ULTRON

 

ULTRON

Real Name: Ultron

First Appearance: Avengers (Vol. 1) #54, July 1968

Powers: Ultron is a criminally insane rogue sentient robot designed by Dr. Henry Pym, dedicated to conquest and the extermination of humanity. Wanting to experiment with artificial intelligence, Dr. Pym built a structurally crude robot (a torso on tank treads with spindly arms) and endowed it with consciousness, using a copy of his own brain patterns as the basis for the robot’s programming. However, the robot not only inherited Pym’s great intellect, but also Pym’s inherent mental instability, only without a human conscience. To Dr. Pym’s surprise, the robot developed an advanced intellect within moments of its activation and an unexpected capacity for emotion; most notably, it was an irrational hatred for its “father” and the human race he represented. Overpowering and mesmerizing Pym, the robot soon dubbed itself “Ultron” and began to make war with humanity.

Ultron possesses at least a 3.2 terabyte memory capacity, giving it vast cybernetic analytical capabilities, and the ability to process information and make calculations with superhuman speed and accuracy. Its body has been rebuilt and redesigned many times, usually in a metallic humanoid form topped by a bizarre, slant-eyed, gaping mouthed head that vaguely resembled a jack-o’-lantern, often featuring twin electrodes affixed to the sides of its heads. Over the years, Ultron has gone through roughly 20 different incarnations, some vastly different from the norm. He frequently employs a contingency called the “Ultron Imperative”, a pre-programmed impulse worked into the minds of his creations (Jocasta, Vision, Alkema) that forces them to find a way to rebuild him. This subliminal programming was unwittingly passed down by Alkema to her own artificial creations, making them subject to Ultron’s influence as well.

Though Ultron’s abilities vary with each redesign, he typically possesses superhuman strength (up to Class 100 in his more powerful forms), durability, the power of flight, and various offensive weapons such as concussive blasters, radiation emitters, and his “encephalo-ray”, which plunges its victims into a death-like coma (resulting in true death within hours if the effect is not reversed). The latter ray also allows Ultron to mesmerize and outright mind control his victims, alter their memories, or implant subliminal hypnotic commands within their minds to be enacted later. Hank Pym designed Ultron with a special chemical that could immunize people against the effects of the encephalo-ray, but the chemical’s effects aren’t permanent (so users will still be vulnerable to the ray if they haven’t been recently exposed to the chemical). Ultron also sometimes employs a “strobe like mesmeric ray” which can hypnotize almost any human within seconds. Multiple Ultron models have been capable of a very specific form of matter-energy conversion, able to convert themselves into a living explosion of sheer ionic force and then convert back to robot form.

Ultron’s outer shell is usually composed of Adamantium, rendering it almost totally impervious to damage, although his internal mechanisms are generally less durable and more easily damaged. Ultron-6 was the first to be cast out of Adamantium, and instead of a lower human body, it rested on a giant flying war platform. Ultron-7 stood over 20' tall, but from Ultron-8 on, he has basically been of normal human size and proportions. Since constructing himself out of Adamantium, Ultron has employed an internal molecular rearranger to mobilize his cast-metal body, enabling him to remain an impenetrable shell while still having high dexterity and reflexes. Around Ultron-14, he began employing a swarm of mecha-bites, insect-sized flying robots capable of tearing all the flesh off a man within seconds or manipulating raw materials at the molecular level to reform them into a new body for himself or into machines or devices he wished to employ. Ultron-18 assumed control of Tony Stark's Sentient Armor, turning it into a new body for himself. Ultron-19 took over Stark himself, reconstructing the Extremis nanotech in his body to become a quasi-metallic version of Janet van Dyne.

The original Ultron-1 was nothing but an upright cylinder on tank treads with a face imprinted on it and tiny waldo arms. After escaping from his creator, Ultron went to work reconfiguring himself, and was next seen confronting the Avengers in a humanoid body as Ultron-5. This early form had unusually fragile electrodes on its head and he could be disabled if they were damaged, a design flaw eliminated from all his later models. His original Ultron-6 form and some later models replaced his lower body (from the waist down) with a battle module capable of high-speed flight and equipped with assorted offensive weapons; his later “Ultimate” Ultron-6 form was more humanoid, albeit 8 feet tall. While inhabiting the sentient “Iron Man” armor, he wielded enhanced versions of its standard weapons and devices, such as pulse bolts, energy deflector shields, tractor beams, sonic blasters, and repulsor rays, later mind-controlling the Sons of Yinsen cultists via their modified Iron Man armors and cybernetic SKIN implants.

His “Santron” form (an Ultron robot masked by an outer shell resembling Santa Claus) was programmed to emulate the traditional behavior patterns and practices of Santa Claus, though its Ultron programming compelled it to seek and kill the Avengers. Santron had advanced scanning equipment (complete with a targeting system assessing subjects as naughty or nice), electrical energy blasters, a neural disruption beam (which could induce vertigo or paralysis), a force field generator, a hollow belly for storing consumed cookies, a portable workshop with “giftmaker-transmogrifier” (carried in a sack), and a rocket powered “proton sleigh” that projected its own team of holographic reindeer.

Ultron’s female form looked human, but was covered by shifting pools of liquid metal that could expand and coalesce into a full-body metallic coating at will. The female Ultron had Class 100 strength, tremendously enhanced durability, and the power of flight, emitted flesh-melting radiation waves, generated an impenetrable force-field, remotely infiltrated and controlled most computer systems, and could control weather worldwide while linked to the Sular Experiment satellite system designed for that purpose. Ultron's programming was retrieved from space by the Phalanx, and he imposed his will upon them to become the guiding mind at the center of the collective. After joining with the Phalanx, Ultron was constantly in touch with the collective through their techno-organic hive mind, enabling him to monitor and direct all Phalanx activity, even across an interstellar expanse. This also enabled him to instantly relocate his programmed consciousness anywhere within his standard broadcast range, or throughout the collective itself, avoiding death by uploading into a new mass of techno-organic material and converting it for his use. His final giant Phalanx form, at least 60 feet high, had Class 100 strength and fired destructive energy beams from its eyes.

Ultron sometimes uses his internal molecular rearranger (which renders Adamantium temporarily malleable) to reconstruct or modify his body. One of Earth’s foremost robotics experts, his inventions include his androne-mutation gas, which converted hundreds of humans into mindless metallic-bodied slaves composed of Gallium Arsenide with built-in makeshift computer chips that Ultron could remotely control through his own central consciousness, though bio-feedback from this procedure left him temporarily vulnerable to the Grim Reaper’s life-draining scythe. As the Crimson Cowl, he wielded a gun that fired gas pellets, either sleep or gas or lethal poisonous gas.