AVENGERS: EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES S1x022

"ULTRON-5"
Written by Brandon Auman | Directed by Sebastian Montes

The Plot: In the subway, the Avengers battle the Serpent Society, despite Ant-Man's entreaties for a peaceful resolution. The Society manages to escape, and Ant-Man quits the Avengers when the group chastizes him for not joining in thier slugfest. Later, at his lab in Avengers Mansion, Hank Pym works on Ultron. At Avengers Mansion, Hulk and Black Panther arrive, having captured the Red Ghost and his Super Apes, who were captured with schematics for the Baxter Building on their person, which they received in a coded message. Recalling that the Serpent Society also claimed to have received a message from Madame Hydra, Iron Man does some digging and finds that the messages were sent from the mansion.

In Pym's lab, Ultron zaps him and then the Wasp as well, when she comes to check on him. Then, as Black Panther and Hulk load the Red Ghost and his apes into a Quinjet, both of the Avengers' jets activate and turn on them. In the mansion's training room, the systems turn on Captain America, Hawkeye, and a visiting Jane Foster as well. Iron Man's armor begins to attack Thor also, with Tony Stark unable to communicate. Elsewhere, Ultron learns taht his programming prevents him from harming the imprisoned Wasp.

Cap, Hawkeye, Jane, and Black Panther escape their traps and regroup, while Stark manages to speak to Thor, telling him to overload his armor. Thor does so, and Iron Man realizes that the override signal sent to his armor originated from Ultron. The Avengers burst into the mansion and attack, and Thor is seemingly disintegrated by Ultron. While Cap, Hawkeye, and Black Panther continue their battle, Stark revives Hank. When Ultron gains the upper hand on the Avengers, Wasp uses her power to grow and break free of her bonds. She tries to appeal to Ultron, but he continues to fight back.

Hulk, who was rocketed into the outer atomsphere aboard a Quinjet, breaks free of the craft and plummets back to Earth. Meanwhile, Ant-Man appears and attempts to shut down Ultron, but the robot reveals it can no longer be controlled by Pym's commands. Iron Man bursts in next, wearing his original bulky armor, free of computers for Ultron to override. Hulk appears a moment later, tearing Ultron in half and allowing Ant-Man to remove and destroy his power core. Pym then destroys all the other Ultrons' cores and memory units as well, but Ultron has already completed uploading of his consciousness to another old Ultron head.

Continuity Notes: Apparently Ant-Man doesn't have a secret identity, because Iron Man and Wasp repeatedly call him "Hank" during the confrontation with the Serpent Society. Unlike in the comics, all the Serpent Society members appear to be mutated, with actual animalistic features, rather than mostly being people with gimmicked costumes and/or non-cosmetic super powers.

Thor reminds Tony -- and viewers -- that he is mystically barred from returning to Asgard, and asks for help in finding a way home. However, in the episode's second-to-final scene, he appears in a peaceful field alongside the Enchantress -- not so disintegrated after all.

At one point, Ultron catches Captain Amercia's shield and analyzes it, noticing that it's covered in tiny hairline spider-web cracks. Ultron also mentions that the Serpent Society and Red Ghost were ploys to keep the Avengers busy so he could finish upgrading himself -- but oddly, he also lists Radioactive Man as another diversion, which happened back in episode 20, "The Casket of Ancient Winters".

My Thoughts: First off, as a massive fan of Mark Gruenwald's decade-long run writing CAPTAIN AMERICA, I'm always happy to see the Serpent Society reprsented anywhere outside the comics (and even in the comics, since they became pretty sparsely used after Gruenwald left the title) -- so this episode's opening is A-okay by me.

I also love the idea of Hulk and Black Panther just randomly apprehending the Red Ghost and his Super-Apes offscreen as a footnote to the episode's proceedings. Plus we have the series doing what it frequently does well, building continuity and sub-plots between episodes. Tying Radioactive Man's appearance in with Ultron, resolving the Ultron plot begun a few episodes back when Pym programmed him for violence in the Kang arc, and also transporting Thor away to set him up for incoming season finale -- there are a lot of pieces moving around here, and as usual I'm eating it all up.

Plus, I'm kind of a sucker for stories where the heroes' stuff turns against them. Whether it's the Danger Room hijacked by villains to try and kill the X-Men, the starship Enterprise systems going wacko and endangering the crew, or anything similar, I like seeing our protagonists work to overcome their own defenses.

On top of that, Ultron puts up a great showing here, with a chilling, emotionless performance from Tom Kane, and enough power to take on the entire Avengers team at once. My only concern with this one is that it seems odd we have a follow-up as the very next episode. I get that the season's pacing doesn't really offer any other way to do it -- Ultron only gained the capacity for evil during the Kang arc, and we needed a bit of time, comprised of the past two episodes, for him to upgrade his systems, and then we have a three-part season finale starting just two episodes from now -- but I still find it strange that we have what seems to be a full and complete story here, to be followed immediately with its sequel.

But I'll withhold full judgment on that until next week, when we look at "The Ultron Imperative"!