Uncanny Avengers: Ultron Forever

Writer: Al Ewing
Artist: Alan Davis

Overview:

Doctor Doom has assembled earth's mightiest heroes from past, present, and future to save the timeline from the Avenger's arch nemesis, Ultron. The Avengers, lead by Doom, takes out Ultron's forces and the Thors were able to take out Ultron. However, Doom actually was using the Avengers to defeat Ultron in order to use Ultron's operations and minions. How will the Avengers strike back? Ewing continues with writing as he turns this Ultron driven plot into a Doom centric plot point. Alan Davis continues his work as drawer for the artwork. This is the last installment for the Ultron Forever storyline.

Synopsis:

After a few hundred years, Doom builds an empire of his own after the defeat of Ultron. He controls all of the satellites, bio-slaves, the Ultron bots (turned to Doombots), and the once Ultron throne.

Meanwhile the Avengers are able to send themselves, thanks to the Thors, to Asgard where they meet future Thor. Vision tries to persuade the Avengers to let him talk to Doom; however, due to the turn of events the team does not agree. So, the Vision ghosts away.

They find out that the other Asgardians are imprisoned. The prison is draining the Asgardian's power and neither Thors can break it. Suddenly a Doomship arrives to Asgard, and unleashes an army of Doombots. All but Iron Man engages the Doombots, while Rhodes figures out how to break the barrier.

During the battle, Danielle Cage asks Old School Hulk to do the “fast-ball special” with her to the near Doomship (Hulk is confused at first because it was Colossus and Wolverine that originated the “Fast Ball Special”). Captain America is able to get into the Doomship after being thrown.

Vision ghosts himself inside the Doomship to aid Captain America capture the ship. After capturing the ship, there are two more Doomships heading their way. They control the ship they're on into one of the other Doomships; thus, destroying it. The Thors are able to take out the other ship with their combined efforts.

Back at the Asgardian prison, Rhodes figures out along with Beta Ray Bill on how to disrupt the barrier encasing all the Asgardians. Ray's hammer, Stormbreaker, is also powered by solar energy, so Rhodes uses his blasters to provide Ray's hammer the energy in needs to break the barrier.

Captain America and Vision help out the rest of the Avengers on the ground. Suddenly, more Doomships appear and the Avengers seem to be outnumbered. But then, Iron Man and the rest of the Asgardians come to the rescue and even the numbers; a large fight occurs between the Doombots and the Avengers/Asgardians.

As the battle rages on, Widow and Captain America are beginning to fatigue and Iron Man's suit has a limited amount of power left. Vision asks the Thors to transport them to Doom's headquarters. The Thors hesitantly transports the Avengers to Doom's headquarters.

When the Avengers confront Doom, Vision identifies Doom as a Doombot. Vision remembers this certain Doombot that was part of the Avenger's A.I. team. Vision persuades this Doombot return as the hero that he was back then. But the Doombot was reprogrammed to carry on the legacy of Doctor Doom. Vision believes the Doombot is a free to follow anything he wants to and not Doctor Doom. The Doombot finally agrees and surrenders to the Avengers.

Doom releases his controls over the bio-slaves and agrees to work with the Asgardians on developing a world with peace and order. The Avengers are sent back to their respective timelines. In the last pages, Captain America punches Gold Skull's in the face and reunites with her Avengers.

Review:

For an Ultron/Avengers story, it was structured really well. The only gripe that I have is the the fact that Marvel was trying to advertise their Age of Ultron movie and at the same time steer readers away from the Age of Ultron graphic novel, which was probably a smart move on them because Age of Ultron was pretty bad. As for the story, I wasn't really surprised by the plot twist from the previous issue (the Avengers trusting and following Doom's orders? Who didn't see that coming?), and then the Doombot plot twist. I wished Ewing would've focused on Ultron as the main villain that the book hyped about, but I guess it was a way to make a cool Avengers story. In addition, Ewing does a great job at creating and developing characters and their interactions. The story also is very concise and flows well. The dialogue has the 1960's-1970's Avengers feel; it feels like it was written in the Silver Age of comics. The artwork for the books have been done really well. It was drawn in detail, the colors looked beautiful, and the page layouts looked awesome. Readers that would like to read an old school modern day Avengers book, I would give this book a read along with the other Ultron Forever books.