AVENGERS: EARTH'S MIGHTIEST HEROES S1x023

"THE ULTRON IMPERATIVE"
Written by Brandon Auman | Directed by Vinton Heuck

The Plot: Around the world, systems belonging to various world powers are taken over by Ultron. Meanwhile the Avengers mourn Thor. But elsewhere, the Enchantress hold Thor, enthralled, in another realm. Tony Stark and Hank Pym realize that Ultron has transferred his consciousness into another body, and Ultron takes control of various Iron Man armors to attack the Avengers, while the real Ultron boards the SHIELD helicarrier.

Meanwhile, Thor regains his senses and demands the Enchantress send him back to Earth. The Avengers, battling Iron Man's armors, are joined by Iron Man himself. Iron Man, Hulk, and Wasp head out to defend the helicarrier, while Hawkeye and Black Panther stay behind to battle the Iron Man suits. Aboard the helicarrier, Ultron extracts SHIELD's nuclear missile codes from Maria Hill just as the Avengers arrive to save her. But they're too late, and Ultron launches missiles from the various systems he has commandeered around the world, in order to wipe out humanity.

At Avengers Mansion, Thor appears to save Hawkeye and Black Panther, then travels with them to the helicarrier and engages Ultron. The robot remains a match for the full Avengers team, however, even transforming the Hulk back into Bruce Banner. While most of the group battles Ultron, Ant-Man arrives and goes inside his creation, where he uses a device he created to deactivate Ultron. Meanwhile, Stark manages to disengage the missiles, saving the world from nuclear annihilation. But the victory is bitter for Ant-Man, who stalks off sullenly in the battle's aftermath.

Continuity Notes: "The Ultron Imperative" was a one-shot published by Marvel in 2000, during Kurt Busiek's run as the writer of AVENGERS. It was Busiek's second Ultron story (co-created with several other writers), following from "Ultron Unlimited" a couple years earlier. This episode shares only a title with the one-shot.

Ultron now calls himself Ultron-6, with Ultron-5 having been destroyed in the previous episode. Notably, Ultron-6 no longer has programming that prevents him from harming the Wasp.

One of the Iron Man armors Ultron controls looks like the iconic "Golden Avenger" suit that Shellhead wore for over twenty years (throughout the sixties, seventies, and early eighties) in the comics. I kinda wish they'd gone with that look for the full series. It's really nice to see animated in the EMH style.

Speaking of armor, Stark is still wearing his original, computer-free armor to prevent Ultron taking control of his systems again. Stark also unexpectedly takes some blame for the Ultron situation, telling Pym that he was the one who pushed to use Ultron as a weapon.

Following the prior episode's events, the Avengers believe Thor dead, while Captain America is in the hospital.

Enchantress claims that she spirited Thor away from Earth to protect him. Just what she's protecting him remains a mystery discussed by Stark and Thor in the episode's final scene -- and will be revealed to the rest of us starting next week in the three-part season finale.

When Thor returns, he has a moment that evokes his arrival at the battle of Wakanda in AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR years later, smashing the last of the Iron Man suits, and then asking, "Where is Ultron?" This is followed up by his arival at the helicarrier where he echoes his famous line from the Kurt Busiek/George Pérez AVENGERS series, "Ultron -- we would have words with thee."

My Thoughts: This is a really good episode. The first part of this Ultron story was fairly internal to the Avengers, taking place entirely within their mansion, with the only stakes being whether the robot could defeat the team. It was good, make no mistake, but its scale was small. "The Ultron Imperative", on the other hand, amps things up, with nothing less than all life on Earth imperiled by Ultron's plan. And someohow, this feels bigger and more momentous than Kang's similarly world-shattering attack a few episodes back -- perhaps because, while Kang merely wanted to conquer and enslave the people of Earth, Ultron wants to exterminate them.

And of course our heroes rise to the occasion once more, assembling aboard the helicarrier to finish Ultron once and for all (or at least, once and for season one). Aside from Captain America, that is. No idea why it was decided to sideline him for this one. He took a pretty hard hit in the previous episode, but it didn't occur to me at the time that the moment was meant to be as serious as is suggested here, with his spending the entire episode in the hospital.

But even without Cap, the Avengers are in top form here, with great action scenes, some serious tension as they battle Ultron, a goosebump moment in the return of Thor, and top-notch animation. Last week I wondered why Ultron's return was placed immediately after his debut as a villain, and I still think this episode could've been placed a bit later, with space between for the two installments to breathe, if the season's schedule had allowed it. But having it immediately follow "Ultron-5" doesn't hurt anything at all. No matter how you slice it, this is one of the season's highlight episodes.

Next week, as noted above, the three-part season finale begins with "This Hostage Earth"!