Ultron Retrospective Part 7: This Evil Undying
by Robert Clough
Well, here's my belated next segment on everyone's favorite
adamantium
robot with an Oedipus complex....
Avengers #201 (November, 1980)
"The Evil Reborn"
Writer: David Michelinie
Pencils: George Perez
Inks: Dan Green
Letters: John Costanza
Colors: Ben Sean
Editor: Jim Salicrup
EIC: Jim Shooter
The issue begins with the Avengers cleaning up after the
big tussle
with various time-lost entities accidently brought to the present
by
Marcus Immortus. Thor, Iron Man and Wonder Man briefly have
a debate
about the wisdom of letting Carol (Ms Marvel) Danvers run off to
Limbo
with her lover/"son", Marcus. Shellhead and Simon
both think it was a
bad idea, while Thor says "Fie!", thinking it a rather
romantic thing to
do.
Various of the other Avengers help out in fixing up the
place, and just
generally relax. Hank and Jan Pym go off to spend some time
alone before
Hank has to go off to a symposium in Japan. Beast
accompanies Wonder Man
to his local kiddie cable-TV show. Iron Man rushes off to
Stark
International for an emergency of some kind. The
recently-returned
Hawkeye and Cap work out together.
Iron Man returns to SI, and changes into his
civvies. As Tony Stark,
he is informed by the ever-loyal Mrs. Arbogast that there was
some kind
of problem over at his chemical research lab.
Jan Pym is asleep at her house in New Jersey--alone, since
Hank was now
in Japan. She hears a crash coming from Hank's lab and
investigates
finding a gigantic robot holding cannisters that read "AD
RESIN X" and
"AD RESIN Y". The robot tries to zap her but Jan
dodges, then tries
again and apparently disintegrates her.
Tony Stark is sitting in his lab. Apparently,
someone stole some
chemical components that could prove deadly in the wrong
hands--and he's
pretty sure he knows who took them. Working on a way to
stop this
menace, he thinks that in order to do it, it may come at the cost
of his
own life--"at the hands of a friend!"
Comments: A very nice set-up issue, one of Michelinie's
typically nice
"day-in-the-life" issues which he did so well.
His biggest strength was
his characterization, and he knows these characters quite
well. Of
course, Avengers 201-202 were based on a short story by Jim
Shooter
called "This Evil Undying", which coincidentally is the
title of the next
issue. This issue also features a delightful back-up
feature starring
Jarvis, wherein he visits his mother and deals with the
neighborhood
bully.
Avengers #201 (December, 1980)
"This Evil Undying"
Writer: David Michelinie
Pencils: George Perez
Inks: Mike Esposito
Letters: John Costanza
Colors: Don Warfield
Editor: Jim Salicrup
EIC: Jim Shooter
The Avengers are hanging out when suddenly something
smashes a window.
Cap immediately thinks they're under attack, but Iron Man hears a
faint
cry, and discovers the Wasp in the shards of glass scattered on
the floor.
Jan tells them of being attacked by a giant robot, but managed to
shrink
down before she was disintegrated. She flew all the way at
Wasp-size,
got exhausted from the effort, and had to destroy the window with
her
sting so that she wouldn't crash into it. The team hears a
sudden
clanking coming down the hall. Fearing it might be that
same robot, they
draw their weapons and aim at the door...only to find Jarvis,
serving
breakfast!
Iron Man then reveals that based on Jan's story and
some other info,
he strongly suspects that Ultron had returned...again. The
team then
conveniently starts rattling off Ultie's vital stats: Hawkeye
rudely
reminds them that the big U wouldn't even be around if Hank Pym
hadn't
created him, Shellhead tells us that he's made of indestructible
adamantium, Vision tells us that he's out to wipe out humanity,
and Iron
Man tells us that the chemical compounds Ultron stole (Ad Resin X
& Y)
may give him enough adamantium to create a small robot
army.
Cap then announces that the Avengers #1 priority is
to protect the
Scarlet Witch, whose hex power destroyed Ultron during their last
battle. Wanda suggests that Jocasta track him down with her
cybernetic
senses, but Jo reports them being blocked from afar...Ultron's
doing.
The Vizh takes responsibility for Wanda's well-being.
