Ultron Retrospective Part 12:
The Reaper and the Robot
by Rob Clough

Yes, folks, the Retrospective Undying has returned, bringing you some of
Ultron's least inspiring exploits. But I eagerly await Kurt's take on
the Avengers' greatest villain.

Avengers West Coast #65 (December, 1990)
"Whatsoever A Man Soweth..."

Writers: Roy & Dann Thomas
Penciler: Paul Ryan
Inker: Danny Bulanadi
Letterer: Bill Oakley
Colorist: Bob Sharen
Editor: Howard Mackie
Editor-In-Chief: Tom DeFalco

The book opens with Wonder Man mourning his dead brother, Eric "the Grim
Reaper" Williams, at his gravesite. The minute he leaves, the Reaper bursts
out of his grave, revived by his lover, Nekra. She tells him that she's
brought him back as a zombie again, but this time, he's not under anyone's
control. (The Black Talon, the greatest chicken-costumed villain in the
world, had control over him using his rites) There is a catch: in order
to live, he must absorb the life force of one human every 24 hours. Eric
promptly absorbs her life, letting her know that he wasn't going to take
orders from anyone.
Back at the AWC compound, Hawkeye and USAgent are engaging in one of
their high-spirited little quarrels. The rest of the AWC (Wondy,
Quicksilver, and a de-powered Scarlet Witch) break it up. Wanda takes
Wondy aside and thanks him for being a pal after she went nutso. He asks
her out to dinner and off they go. Meanwhile, the Grim Reaper wanders
into the clubhouse of a satanic cult and starts to slash away. One of
the cultists escapes and happens upon the very restaurant that Wanda and
Simon have chosen. They zip off to the site of the crime, and Simon
discovers his brother. They brawl, and the Reaper tries to absorb his
life energy. But Simon's handy ionic composition not only prevents this,
but it allows him to absorb the Reaper's energy. It does make him feel
nauseous, though. The Reaper turns to and is about to get Wanda, whose
hex powers still won't work. She knocks out the only light source in the
room, and the Reaper escapes in the confusion. Simon vows to get him.
Meanwhile, Hank Pym and Janet Van Dyne are off on a vacation in order
to try and rekindle their romance. Their car gets a flat and they stop
off at a local farmhouse for help. The farm couple offers them coffee, and
when Hank pulls Rover out of his pocket, the farm couple suddenly
explode. They're robots! Hank & Jan decide to cut their vacation short
and report this to the AWC, and are watched via hidden camera by...
Ultron-13!


Avengers West Coast #66 (January, 1991)
"Tunnel Vision"

Writers: Roy & Dann Thomas
Penciler: Paul Ryan
Inker: Danny Bulanadi
Letterer: Bill Oakley
Colorist: Bob Sharen
Editor: Bob Mackie
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

There's a protest of secret nighttime spraying of an insecticide. The
protesters claim that it's doing...strange things to them. Namely, it's
slowly turning their skin metallic. USAgent doesn't believe them until
he sees it up close. Returning to the base, Hank & Jan have called an
emergency meeting, and are joined by a newly-returned Tigra. The
Avengers yak about it for awhile, USAgent and Hawkeye get into their
obligatory argument, and then Wondy starts yelling about tracking down
his brother. He flies off in a huff when everyone else thinks the robots
are more important.
Hawkeye had slipped out to follow a hunch, and was tracked by Tigra and
Quicksilver. He had noticed that the nighttime sprayings had a pattern,
and the center of the area was an abandoned metrorail tunnel. They
follow the tunnel and find a helicopter and a huge computer complex of
some kind. They are attacked by and quickly defeat some robots, and then
Ultron steps out. He beats the trio of Avengers in a mere 9 panels, and
then sticks them in tubes. Ultron then reveals his newest master plan:
using a new crystalline substance and adding it to the wheat crop,
thereby changing humanity into robots. In other words, he will "replace
every man, woman and child on the planet--with living robots who are
nothing more nor less than four billion extensions of myself!"
Meanwhile, Simon tracks down the Reaper. They fight inconclusively,
and then Nekra's brother the Mandrill attacks him. Reaper kills him
quickly and then dives into a manhole and escapes after he learns that
someone is trying to turn people into robots.


Avengers West Coast #67 (February 1991)
"Converging Trajectories"

Writers: Roy and Dann Thomas
Penciler: Paul Ryan
Inker: Danny Bulanadi
Letterer: Bill Oakley
Colorist: Bob Sharen
Editor: Howard Mackie
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

