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Five months have passed since the conclusion of AvX, which means it's time for ANOTHER massive Marvel Event!   Everything is hosed. Ultron has already conquered the world, our heroes are at their most desperate, and Spider-Man is Peter Parker again because of reasons. How could this have happened? (spoiler: Dan Slott was fired in this alternate universe) WHY did it happen? More importantly... what happened to Jennifer Walter's hair?  Welcome to the Age of Ultron.  Continuity, Age of Ultron, and You: or "Why is Spider-Man talking like Peter Parker and not Dr. Spocktopus?! My immersion!"  Brian Michael Bendis wrote this story before the Marvel NOW! initiative became a thing. Many theories are being thrown around as to how this story fits into 616 continuity, and the best answer at this point is simply "wait and see." It's been said that the dialogue has been tweaked to more accurately fit into the current Marvel narrative but nothing is guaranteed. There is little chance this event isn't part of some Alternate Universe (AUTM) or something similar, so it really doesn't matter. Enjoy the story for what it is and don't get hung up on the details, because chances are those details won't matter anyway. Or maybe... they will.  On tie-ins: CBR Article on Brian Michael Bendis and AoU CBR posted:When asked about tie-ins by the press, Brevoort said that most tie-ins will be in one issue, and they will spread over no more than six or seven series. "Fantastic Four" and "Superior Spider-Man" issues in May will tie in, for example, and their numbers will be modified to slide in between regular issue much like Marvel's "Point One" comics. Instead, they'll be called "Fantastic Four" #6.AU. The editor promised no more than ten tie-in comics overall. To sum up, this event will not interrupt current ongoing issues. Instead, Age of Ultron tie-ins will be designated with an "AU" next to the regular issue number. The announced tie-ins are: - Fantastic Four #5AU - Superior Spider-Man #6AU - Avengers Assemble #14-15AU - Wolverine and the X-Men #27AU - Ultron #1AU - Uncanny Avengers #8AU - Fearless Defenders #4AU  This thread is for general discussion on the current cross-over event "Age of T3hRen3gade fucked around with this message at Mar 13, 2013 around 06:57 |
| # ? Mar 7, 2013 08:44 |
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| # ? May 24, 2013 10:54 |
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Some people were complaining about Hawkeye killing people in the Marvel thread, I really don't see the issue with it. I know he usually goes non-lethal when he's working with the Avengers, but isn't he often shown as in having been basically an assassin for SHIELD like Black Widow? Even in the "Tape" arc from Hawkeye I felt that there was the implication that he probably killed that terrorist, and in the arc before a few guys got straight up arrowed through the eyes.
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 13:13 |
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I like that they're numbering the tie-in issues separately since it means I won't buy them. Much like I don't see myself buying any more of this after the first issue. It really didn't hook me. Hitch sure does draw pretty though.
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 13:59 |
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I thought it was cool, but I'm a sucker for alternate universe stuff. Utterly defeated Captain America is also always a good standby to write about.
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 14:07 |
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I'm looking forward to the tie in where Captain Marvel and Captain Britain fight Ultrons in London. Also Bendis has said that this has a shock ending and that Moon Knight has a prominent role so my prediction for how it ends is that Moon Knight will die saving the world and become the Barry Allen on the Marvel universe with added "I never knew he was the greatest hero of all of us".
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 18:06 |
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I guess I'll just restate my opinions in brief since there's a specific thread for it, that being that I like the idea fine as I am a big fan of post-apocalypse scenarios, but if Bendis/Marvel tries to slot this into continuity in any way, I call bullshit of the highest caliber. That said, who wants to start a betting pool on the countdown towards the inevitable scene where the Avengers have a "THIS IS YOUR FAULT" scream-off at Pym? My money's on it happening in #3.
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 18:21 |
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Little Mac posted:I thought it was cool, but I'm a sucker for alternate universe stuff. Utterly defeated Captain America is also always a good standby to write about. I'm with you on the first point, but sad Cap sitting in his broken shield was a bit of an eye-roller. It feels like it's become a cliché, what with it happening for like the fifth time in Fear Itself.
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 18:25 |
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Starsnostars posted:
"If only he hadn't distracted us by disfiguring and/or carving off the faces of his enemies, we would've realized it sooner."
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 18:38 |
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I really want to know how Bendis is going to characterize Ultron, because his whole deal has been killing all organic life and replacing it with technology. Now they can apparently "buy-off" Ultron to look the other way and he's letting some humans live.
