Avengers: The Ultron Imperative (November 2001)

This oversized one-shot takes place between Avengers #45 and 46, following from previous storylines involving Ultron and his “bride” Alkhema and raising contemporary issues about the value of artificial life. It is also a collaborative effort, involving different writers, pencilers, and inkers for each chapter of the story—just in case you find the art in the panels below extraordinarily disjointed!

After some people are attacked by mechanistic imposter Avengers, a crowd gathers on the actual Avengers Mansion to see what’s going on. While Captain America confirms the Avengers’ intent to cooperate with law enforcement, NYPD Lieutenant Ray Slattery compares Cap to other impressive people he’s met, evoking a famous remark from Daredevil #233.

After more Avengers arrive, Cap affirms the importance of dealing with the imposters and preserving their good name, already sullied with the protests seen in recent issues of the main title…

…as well as the ongoing Kangtastrophe in the main title currently. Luckily for the team, Lt. Slattery backs them up, earning a grateful response from his hero.

Time to hunt some robots, but first… let’s all have some coffee! (But Thor prefers lattes, verily.)

After the team deduces that Ultron is behind the Avenger-bots, they visit his first underground lair, with Cap taking the field leader role seriously…

…before they are attacked by said robots and Cap gets seriously walloped by one (which we don’t see, curiously).

After they discover the imposters were created not by Ultron but rather Alkhema, they accidentally trigger an explosive fail-safe that Thor easily deals with, after which he seems slightly offended by Wasp and Vision’s reaction (but not Cap’s, of course).

After the team recoups at the mansion—and enjoys more coffee—Cap ponders the relevance of something Robo-Wasp said above…

…which gives Jarvis the opportunity to show the benefits of a classical education.

Hawkeye joins the party, fresh from jail (as of Thunderbolts #50), and Cap gets to be the one to tell him why, although it doesn’t seem that he anticipated Clint’s reaction…

…which is due to Alkhema’s brain patterns being based on Bobbi Morse, aka Mockingbird, Hawkeye’s deceased wife.

As Cap’s Kooky Quintet leave on their Quinjet for Egypt, Hawkeye makes an awful dad joke that offends his old friend’s serious demeanor—but not as much as the question of eliminating a new form of life (a perennial topic in philosophy, long before the emergence of AI).

Once there, Cap and Vision prepare to begin their part of the search…

…while geeking out over history and literature (as Cap is wont to do).

(Nice callback above to Captain America #122, in which he mused, in the light of the late 1960s protests, that “perhaps I should have battled less and questioned more.“)

After the Avengers reassemble to face Alkhema, Hawkeye starts getting down on himself, and it falls to Cap to lift him up, emphasizing his friend’s courage despite his protestations to the contrary. (Tony helped too.)

Soon the team finds themselves fighting countless robotic pseudo-Avengers…

…which Cap quickly identifies as a further development of Alkhema’s experiments.

(Cap loves his deep lunges!)

The robots stop fighting once they see some of the Avengers they were based on, and instead take them to their “Robotopia” and subdue them before Alkhema arrives to gloat over her victory. Hawkeye shows up soon thereafter and aims an arrow at the artificial analogue of his deceased love, but just as he seems resolved to loose it, Ultron emerges out of the morass of robo-Avengers, revealing that this was all his plan the entire time.

This disturbs the force enough for the Avengers to get loose as well, and Cap makes clear how much he regrets the tragic dilemma they face, possibly having to destroy one form of artificial life, Ultron’s bio-synthezoids, to save another, Alkhema’s innocent “robos.”

As is clear from his face below, Cap is as tormented by the loss of any form of life, whether judged to be natural or artificial.

In the end, Hawkeye is forced to destroy Alkhema with a vibranium arrow, causing all the beings she created to fall—including Ultron. While Clint mourns the death of the woman who sounded just like Bobbi, Cap remains concerned for all the countless anonymous life forms lost in the process.

However, even Cap realizes the upside of what transpired today, leaving it to the Vision, appropriately, to mourn what could have been.

For more of the theme of the ethics of artificial life in the adventures of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, make sure to check out the terrific Avengers A.I. series from 2013-2014.

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ISSUE DETAILS

Avengers: The Ultron Imperative, November 2001: There are eight chapters with completely different writers and artists, so see Marvel Database for the full list.

Collected in Avengers Assemble Volume 4.

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ALSO THIS MONTH: Captain America #47, Avengers #46 and Thor: Godstorm #1 (November 2001)