#the child thing is sad if you think about it in Agatha Harkness terms

[iheartsteve0704]

Jennifer Barkley is actually just multiverse Agatha Harkness and I won’t be taking further questions

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Fantastic Four #150: Ultron-7: He’ll Rule the World!

September, 1974

It never stops being weird whenever something that is not Avengers follows the colon after Essential Avengers but hey if every comic was Avengers, I wouldn’t need to have that Essential Avengers bit there at all to make absolutely sure that everybody knows that this is an Avengers liveblog and not a Fantastic Four liveblog.

And also because I started out reading from the black and white Essentials trade.

Anyway, geez. I didn’t think it could get more ridiculous than Ultron “my butt is jet powered” 6 but here we have a giant Ultron head on the body of a giant robot that is for some reason dressed in red spandex. What is with your fashion, the Inhumans?

Forget everything about the Kree, the Inhumans were really created when someone planned a society where superhero wear like onesies and masks are considered casual wear.

I like the cover caption though. “Ultron grabs the bridal bouquet -- and the bride!” Because imagine Ultron at a wedding for reals. Imagine him seriously getting the bouquet and being thrilled that he is going to get married next. Because that’s all Ultron wants. He wants to turn Janet Van Dyne into a naked robot and then marry her. And he will name her Jocasta because subtlety is for other people.

Of course, the real title of this (part of the) issue is “ULTRON-7: HE’LL RULE THE WORLD*” and I know the asterisk is to note that the first part of this story was in Avengers #127 but I can’t help but think of a disclaimer that says something like “void where prohibited.”

Ultron-7, of course, decides to take some time gloating. In fact, he so wants to revel in his victory that he unparalyzes everyone.

Ben immediately tries to throw a large, indeterminate object at Ultron despite Reed’s warning but gets SPACHOOM!’d for his trouble.

Meanwhile, Agatha Harkness was not affected by the paralyzing for some reason so has absconded somewhere with the comatose Franklin Richards.

Franklin has been in a coma since Fantastic Four #141 when his dad, Reed, put him in one. I won’t offer context. Just know that it happened.

Reed wonders how Ultron came to possess Omega’s body and because its Ultron, he of course decides to explain it all. Maximus found Ultron’s decapitated head after Avengers #68 and brought it the Inhuman’s Great Refuge with a long-distance tractor beam.

Since Black Bolt is both an idiot and guilty over Maximus’ unstable mental condition, Maximus was provided a bunch of scientific equipment to amuse himself. With that equipment, Maximus revived Ultron’s head and attached it to the mindless body of Omega.

Maximus intended for Ultron to be his ally in taking over the Inhumans but instead Ultron turned on him.

With the exposition out of the way, I guess its time for the big fight scene. And Ultron is already halfway there. Cause he’s big.

Of course, even though he could splatter most of these chumps with a punch, he can also just dissolve their brains with squiggle rays.

Ultron gloats that all the heroes’ skulls will be filled with psychic rubble and that there’s nothing they can do to stop it at all.

Except Ultron reckoned without a small child.

Ultron’s psychic assault was enough to awaken Franklin from his dad-induced coma and rouse a brain with enough power to consume an entire planet.

And disturbed from his sleep, Franklin lashes out and destroys Ultron’s brain.

I’d say its an ignominious defeat, perhaps Ultron’s most ignominious of all, but it’s about right. Ultron is for all intents and purposes a screaming pissbaby, so its about right that he get taken out by an actual child.

Although in terms of a cliffhanger, this is about as disappointing as the resolution from the end of Rise of the Cybermen to The Age of Steel.

Anyway, Ultron-7 is super dead.

And Reed is thrilled. Not about that. But that Franklin’s dangerous powers seem to be gone now. Booyah, his decision to put his child into a coma is retroactively justified!

Any everyone around can’t help but smile at seeing a family reunited and also Ultron dead because screw that wedding crasher.

But that’s only a little over half of the book. Yup. Omega Ultron-7, the big cliffhanger crossover from Avengers to Fantastic Four was dealt with halfway into the book.

The rest of the book is the wedding.

It’s smart actually. Everyone knows that superhero weddings get interrupted by supervillains. So instead, they scheduled the supervillain interruption for before the wedding.

As we begin part 2 “The Wedding of Crystal and Quicksilver” weirdly angelic Inhumans fly around tooting ridiculous horns.

And we get a bunch of vignettes of the various characters preparing for the wedding.

There’s Alicia Masters and Ben Grimm getting ready. And it takes Thor to try to wrestle the Thing into formal attire before giving up under threats of violence.

Reed and Sue reminisce about their wedding and Reed asks if Sue remembers it. And Sue is like no shit I remember our wedding, but that’s because I’m a woman and not because Doctor Doom tried to kill us all that day. And then Reed apologizes by stealing flowers from across the street.

Thor and Iron Man bond over being star-crossed in love. Thor, having two great loves that something always keeps him apart from. And Iron Man, having lost his great love Pepper when she married his best friend.

And over a hundred guests show up for the wedding. But Johnny Storm and Medusa tarry. Johnny and Medusa have a talk about Johnny’s old relationship with Crystal. Medusa reassures him that Crystal loved him once but that people change. And Johnny admits that he thought he was adjusted to the idea of Crystal marrying someone else the previous day but now he feels like there’s glass breaking inside of him.

Medusa offers to stay with him while he deals with these feels. And an odd little definitely unintended precursor to the two of them dating later. Huh.

And then the wedding (Damnit Quicksilver, put on a damn tux or something).

Black Bolt gives his silent blessing.

The Whizzer watches the wedding on a monitor screen at Avengers Mansion, because at this point this is his son’s wedding, before the retcons.

And then Crystal, Quicksilver and Lockjaw teleport away for their honeymoon.

And despite his conflict broken glass feelings, Johnny finds himself smiling after all.

It’s all very lovely and only slightly diminished by knowledge of what their marriage will come to in the years to follow. Oh endless sequential shared universe storytelling. You make fools of us all.

Of course, this is far more of a Fantastic Four story then an Avengers story. Sure, the Fantastic Four borrow Ultron from the Avengers’ rogues gallery but its Franklin Richards who defeats him. We check in with Iron Man and Thor being sad sacks for a bit but mostly we check in with the Fantastic Four and Inhumans. Johnny Storm gets the final panel, having accepted that Crystal is marrying someone else.

But it is Scarlet Witch’s absence which is damning. She appears in some crowd shots in the first half but once the wedding half of the issue gets underway, she’s nowhere to be seen. She gets no dialogue in this issue. This is the wedding of the brother who has disowned her and we don’t learn anything about how the moment is affecting her.

We don’t even see her in the wedding audience! We see Vision but Wanda isn’t next to him. Its a big oversight and a huge wasted opportunity.

Next time in Avengers: Necrodamus. Didn’t I briefly cover him while discussing the Defenders?