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 18:41 |
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I'm assuming "Today" is like, the AGe of Ultron future and when Ultron took over was like 5 years ago or whatever/current Marvel time. Not really feeling it. How many loving panels did they spend on "You shouldn't have come back!!!111!1!1!11!"
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 18:43 |
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Monaghan posted:I really want to know how Bendis is going to characterize Ultron, because his whole deal has been killing all organic life and replacing it with technology. Now they can apparently "buy-off" Ultron to look the other way and he's letting some humans live.
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 18:47 |
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I'm assuming that the "paying off" consisted of delivering up captured superheroes. Hence Spidey all beat up in the basement.
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 20:01 |
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Endless Mike posted:That didn't seem to work out too well for those who were doing it, and I would bet that Ultron is smart enough to realize that if you have people doing your work for you, that letting them live a little longer will not only not delay your ultimate goal, but probably make it happen sooner. In the end the biggest problem for Ultron is going to be Avengers and other super-heroes, so allowing himself to be "bought off" in exchange for handing over a super-hero means less work he has to do in the end. The issue also made it pretty clear he wasn't exactly sincere about the offer either. So is this event even going to be in continuity anymore? Or is this more or less just an elseworld-y thing now?
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 21:09 |
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Wachter posted:I'm assuming that the "paying off" consisted of delivering up captured superheroes. Hence Spidey all beat up in the basement. It looked like the lead goon was dashing for a bag full of money while the other guy kept screaming "We paid you already!" It came off to me like the leader had lied about the payoff and tried to keep the money for himself (although what possible use paper currency would be for either people or a genocidal robot at this point is anyone's guess) and when Ultron's squad showed up, he freaked out and tried to cough up the money too little too late. I'm not sure if Ultron's squad even knew about Spider-Man since the thugs had mentioned something about how killing an Avenger was going to score them major points with Ultron. They could have just been talking about Hawkeye though, or both. I like the idea behind that creepy vibration effect Ultron uses to subdue people, but the big double-page was hard to focus on. It's cool, but only if used in moderation.
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 21:10 |
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T3hRen3gade posted:It looked like the lead goon was dashing for a bag full of money while the other guy kept screaming "We paid you already!" It came off to me like the leader had lied about the payoff and tried to keep the money for himself (although what possible use paper currency would be for either people or a genocidal robot at this point is anyone's guess) and when Ultron's squad showed up, he freaked out and tried to cough up the money too little too late.
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 21:36 |
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Well, first there's this: Which pretty much confirms that Avengers are now currency, but then here's Hammerhead snatching up a case full of pills and cash money?  
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 23:08 |
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Wachter posted:Well, first there's this: If your house was being demolished by genocidal cyborgs, wouldn't you reach for your briefcase of pills and cash?
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 23:12 |
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Wachter posted:Well, first there's this:
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 23:20 |
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I like that even in Post Apocalyptic Ultron ruled world that Ultron Apparently felt the need to maintain the federal reserve and people can still use money as a currency.
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 23:28 |
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I doubt that the money is being used for anything but that common criminals like Hammerhead are still clinging to the things that are important to them while the world crumbles around them.
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 23:30 |
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I know Ultron's evil and all, but surely he takes MasterCard?
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 23:39 |
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The whole "Cpt. America's shield gets broken/damaged" card has been pulled so many times now that it has lost all dramatic value. I pretty much roll my eyes and think, "Wow, this guy must be the villain that's going to be totally unbeatable and change everything forever." And, yes, I do think think in sarcastic italics.
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 23:42 |
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Protocol 5 posted:The whole "Cpt. America's shield gets broken/damaged" card has been pulled so many times now that it has lost all dramatic value. I pretty much roll my eyes and think, "Wow, this guy must be the villain that's going to be totally unbeatable and change everything forever." And, yes, I do think think in sarcastic italics. The more I see this the more I think people should only read comics in cycles or something. Because as someone pretty new to paying attention to them at all beyond the occasional wikipedia plot summary or the summer blockbuster movie stuff like Cap's shield being broken, Hawkeye being pushed to kill, and a dozen other things that happen every other event are all totally awesome and new to my eyes. Maybe in a few years if I am still reading them I'll be jaded and disgruntled at the lack of new ideas coming out of the mainstream comics.
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 23:47 |
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Starsnostars posted:I doubt that the money is being used for anything but that common criminals like Hammerhead are still clinging to the things that are important to them while the world crumbles around them. Money can still be an acceptable exchange medium to facilitate trades. Everyone knows what a dollar is, even if its value is nonexistent without a US government and the chance of more of them appearing is pretty minimal.