Hawk apologizes to Jan for his wisecrack about Hank, the
Vizh and Wanda
have a romantic moment, and the Wasp flirts with Cap during one
of his
workouts. Jan then decides to head home, feeling she
wouldn't be of much
use in guarding Wanda. Meanwhile, Tony is recording
something in his lab,
dressed in his armor. He reveals that the person who may
have resurrected
Ultron this time around was...himself! He figures that
Ultron must have
planted a post-hypnotic suggestion to do it, but now he's worried
that he may
still be subject to Ultron's control. So he's constructed a
tracing
device that would enable the Avengers to track him down and
destroy him,
if necessary. He made a copy of this for Thor, and Thor
alone, since he
was the only Avenger (at the time) who knew Iron Man's secret
identity.
He gave the envelope to Jarvis, telling him not to give it back
to him,
even if he threatened to kill him!
Iron Man then starts to do all manner of Bad Things, from
frying
Jocasta to sending the Vision on a wild goose chase, to zapping
Wanda.
Of course, he was now under Ultron's sway, and contacted his new
master,
who told IM to bring her to his new lair. Along the way, he
spotted the
letter he had given to Jarvis on a table, and proceeded to zap it
with a
laser. The Big U is revealed at last, telling us that his
"psycho-hypnosis"
did the trick on Iron Man, and would do the same for all of
humanity.
Back at the Mansion, Iron Man's treachery is revealed, but
no
problem...Thor shows up! Jarvis reveals that since he
figured the letter
he had been given was important, he photocopied it (without
reading it)
and hid a copy. Thor reads it and tells the team to head to
a vault down
below, grabs the tracing device, and, well, AVENGERS ASSEMBLE!
Ultron is about to kill off Wanda, when Iron Man starts to
shake his
hypnosis and attacks Ultron. Ultie takes him out by
absorbing the energy
from his armor, in a very nicely-drawn panel from George.
Ultron is
mulling over the ways in which he's going to kill Wanda, when he
notices
Iron Man crawling towards a power outlet. He's about to zap
him when the
Wasp shows up out of nowhere and attacks him. She had been
hiding in
Wanda's glove the whole time, just in case something weird
happened.
Ultron is going to destroy her, when Iron Man gets powered up
again and
knocks him through a wall. Iron Man grabs Wanda and tries
to leave, but
Ultron blasts them and starts ranting about his general
invincibility
when Thor's hammer comes smashing through the wall. The
team has
arrived! Cap checks on the condition of Iron Man and Wanda;
Shellhead
says he's fine, but they need to watch out for the big vats of
boiling
liquid adamantium that Ultron has cooking.
Thor grapples with Ultie, but is downed. Iron Man
taunts him into
attacking him, and as Ultron lunges towards him, he flies
away. Ultron
has positioned himself dangerously near one of his vats, and
Hawkeye
swings by and bumps him in! Thor and Cap zap the laser beams that
kept
the adamantium in a liquid state, and as Ultron struggles to get
out out,
he is frozen in the now-hard adamantium.
Comments: After a great set-up in 201, this issue was a
major
let-down. First off, Ultron appears for a grand total of 8
pages. We
never learn his new master plan, hear him crack demonic jokes, or
obsess
over his dad. After a lot of build-up, the fight is rather
quick and
anti-climactic. The only good thing about it was that
Hawkeye was the
one who ended up beating him! (Hmm...Hawkeye beat the
Collector and
Ultron by himself...why hasn't he taken on Galactus?) While
it makes
sense that the only way to immobilize Ultron was to freeze him in
adamantium, why couldn't he just try his "disperse himself
into explosive
force" trick? Maybe that still wouldn't have pierced
the adamantium.
Another odd thing about this issue is that it happened to be the
first
time that Hawkeye had encountered Ultron since his pre-adamantium
days!
Hawkeye fought him as Goliath, but missed fighting him in his
three other
appearances. Seeing a mind-controlled Iron Man attacking
his fellow
teammates at the command of their greatest villain brought back
horrible
memories of the Crossing, but at least Tony snapped out of it
pretty
early in the game this time. One more problem...the whole
"Avengers
confront Ultron in his lab with Thor throwing his hammer and
causing
backlash bit" seemed to be a bit of a replay from his
previous
appearance. This wasn't too surprising considering that Shooter
wrote the
plot of this issue and the aforementioned 171, but it was
annoying. One
got the sense that this should have been a three-issue storyline,
but
that Michelinie was forced to wrap it up in two.
All-in-all, a rather
ignomonious return for the Avengers' greatest foe. It only
gets worse
from here. Ultron's next appearance would be not in the
Avengers, but in
the pages of Marvel 2-In-One, and that summary will follow
shortly...
--Rob Clough