Ultron rants and raves to his captives about how meaningless the
concept of "life" is. The Avengers fire back about Ultron's pathetic
robotic existence. Ultron smartly replies that they're about to become
robots, too, so they'd better hope it's not so bad. He lets them know
that soon, there will be no humans left on earth.
The Grim Reaper had tracked Ultron down to his lair, and heard that
last bit. It disturbs him, because he needs humans to feed on. The
three Avengers are getting sprayed once again, and are now starting to
turn into robots, which he calls andrones. For kicks, Ultron decides to
send a few of them against Iron Man. After a brief fight, shellhead wins
and takes the andrones to a hospital. After talking about how in control
he is, he lets everyone know that he realizes that the Reaper was right
behind him. Reap tells him to stay back, and his scythe cuts right
through Ultron's arm, much to his surprise. Ultron quickly regenerates
his arm while the Reaper tells him he's not there to fight. Just for
fun, Ultie decides to weld the Reaper's scythe to his arm. Seeing that
it doesn't cause him any actual pain, Ultron realizes that the Reaper is
in fact dead. Eric replies that he kind of likes it! Ultron is
intrigued and offers the Reaper a job, which he accepts.
Meanwhile, Hank and Wanda went off to play with a UCLA supercomputer to
determine if there was a connection between the sprayings and his robot
farm couple. Hank discovers that the condition brought on by the metal
flakes is reversible, and is then jumped by the now-robotic Tigra,
Quicksilver and Hawkeye. They knock out Hank and Wanda, and proceed to
trash the computer lab. Iron Man, USAgent and the Wasp happen along and
start to get beaten pretty badly. Wondy then flies in to help out, but
the Avenger andrones can't really be beaten without destroying them.
Hank comes to and alerts Iron Man that some kind of light will stop
them. He cycles through on the ol' Unibeam and it's infrared that does
it. After tying them up, Iron Man tries to find the frequency that will
turn them back to normal, but he realizes that there are an infinite
number of combinations. It will take great luck to actually find it.
Enter Wanda. She concentrates and hopes her hex power comes back. It
does, and Iron Man finds the right combo. But Hawkeye doesn't turn all
the way back; he's still partly metallic.
Back in Ultron's lair, he reveals his plan to get a whole bunch of
people at once: spraying them at the Rose Parade!

Avengers West Coast #68 (Mar 1991)
"California Screaming!"

Writers: Roy & Dann Thomas
Penciler: Paul Ryan
Inker: Danny Bulanadi
Letterer: Bill Oakley
Colorist: Bob Sharen
Editor: Howard Mackie
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

The Avengers bust into Ultron's lair but find that no one's there but a
few andrones. After a brief fight, they notice one is pushing some
buttons. Iron Man figures it's a self-destruct code, so they hightail it
out of there. Wondy stays behind to look for the Reaper, and finds him.
Eric tells Simon that while Ultron's been turning people into robots,
there's been a "subtle feedback" in his own system, and he's been
absorbing human energy as a result. That's why he was able to cut him
with his scythe. Eric is telling him all this so as to make a deal with
Wondy: he'll tell him what Ultron's plan is if Wondy vows not to stop him
from taking a life a day. Wondy doesn't like it, but he agrees to it.
Hawkeye is still part-robotic, including feeling a need to serve
Ultron. He's about to get away when the vibrations of a quinjet knock
him out, much the same way Rover's vibrations blew up the farm robots.
The Reaper tells Wondy that Ultron will be using a blimp to spray the
crowd, and they fly to meet it. Busting in, the Reaper starts to absorb
Ultron's human energy and generally starts kicking around the big U's
adamantium butt. Ultron then makes some of the famous robots in the Rose
Parade run amok, but the Avengers arrive to stop them. Having beaten
Ultron, the Reaper decided to start taking some lives. Wondy goes back
on his promise and starts pounding away at Eric. The Reaper is too
tough, and Wondy is taking some lumps. Ultron gets back up, his reserve
power having kicked in. Suddenly, Hawkeye flies in and takes out the
Reaper. His will is his own again, but Ultron tries to take him over.
At that moment, the Reaper tries to take Hawk's life force. The two
powers cancel each other out, but Hawkeye is in extreme pain. Wondy
grabs him and pushes him out of the way, causing the Reaper and Ultron to
smash into each other, knocking them senseless. Iron Man flies off with
Hawkeye to try and change him back, and Wonder Man falls unconscious,
muttering something about trying to help his brother.

Comments: Sometimes, it's better not to try to go home again. That
was definitely the case for Roy Thomas, who took two of his greatest
creations (Ultron and the Grim Reaper) and wrote one of the dullest stories
imaginable for them. While the Reaper's metamorphosis into a
death-inducing corpse was mildly interesting, the scheme he cooked up for
Ultron was incredibly silly. Ultron is a villain whose very presence
should cause fear, but he acted like a third-rate fill-in issue menace
here. The whole "robotization" of the world idea was silly even for Roy.
The characterization here was OK. Hawkeye was in full-on loudmouth
mode, although he did have some clever ideas here and there. He seemed
incapable of any interaction with Agent that wasn't an argument or a
fistfight. It was nice to see Wanda get her powers back, and her
interactions with Simon were pretty good (and certainly applicable to the
current storyline!), but there was very little urgency to these
interpersonal subplots. They mostly felt tacked-on.
Ultron would go on to suffer further indignities in a series of
Spider-Man annuals, coming up next on UTV...all Ultron, all the time!

--Rob Clough, historian undying