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 23:48 |
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Protocol 5 posted:The whole "Cpt. America's shield gets broken/damaged" card has been pulled so many times now that it has lost all dramatic value. I pretty much roll my eyes and think, "Wow, this guy must be the villain that's going to be totally unbeatable and change everything forever." And, yes, I do think think in sarcastic italics. The only thing that devalues the idea of Cap's shield being broken so often is that it is repaired almost instantly in almost every case. I remember when I first got into comics the byline was that Cap's shield was made of some special super-rare composite Vibranium or something and if it was ever broken it could never be repaired or replaced.
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| # ? Mar 7, 2013 23:52 |
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Starsnostars posted:I doubt that the money is being used for anything but that common criminals like Hammerhead are still clinging to the things that are important to them while the world crumbles around them. Maybe they know just as well as the readers do that the Avengers are gonna come out and fix everything and then their money will be worth something again.
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| # ? Mar 8, 2013 00:00 |
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I'm fine with the whole "cap is beaten and despondent" here because it does feel like the avengers are screwed. Ultron's running the show and the world is in ruins. Unlike say, fear itself, where it never really felt like it was a disaster on a apocalyptic scale.
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| # ? Mar 8, 2013 00:20 |
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They must've had Spidey doped to the gills to keep him restrained. There were a lot of used needles littered around his chair. Not only does Peter (yes Peter, there's no way Ock-Spidey develops a sense of humor) have to deal with a cyborg holocaust, but now a crippling heroin addiction as well. 
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| # ? Mar 8, 2013 01:21 |
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Dacap posted:Some people were complaining about Hawkeye killing people in the Marvel thread, I really don't see the issue with it. I know he usually goes non-lethal when he's working with the Avengers, but isn't he often shown as in having been basically an assassin for SHIELD like Black Widow? Nope. E the Shaggy posted:Spiderman is definitely supposed to be Ock during Ultron, as they're doing a tie in book. I'm sure Bendis looked at what Slott was doing and said "that's cute but I'm not loving doing it." Pretty sure it's more that Age of Ultron was already written like 3 years ago, well before Spider-Octopus was even a pitch.
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| # ? Mar 8, 2013 02:03 |
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Fuzzy Pipe Wrench posted:The more I see this the more I think people should only read comics in cycles or something. Because as someone pretty new to paying attention to them at all beyond the occasional wikipedia plot summary or the summer blockbuster movie stuff like Cap's shield being broken, Hawkeye being pushed to kill, and a dozen other things that happen every other event are all totally awesome and new to my eyes. Maybe in a few years if I am still reading them I'll be jaded and disgruntled at the lack of new ideas coming out of the mainstream comics. You can only follow a given series for about 3-4 years before the crossovers, cataclysmic events, retcons to remedy the catastrophic events, time travel, reboots, doppelgangers, and every other comic book cliche cause the whole thing to collapse on itself. I was into Avengers (and friends) for about that long in the early 90s and Marvel did at least 3 of those to every book I followed in that time.
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| # ? Mar 8, 2013 02:28 |
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I'm pretty sure this is an alternate future/reality since Wolverine is wearing his future Wolverine costume in Miller's FF run.
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| # ? Mar 8, 2013 03:12 |
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Hawkeye + Killin' is a weird situation. His character has pretty consistently been the Holden Caulfield of the Avengers, the orphaned carny kid who hates all those goddamn high and mighty phonies with their heads in the clouds thinkin' they're better than him. But he also idolizes Captain America, and is essentially a good person who can't stand when Humanity lets him down. Even though they were both goofy stories, this extended well into the 1980s, when he was upset to the point of separation with his wife Mockingbird when he found out that she allowed a dude that drugged and raped her (the original Ghost Rider from the 1870s, long story) to fall to his death in the Old West. When his ghost started haunting her in the 1980s, he was unsympathetic and brushed her off because AVENGERS DON'T KILL. Then in the 1990s during Operation Galactic Storm, after the Supreme Intelligence deliberately nuked billions of his own people in the hopes that the strong would survive and maybe develop super-power mutations, the Avengers split between the people who thought they should kill the Supreme Intelligence and those that believed AVENGERS DON'T KILL. Hawkeye was in the latter group, while the former group got fired and turned into FORCE WORKS, the x-treme proactive strike team that lasted less than two years before being wiped out of everyone's memory by The Crossing and Onslaught. But then the Ultimates happened, where Hawkeye was in fact a SHIELD assassin. This may have influenced Bendis when he brought Hawkeye back in New Avengers, or it may have been an unrelated attitude adjustment from being killed and resurrected by the Scarlet Witch. Regardless, for the past 5-7 years, he's been pretty fine with "justifiable homicide". He was definitely intent on killing Wanda a couple of times, was positively bloodthirsty during Secret Invasion, and he was even fine with breaking into Avengers Tower to try to kill Norman Osborn in his sleep. Which led to me being surprised when he went into the NO KILLIN' thing in his solo series. Though yeah, between shooting people in the eyes and mentally shrugging "oh, he'll live" and the possible double-bluff regarding the tape, it's possible this is a plot point, not a sudden shift in attitude.
