A villain from Marvel had the same potential as the big boss Thanos, but MeinMMO editor Nikolas Hernes is still disappointed with how he was used in the MCU.
Before Thanos came to Earth in 2018 and defeated the Avengers, another villain took on the hero team. In 2015, Bruce Banner and Tony Stark developed the AI Ultron in the movie Avengers: Age of Ultron.
He is a well-known villain from the comics, but despite his cool visual design, I am still disappointed with his portrayal, as he could have even matched Thanos.
Even the title is a problem
Basically, Ultron is initially portrayed well and even darkly. In a scene where the Avengers are celebrating and joking about who is worthy of Thor’s hammer, a broken robot suddenly appears and asks the Avengers how they can even be worthy, as they are all killers.
The premise is even better today than back then: An AI, built by the smartest minds on Earth, is supposed to help humanity, but turns against it because it concludes that this is the best solution for mankind.
But then comes a mistake that the MCU often makes: Ultron becomes a disposable villain for a single film. This makes the title Age of Ultron
a bit ironic, as his age didn’t even last long in the film itself.
How to better implement the concept of Ultron was shown in the comic series Age of Ultron from 2013 by Brian Michael Bendis. The world ends in a dystopia because Ultron, despite countless defeats (he made his first appearance in 1968), continues to evolve and eventually becomes stronger and smarter than all the heroes on Earth.
The series also manages to deal better with the theme of guilt. In the comics, Hank Pym (the first Ant-Man) built the AI, and this is regularly emphasized in the series, leading to a possible solution to the problem. This raises the question of whether Pym can even be blamed for it. After all, he didn’t program it to become this way. The AI came to that conclusion on its own.
Unused potential
Ultron feels irrelevant in the overall context of the MCU, aside from the birth of Vision. As a character and concept, he is not explored but reduced to a simple villain, even though there is so much more potential. More emphasis could have been placed on Tony and his interaction with technology and science – a theme that was relevant in his own Iron Man trilogy.
Moreover, the component of an ongoing evolution is missing. Ultron is an AI that can constantly adapt and improve, but this is never fully attempted in the film, which is not possible either. One film is not enough to satisfactorily portray such an exciting villain.
Interestingly, the MCU showed in the animated series What If… how it could be done right. In Season 1, a what-if scenario is presented in which he wins, kills the Avengers, and even manages to defeat Thanos and take his Infinity Stones. There is an exciting confrontation with the Watcher, an entity that observes everything but does not interfere. For Ultron, this is incomprehensible, as he wants to take care of the multiverse thereafter.
The interesting thing about Ultron is that he is not an alien threat but is firmly intertwined with science, an element that many well-known Marvel heroes use. A personification of the dangers that can arise from Tony, Bruce, or Hank.
Ultron deserves the same treatment as Thanos, as he can be just as great a threat as the alien titan.
An interesting approach is still continued
The philosophical conversation between Ultron and Vision about death, fear, and humanity is one of the highlights of the film. Both have different approaches, and these are exactly the concepts that should have been further developed, as it is not the direct fights with Ultron that are exciting, but the ideas behind the villain.
Vision is virtually the opposite, although he even agrees with Ultron that humans are doomed. However, Vision sees a certain beauty in that. More of this could have made Age of Ultron a special film in the MCU; nowadays, the film is quite forgettable.
Even if we will probably not see Ultron as a great villain again, I am glad that there will soon be more of the conversations between him and Vision. On October 14, 2026, the series VisionQuest will premiere, bringing the two back together, and there the unused potential may finally be seen again.
But what do you think of Ultron and the 2nd Avengers film? Would you have liked more from the villain or is the one conflict enough for you? Feel free to share your opinion in the comments. Learn more about the villains from the Marvel Universe here: The 10 strongest villains from the Marvel movies in the power ranking
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