop. A barber shop that appears to be untouched by the destruction outside. Widow enters the actual safe house via a pull of lever on the barber's chair & it opens a hole in the floor. The chair then lowers into the hole.

She & Moon Knight have a conversation similar to the one Hawkeye had with Iron Man in Issue 1: wondering about the outside world & if anyone else survived (BW & MK assume they are the only ones left). We do find out that the safe house belongs to Nick Fury, one of the main safe houses he has. We are then presented with a cork board filled with polaroid photos & post-it's notes. 

A couple things about the board:

1. Among the photos is one of Squirrel Girl, a former member of the Great Lakes Avengers. Probably one of the most obscure/niche people on the board.

2. In the center of the board is a picture of someone noted as "Ikon", under the photo is the note that says "Check on All Sp… Knig…". This most likely said Space Knights since Ikon resembled the most famous of the Space Knights: Rom. This is the only reference to the Space Knights before this plot thread is picked up in Issue 10.

3.  "Who c.. you TRUS.. NOT Pym" reads a note on the wall. Black Widow mentions this is safe house that Fury spent during "the Skrull Invasion" where Pym has be replaced by a Skrull. & the tag line for Seceret Invasion was: Who Can You Trust?

4. "Check with Xavier!!! - Might be too Late" reads another a note & it is too late since Xavier died at the end of Avengers Vs. X-Men.

5. Half of the people are listed by their last name & the other half are listed by their last name. Not sure why, maybe that's how that person is associated in Fury's mind.

Moon Knight (whose hair color has changed to at least 3 different colors in the issue) makes a comment that the people Fury can trust are in Blue & the ones he can't are in Red but everyone's name you see on the Board are in Black. He makes this comment while looking at a piece of paper & not the wall so may that piece of paper has the name written differently.  They wonder if "he made it out of the other side of this" & if he is going to kill them for using his stuff. Widow says he will & we find out in a few issues from then that Fury did make it out. Moon Knight asks where they go from their. Widow says that they aren't going anywhere, that they are in "the safest place in the universe".

An odd comment: Black Widow says that Nick Fury "never wrote anything down" then what the heck is with that cork board with photos & post-it notes about? What is on those pieces of paper Moon Knight has been looking at for the last few pages? She makes says this after Moon Knight asks if Ultron could find this place & I think she meant that nothing about this place in a computer so Ultron couldn't find out about it but as proven by the safe house Nick Fury does write things down.

We have some final comments from the duo about not going down without a fight before we head back across the country to Spider-Man in the downed SHEILD hellicarrier. He's giving this big monologue about how he missed the end of the world because he slept through it. On the next 2 pages we see what Spidey saw: He's asleep on his couch, in full costume (minus the mask).  He wakes up, sees smoke outside his window. Gets on his mask, web slings around to see the start of the Techno-Dome.

On the next page we see everyone standing around listening to Spidey's story. He brings up that there was "7,000 super heroes in New York.. this is all that's left of us?" In that panel, including him, are 20 people. Captain America is not shown (he's mopping in a different area of the ship).

We go back to what Spider-man saw he was web-slinging along & then above him is some caped mystery man who vaguely looks like Vision, the "son" of Ultron. We get a close of Spider-Man's eye of his mask which reflects the mystery man & a bright light either coming from or behind the mystery man. That's the last thing he remembers before being where he was seen in Issue 1.  The reason Cap wasn't in the earlier panel is because he's still where we saw him in Issue 1: He was sitting in his corner with his head down.

The Heroes find out that Spidey was going to be sold to Ultron. They heroes don't understand why:

A. Spider-Man would be sold to Ultron

B. Why he would need Hammerhead & The Owl to do it.

Another thing I don't get why he would be sold back to Ultron if it looks like he was the one who captured him. Did Hammerhead & The Owl steal Spidey? Were they ransoming Spider-Man back to Ultron?

We get a close up on Captain America being all sad. This issue has a lot of close ups.  Almost every page at least one close up panel on it for pretty much no reason. The conversation continues. The group wonders why Ultron would need heroes sold to him & what is in it for him (what is in it for him? That means 1 less hero out there to stop him?). After more talking they still don't understand why Ultron would be doing this (we won't know, after a few issues this topic will be dropped from the series).

The group wonders what to do now. That they have to do something. Iron Man brings up surviving. Spider-Man says "surviving is not something". Then a voice says "No, it's not."

We turn the page & find out that Cap has stood up (or is in the process of standing up, he's drawn in a pose)! He continues on & says "But we didn't have a plan…. until now."

Que the CSI: MIAMI yell!

That's the end of the issue.

What do we have at the end of Issue 2: we've seen a bit more of world (it's just not crappy in New York, it's also crappy in California). We have a bit more set up to what is going on. In this issue, one thing that is brought up is something that I still don't understand with the series: it's timeline. When did it exactly start & how long has this been going on? It seems to change from mention to mention. Sometimes it seems like it's been going on for months & other times it seems like it's been going for days. If it's only been going for only days: what the hell? 

How did Ultron take all 7,000 of those super-heroes that they mentioned to be in New York by surprise? They couldn't all be asleep? The way it's seems to be told through the series (before we are diverted to other topics) is Monday is ok, Tuesday is ok, Wednesday the world goes to hell & it's now Friday. That is one crappy week. What made this one different then the other times Ultron has tried to take over the world? We never know. We never see Ultron's takeover except for those brief glimpses in Spider-Man's flashback. We don't see how 7,000 heroes are brought down to just under 2 dozen heroes. We don't even see what the hell happened to all of SHEILD! (We only see 2 SHEILD agents in the whole series & one is Nick Fury).

We don't see a bunch of things in Age of Ultron. We might get hints, brief glimpses or references to things but we actually see how the Age starts. It's just there. That's a problem with this Age: We rarely are shown things & are told very little. This can be ok if you give out enough info for the reader to connect the dots. But when your only give what seems like a third of the dots, it's hard to figure out what the final picture is meant to be.

Next time we go further into the age & I'll most likely cover the first couple tie in issues.

until next time, Stay Jazzy!

- Brian