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| # ? Mar 8, 2013 03:33 |
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T3hRen3gade posted:They must've had Spidey doped to the gills to keep him restrained. There were a lot of used needles littered around his chair. Not only does Peter (yes Peter, there's no way Ock-Spidey develops a sense of humor) have to deal with a cyborg holocaust, but now a crippling heroin addiction as well. I'll choose to accept Ock couldn't deal with horrors of the Ultron crisis and wanted so much to not be there that it allowed Peter to reclaim his body. Which, I guess, could work with his character. He wouldn't have the same strength of character to be willing to suffer the AoU and sacrifice for others like Peter would do, so if even just given the choice on a subconscious level he'd choose a quick and painless non-existence vs. living on Hell on Earth.
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| # ? Mar 8, 2013 07:19 |
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They are doing a Superior AU issue, so it probably more comes down to Bendis having written the scripts years ago. edit: I'm now like the 4th guy to post it, can we have this added to the main post? ^burtle fucked around with this message at Mar 8, 2013 around 07:51 |
| # ? Mar 8, 2013 07:45 |
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JediTalentAgent posted:I'll choose to accept Ock couldn't deal with horrors of the Ultron crisis and wanted so much to not be there that it allowed Peter to reclaim his body. Which, I guess, could work with his character. I just don't see Dr. Octopus in ANY form (especially with the body and abilities of Spider-Man, not to mention the emotional impact that came with those abilities) curling into a ball and simply giving up at this point in his character arc. It would destroy whatever gravitas the Ock-Spidey Experiment could attain for the sake of a single cross-over event that we aren't even sure takes place in "real" time. You could be right, but if you are then I'll be extremely pissed that I bought Superior Spider-Man at all, because that would be a cop-out. ^burtle posted:They are doing a Superior AU issue, so it probably more comes down to Bendis having written the scripts years ago. I have a simple and obvious theory about the AU tie-in titles in that "AU" doesn't stand for "Age of Ultron" but instead "Alternate Universe." None of the AU tie-ins will have anything to do with the regular ongoing issues but instead show "What If" scenarios that mimic the core titles, but do so in a way that takes into account the fact that this event was written a while back and uses that to play with our expectations. For example, the only reason the Spidey tie-in is a "Superior Spider-Man AU" title is because of recent events, and would have been "Amazing Spider-Man AU" if the event had launched a year ago, because Spidey is definately being written as Peter and not Ock. I'll update the OP with a section on this, but it's still just speculation at this point.
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| # ? Mar 8, 2013 09:40 |
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That theory falls apart when you have Remender going around saying that his Uncanny Avengers AU book is a crucial part of his Apocalypse Twins plot line.
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| # ? Mar 8, 2013 11:30 |
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Also unless I'm misunderstanding the theory, AU probably stands for "Age of Ultron" in the sense that the stories in these issues are explicitly taking place in the "Age of Ultron" storyline featuring plotlines that tie into "The Age of Ultron" series, and having characters fighting Ultron. Could it also stand for other things, if you squint? Sure, probably.
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| # ? Mar 8, 2013 12:42 |
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Starsnostars posted:That theory falls apart when you have Remender going around saying that his Uncanny Avengers AU book is a crucial part of his Apocalypse Twins plot line. Actually, Remender said the AU would be good to help establish the characters of the Apocalypse Twins, but not necessarily that they would be the exact same instances.
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| # ? Mar 8, 2013 12:59 |
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I'm a sucker for post apocalyptic superhero stories, so I'm looking forward to this. I hope it has the early old man Logan feel, but there's going to be a problem selling ultrons massive take over, if too many superheroes are still kicking about.
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| # ? Mar 8, 2013 18:41 |
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| # ? May 24, 2013 10:54 |
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I'm really mystified as to why people are trying to suss out this "not counting." It just took forever to make. It definitely "counts." I'm sure we'll see a reset button by the end, but I expect that reset button will have ramifications. Bendis said on Newsarama that he spent a ton of time massaging the dialogue to fit in with Marvel NOW! stuff.
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| # ? Mar 8, 2013 22:34 |
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