Ultron Retrospective, Part 17: Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen

Ultron appears as a supporting character in the Vision miniseries. As such, I'm gonna mash the events of the four issues together a bit, and just list the creative team for all four issues)

The Vision Limited Series (1994)
Story: Bob Harras
Penciler: Manny Clark
Inkers: Al Vey, Mike Machlan, Alexandrov, Barnett, Green, Perotta
Colorists: Joe Andreani, Linda Gilmore, DeFelippo
Letterer: Bill Oakley, NJQ, J Powell
Editor: Ralph Macchio
Editor-in-Chief: Tom DeFalco

The Vision is starting to have dreams, which disturbs him greatly, since it's never happened before. (Remember, Vizh is still in his post-Byrne "robotic" phase, although he has been shifted into a new body, that of the Gatherers’ Vision). While being examined by Hank Pym, he hears a beacon from a very familiar source. The beacon is coming from a city he wasn't expecting: New Orleans.

Walking into a bar, he sees his target: Ultron! Except Ultron is not behaving like his usual life-hating self. In fact, Ultron is sitting at a booth, wearing a coat and hat, getting drunk. Inexplicably, he starts speaking to the Vision (his "son") in a southern accent! Ultron talks about suddenly developing emotions, and started to feel like crying, laughing and listening to music. He says it all started with the dreams. Vizh gets annoyed, ecause he thinks it was Ultron who caused the dreams in the first place. Ultron starts yelling back, then babbles to the bartender about getting another drink. The bartender, seeing Ultron in plain sight for the first time, panics and shoots him. Ultron then gets mad, babbling about being an old man, babbling about how emotions will start to overwhelm the Vision now that he's "infected". He starts to zap the bartender when Vizh steps in and takes the blast.

Mumbling about ingrate children, Ultron wanders out into the night. The Vision passes out and wakes up in the arms of the Jocasta that was a Gatherer, and they get it on.

We then see Crystal and Deathcry track Vizh down. He apparently thought he was a private detective, with Jocasta as his secretary and his name Simon. Pretending to be clients, they finally bring Vizh back to his senses and he remembers who he is. He and Crystal talk about his old existence, with emotions, and he says that it's starting to come back to him now, but he's not sure if it's the "disease" or true emotion. (Included here is Vizh's apparent attraction for Crystal--wouldn't THAT have annoyed Pietro...!)

Suddenly, the Gatherer known as Tabula Rosa comes along and kidnaps Jocasta and Deathcry. On his flying platform, he already has Ultron as his captive. Tabula, another android, has also caught the emotional "bug". Ultron begs him not to hurt the Vision, since he's his son. As Tabula flies off, the Vizh's mind snaps. He goes to see Alex Lipton's widow, claiming to be Alex once again. Crystal and Hank Pym track him down and subdue him after Vizh threatens violence.

In captivity, Ultron starts singing (!), much to the annoyance of DC. (Of course, anything that annoys Deathcry can't be all bad...) After the three squabble a bit, the real villain of the piece enters: the Anti-Vision, the Gatherer who took over Vizh's body in an effort to destroy the Avengers. His body had been wrecked in an explosion, and this whole thing was an attempt to wipe out Vizh's mind so Anti-Vision could get it back. He had infected Jo and Ultron earlier to see how his program would run, and they were out of it because of the time it takes for synthetic beings to adjust to emotions.

Meanwhile, Vizh is fighting Hank and Crystal while the program in his head runs its course. He suddenly understands that he needs to give his body up, and heads to the Anti-Vision's lair. But as AV's program is about to run its course, it's stopped by a pair of engram-men: the personalities of both Simon Williams (not entirely erased) and Alex Lipton. They convince Vizh that their melding makes a unique, real being whose existence is worth preserving. Vizh breaks out of the program's hold and starts fighting AV. He tells Ultron that he is very powerful, and that he must defend himself against Tabula. Tabula insults the Vision and Ultron gets mad, and tears into him, realizing how powerful he truly was. Vizh's full range of emotions clicks in, and he beats the Anti-Vision. He says something intriguing: "In order to maintain my sanity during its excursion, the engrams of my templates [Simon and Alex] were fully integrated into my memory banks. I am they and they are me. A curious group consciousness is emerging. The question remains where they end and I begin." He then quits the Avengers, claiming that he needed to discover his new self. Then, he somehow flies off with Ultron and Jocasta, in one of the worst blunders of all time (Vizh can only fly when he's intangible. Unless he somehow turned Ultron and Jo intangible as well, there's no way he could have done this). He claims that the three of them will explore the world together.

Comments: Well, this mini-series gave the Vizh his emotions back. He didn't have much time to deal with them before Onslaught happened, though. This miniseries gives new meaning to the word "padding", however. The whole absurd detective subplot, the hand-wringing with Deathcry and Crystal, and turning Ultron into an old drunkard were not the series' high points. On the other hand, if there's one thing Harras could do, it was write the Vision. He seemed to really like the character, and gave him some nice character piece issues in the Avengers. Some of that is on display here. Of course, we have no idea what Vizh, Jocasta and Ultron actually did, because it was never followed up. In fact, this was the last appearance of Ultron before Avengers Vol III #10, and it was far from his most glorious. What I would prefer to think is that Anti-Vision somehow got his hands on an older model of Ultron and used that, rather than this be the definitive character. The art in this series was mediocre-to-bad, with 5 different inkers in the last issue adding to the mess. The series did have VERY nice covers from Steve Epting, though.

Next up are the Ultron Apocrypha: stories of alternate-future Ultrons, dream Ultrons, and fake Ultrons. The Retrospective Undying lives on!