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Age of Ultron #9: Review

Jun 2013
Brian Michael Bendis, Carlos Pacheco

Story Name:

(no title given)

Review & Comments

Rating:
4.5 stars

Age of Ultron #9 Review by (June 9, 2013)
There have been 2 tie-ins released since the last issue. Both are set in the Morgana timeline we've just left:- Fearless Defenders #4AU occurs in the timeline's past, just after the Latveria/Asgard War which left Morgana Le Fey in charge of half the world, and Thor and the other Asgardians removed themselves from Earthly affairs. The FD character Hippolyta and their foe Caroline Le Fey are here allied to the alternate timeline's Defenders led by Colonel America. It is revealed that Caroline is the daughter of Morgana and Dr Doom, which it appears will be true in the main Marvel timeline too. The 2 women go to Latveria to confront Doom, but it turns out he died and has been replaced by Hippolyta's father Ares. In Uncanny Avengers #8AU Kang and the young Apocalypse Twins visit the Morgana timeline. (They live outside the timestream and can enter any alternate timeline.) The story is more significant for UA then for AoU. Colonel America is visiting Havok, Rogue, Callisto and the Morlocks seeking Caliban on a charge of murder. Kang wants Uriel to kill CA as part of his training. Havok and Rogue are killed in the crossfire.

The art gets split as in #6&7 - Brandon Peterson and Paul Mounts do the alternate present, Carlos Pacheco, Roger Bonet and Jose Villarubia do the past. It doesn't explain how the later Wolverine got to the Savage Land and back in order to use the time machine and pick up his new/old outfit. He couldn't have taken Fury's flying car there because it was destroyed in #7. For the journey back from Savage Land to New York his only option may have been to stow away in it's boot as the original Logan and Sue drove it. Pym shouldn't be so disbelieving about the time-travel story. He already knew about Kang, and about Dr Doom's time machine. At that point he *might* have not understood about alternate timelines. Pym calls Invisible Woman Sue Storm, but she'd been married to Reed Richards for a while at this time. Presumably the Logans' reaction when Pym asks how to make himself forget is because they are well-acquainted with losing memories. But still this issue just skirts over the question. In Av#58 it was be revealed that in fact Ultron will hypnotise Pym into forgetting about creating him. It has been suggested that Ultron's mind-meddling was a factor in Pym's later mental problems. If Hank also did his own mental surgery before that, then this could add to the problem. It seems a bit unlikely that Ultron never noticed the off-switch, and continued to include it in all the subsequent self-rebuilds. But then we don't know what actually happens in #10 yet.




 

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Age of Ultron #9 Synopsis by Rob Johnson
Last issue Morgana Le Fey and her forces attacked New York with devastating results. Wolverine pulls himself from some wreckage to discover that he's lost half a leg (except for the adamantium skeleton). It takes him 5 days to regrow a new one. Then he has to fight off some of Morgana's horned Doombots.

This is the Wolverine from the Age of Ultron timeline. He went back in time in #6 and killed Henry Pym before he could invent Ultron. But the new timeline he came forward to is arguably as bad as than the one he left.

Logan finds what remains of this timeline's cyborg Iron Man. Stark guesses that Wolvie is going to go back in time again, to try to make a better timeline. But he warns him not to do it, because repeated meddling at the same point risks rupturing time. But Wolverine isn't listening.

Now we look back in time to when Logan confronted Pym, and Wolverine fought Goliath. Sue Richards had accompanied the X-Man/Avenger, but is now outside trying to convince herself what's the right thing to do. But she's spared the decision as someone knocks her out.

It's Wolverine come back to stop himself. He's dressed in his original duds from Hulk #180-181. He's come back via the time machine in Nick Fury's Savage Land hideout. This was the only Wolverine costume he could find there, to replace the tattered one from the Morgana future.

Wolverine(2) tells Wolverine(1) not to kill Pym, because it will lead to a bad future. Wolverine(1) takes some convincing that Wolverine(2) is really his slightly-older self. Injured Goliath looks on bemused, finding it difficult to accept time-travel. And of course he's never heard of Wolverine.

W2 says they need to try something that the alternate future Tony Stark thought of last issue. Pym should be allowed to create Ultron, but he should build a secret off-switch into the robot. Pym agrees (because he can't resist the lure of creating an AI) saying he can then stop Ultron whenever he attacks. But W2 says they can't risk creating an unknown future. Stark's idea was to let Ultron do all the earlier attacks, knowing that the Avengers (or the Fantastic Four or whoever else did it) will be able to beat him. Pym must wait until the Age of Ultron assault and stop him then, so that the world evolves as the Wolverines know it will.

Now a reawakened Invisible Woman joins them and asks W2 why he hit her. W2 says it was to stop her from not stopping W1 from killing Pym. Sue protests that she had decided to stop him, but W2 knows that history proves otherwise. Befuddled, Sue wants to call in this time's Reed Richards for his opinion. But the Wolverines veto it.

Sue's testimony (from someone he actually knows) about the 2 future timelines helps Hank decide to do whatever he can. The final plan is to put a time-release on the off-switch, so Ultron will get switched off automatically. Then to stop Pym from interfering prematurely he'll make himself forget about it. He asks how to do that, and the 2 versions of Wolverine exchange glances.

Next we see Sue and the 2 Logans arrive back to the Savage Land in Nick Fury's flying car (which they nicked in #6). Sue points out that the Wolverines are a paradox. The 2 Wolvies excuse themselves and go into Fury's cave. They agree that 1 of them should die. W2 elects to be the one, to wipe out memories of the Morgana future. So W1 kills him. Then he and Sue re-enter the cave to go back to the future.

We end with Pym and the 1st version of Ultron as seen in flashback in Avengers (1963) #58.



Carlos Pacheco
Brandon Peterson
Paul Mounts
Carlos Pacheco (Cover Penciler)
Carlos Pacheco (Cover Inker)
Jose Villarrubia (Cover Colorist)
Letterer: Cory Petit.
Editor: Lauren Sankovitch.

Characters

Listed in Alphabetical Order.

Invisible Woman
Invisible Woman

(Sue Storm)
Iron Man
Iron Man

(Tony Stark)
Wolverine
Wolverine

(James Howlett)

Plus: Goliath (Hank Pym).

> Age of Ultron: Book info and issue index

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