Age of Ultron #10

Writer:  Brian Michael Bendis.

Art:  Maleev, Hitch, Neary, Peterson, Pancheco, Quesada, Guice, Bonet, Palmer, Marquez.

    Here there be spoilers.  The Age of Ultron is complete.  Well, at least the main arc.  There are still the fallout issues to look forward to.  The entire event can be summed up with “Well, that happened.”  We get some answers, some more questions and some framework is laid.  All the elements of a finale are present, but do they work within the context of the story?

    It seems that despite the multiple timelines and interference from Wolverine and Sue Storm, the original world is restored.  As it turns out, Occam’s razor is right.  The simplest answer is the correct answer to the problem of Ultron.  Build a backdoor that can be used to take him out at the right time.  We finally get the answer of how Ultron returned after his last appearance in Ultron Initiative.  We finally get the fight between the heroes and the villain.  We finally see the defeat of Ultron and are ensured that the depressing future of Age of Ultron will never exist.  It’s too bad we the readers can’t get the taste of it out of our mouths.  

    A lot of Age of Ultron doesn’t work, but it gets some parts correct.  While at points it bogs itself down with conjecture over what might become should events go a certain way, it then abandons those ideas for favor of something new.  The Age of Ultron future is shown, then goes away.  The future of Ultron beyond that is shown, then goes away.  We are treated to the bizarre Age of Le Fey, which is built up then disappears completely.  All of this is in service to breaking the space-time continuum.  There were several echoes of previously told stories in comics.  This issue had a very “Flashpoint” feel during the breaking of the universes, which may be interesting down the road.  It seems that the majority of Age of Ultron really didn’t even matter in the end, which may be the most upsetting part of the last ten issues.  Ten issues to say “Hey, Wolverine broke the space-time continuum” is a bit excessive.  

    Where of Age of Ultron did manage to get something right was the framework it laid for future events.  It’s obvious that this is part of the build-up to the late-summer Infinity event, but until now we really didn’t know how.  Marvel’s events all have fallout storylines that spin off from the main series.  Civil War led to The Initiative.  Secret Invasion led to Dark Reign.  Siege led to The Heroic Age.  There was a lot to be discussed between the big scientific minds in this issue regarding the INFINITE multiverse and how everything might be affected by the breaking.  I look forward to someone putting together a panel-by-panel breakdown of the space-time continuum cracking.  There’s a lot of interesting stuff shown.  The biggest reveal, of course, is that Age of Ultron #10UC is actually going to be Hunger #1, and feature what appears to be the 616 Galactus targeting the Ultimate Marvel Universe.  I know in those pages the Infinity Gauntlet has recently reappeared, so will the Ultimate U be involved in the Infinity event in some manner?  Time will tell.  

    The art was a big plus for this storyline.  Everyone who handled duties was fairly on-point, and the multiple artists helped make sure a book with an agressive shipping schedule was maintained.  I did enjoy seeing Quesada back in the art game.

    Oh, yeah, and Angela is part of 616 now.  She came over from the Spawn universe.  I haven’t really thought about her since I was 14.  So, I guess that happened too.  And Spider-Man 2099 appearing in the pages of Superior Spider-Man now makes a lot more sense.  But, with all the preaching about how time travel is dangerous, you’d think Marvel would ease off of it for a bit, right?  Well, they’re gearing up for more time travel shenanigans in this fall’s Battle of the Atom.  Oh well, you can’t win them all.