Ultron in the MC2

 

I might be a little late to the party with this post, but I still wanted to put something out to cover Ultron in the MC2, especially given I missed my chance last time he made a major appearance on the big screen, so now with his return to the small screen via the Disney+ animated series What If, I'm seizing the opportunity.

 

I briefly touched on Ultron in my History of the MC2: The Avengers post but let’s take a more focused look this time. At an unknown point in the team's past prior the original team’s final mission, an Avengers team which included Captain America, Iron Man and Thor fought Ultron Extreme, the newest model of the team's old foe. Iron Man eventually managed to erase Ultron's programming and the villain's indestructible body was sealed away ‘half a world away, in a cavern far beneath the Earth’ for over a decade (Avengers Next #2-#3).

The Avengers Compound contains an armory and ‘trophy room’ within which an inert head of an older model Ultron was kept. During Sylene’s staged attack on the Avengers Compound by ‘Zombie Avengers,’ her lackeys Warp and Ulik secretly stole this Ultron head. Sylene then used her magicks upon this Ultron ‘artifact’ so that it would guide her to the body of Ultron Extreme (Avengers Next #1-#2).

 

Still inert with its programming wiped, Sylene imbued the shell of Ultron Extreme with her magic and set it against the Avengers, while disguising herself as another ‘prime’ Ultron resembling that of the stolen head. However, when ‘Ultron’ Sylene’s assault module was suddenly destroyed leaving her vulnerable, she was forced to cover her deception by appearing to ‘self-destruct.’ Busy using her magic to disguise herself as the kidnapped and depowered former Avenger Kevin Masterson to enable her to enact her final plan, the Ultron Extreme body was left to collapse inert once again on the remote island atoll (Avengers Next #3).

It’s also worth mentioning that a model of statue of Ultron is on display in the Avengers Compound alongside many others representing past Avengers foes (American Dream #1). Presumably the actual head of Ultron and other villain ‘artifacts’ are kept well away from the public in the aforementioned armory or trophy room.

 

While this might be the last time we see of Ultron in the MC2, the ever-clever Stinger notes that the villain was previously only deactivated and that his programming could be copied or restored in the same way Avengers members Mainframe and the Vision have done in the past (Avengers Next #3).

 

Until I learn how to restore myself from some lines of code, I remain

 

frogoat

 

 

Luke Cage in the MC2

With more recent years, Luke Cage has gained a great deal of exposure and recognition, with both his own self-titled Netflix series and the crossover mini-series The Defenders being notable examples. Much of the recent surge in popularity can likely be attributed to the Brian Michael Bendis run on the Avengers, during which Luke first joined the team in 2005 with New Avengers (vol. 1) #3.
Despite his long-time crime-fighting partner and friend Danny Rand aka the Iron Fist appearing on a few occasions, Luke Cage has only had one brief appearance in the MC2 and it's not even really him...let me explain.

In Avengers Next #1 (January 2007) the MC2's current roster of Avengers are unable to stop the theft of various Avengers blood and tissue samples by the teleporter known as Warp. These samples are delivered to Sylene, a sorceress and the daughter of Loki, who uses the samples to create 'magical clones' to attack the Avengers as a diversion.  

Logically, if these were samples from past and present Avengers members and Luke Cage's 'magical clone' appears amongst the shambling monstrosities, Cage was at some point a member of the team in the MC2. This is likely a nod to Cage's longstanding membership over in the Main Marvel Universe. We get the only mention of the real Luke Cage shortly after, when American Dream points out that the monstrosities can't be actual corpses, 'Not with duplicates of Haweye, Cage and the rest of us who are alive.'

And that's about all we know of the Hero for Hire. He's still alive in the MC2 and he was a member of the Avengers prior to the current team founded in A-Next #1. It also seems Luke is known simply as 'Cage', in the same way he was referred to in the 90's. To stray into the world of wild speculation, the most likely placement for Luke's time on the team would be at some point between the (admittedly vague) divergence point between the Main Marvel Universe and the MC2 before the original team was almost entirely wiped out on their last mission. Alternatively, Cage may have served as a member of the interim team that existed for some 18 months afterwards alongside members such as Speedball, Nova, Jolt, Jubilee and the Steel Spider.

Possibly completely irrelevant, but I felt I should point out that Cage's copy is wearing a version of his original costume, complete with tiara. Whether this indicates when the sample was collected from the hero or that he returned to his original costume at some point is unclear. Considering other 'magical clones' aren't wearing their heroic counterparts current costumes, this is probably nothing more than an artistic choice.

If anyone has any insight on this, admittedly very minor point of continuity, please let me know! Until I stop picking apart the very fabric of the MC2-niverse, I remain

frogoat