Comic Book / Ultron Forever

Ultron Forever is a 2015 Marvel comic book written by Al Ewing and drawn by Alan Davis.

In the far future, Ultron has won. The mad machine has killed his enemies, conquered the galaxy and enslaved mankind. Now, factories belch forward endless numbers of Ultron drones, while what little remains of humanity exists as nothing more than puppets to Ultron's will. God bless Ultron-America.

But not all hope is lost, as one man summons together a team of heroes from across time, Avengers from past, present and future, to fight a foe none of them could face alone. And that man... is Doom.

Ultron Forever takes place across three issues (Ultron Forever: Avengers, Ultron Forever: New Avengers, and Ultron Forever: Uncanny Avengers).

Tropes:

• Analogy Backfire: At the beginning of the story, the Vision says he is no more programmed than Black Widow. She retorts that she spent her childhood as a brainwashed agent of the Red Room.
• And I Must Scream: Loki, in the Bad Future, is converted into nanotechnology and forced to serve Ultron's will. Inbetween the machine gibberish, he manages to plead Thor to help him. So Thor does.
• And Then What?: Ultron doesn't seem to have had a proper idea of what to do once he took over the world. Even after conquering Asgard, he's not satisfied with his accomplishments and desperately trying to figure out why he did everything he did. One of his Avengers remarks on hearing him crying to himself in his private moments.
• Badass Boast:
  • The Thor from the past gets one in the second issue:
    Thor: For I am the stormbringer! The master of the thunders! I am harrower of Hel and my late father's son! I am all that you have forgotten - unworthy one!
  • Captain America has her own:
    Captain America: I am the shield!
• Bad Black Barf: The future version of Thor coughs up a nanotech version of Loki, who Ultron had been using to control him, in this fashion.
• Bad Future:
  • Captain America's future, at least from our viewpoint. New York is flooded, and resources are scarce. Also, there's campy supervillains about, such as the Golden Skull.
  • Ultron's future, previously glimpsed in a time-travel arc of Jonathan Hickman's Avengers. In the year 2420, a new, vastly improved Ultimate Ultron fought the Avengers, and killed all of them. Since then, Ultron's taken over damn near everywhere, including Asgard. All humans found are crushed and turned into bio-slaves.
• Bling of War: Ultron's true form is a giant, golden body designed to look like he's wearing Asgardian armor.
• Call-Back:
  • Nat recognises Ultron's future, having been there during Hickman's Avengers.
  • Thor is taken from the middle of Simonson's run, and is still suffering Hela's curse, which prevents him from dying.
  • Thinking Nat isn't taking him seriously, Hulk tries boasting about how he beat the Metal Master (from Incredible Hulk issue 6).
  • Rhodey notes that his armor's causing him a lot of pain, but he doesn't know why (it's because it's calibrated for Tony Stark's mind, not Rhodes', and is slowly driving him mad).
• The Cavalry: One big honking Norse-god themed cavalry, courtesy of Jim Rhodes and basic physics.
• Deus est Machina: Subverted. Ultron, who's taken up the Odin-Force and literally become a god, is still a murderous and sometimes petty villain.
• Disc-One Final Boss: Ultron, as a matter of fact, is atomized partway through the second issue. The true threat is Doom.
• Dramatic Irony: Thor is pleased to see the female Thor, believing she took over after he died. Jane doesn't have the heart to tell him what really happened to him.
• Evil Is Petty: Doom figures that Ultron making his ruling caste his own version of the Avengers is a joke on Ultron's part. Likewise, he figures having the bio-slaves maintain the systems keeping them enslaved is another of Ultron's jokes.
• Fastball Special: Captain America asks Hulk to supply her one. Despite being a few years before it becomes popular, Hulk manages to figure out what she means, because hey, it ain't rocket science.
• Flooded Future World: In the future where Danielle Cage is the new Captain America, New York has been flooded and Dani protects it from pirates and scavengers.
• Future Badass: Captain America, also known as Danielle Cage, daughter of Luke Cage and Jessica Jones. She's also got a mix of their powers.
• Future Me Scares Me: Vision is understandably alarmed at meeting his warped, deformed future self serving Ultron, and vows never to become him.
• Generic Doomsday Villain: Deconstructed. This version of Ultron has gone crazy with anger and sadness over the possibility that he did everything he'd done for no damn reason at all.
• Hold the Line: Seven Avengers, and all the warriors of the Nine Realms, versus an endless supply of killer robots.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: The Thor from the past, courtesy of his Bad Future counterpart. Since the Thor who's travelled from the past is cursed by Hela and literally cannot die, it only allows him to get close.
• Legacy Character: The future Captain America is black and a woman.
• Made a Slave: All of mankind, thanks to Ultron. Also, unlike most of the Avengers, who are merely replicants, Thor and Vision.
• Meet Your Early-Installment Weirdness: Hulk (and Banner) are from the early Tales to Astonish era. Hulk still has the more ape-like design of the time, along with the somewhat wonkier powers and relatively higher intelligence.
• Multiple Headcase: Because the Hulk is from a time where Banner regulated his transformation by technology, which made them unstable, so when he gets decapitated by Ultron's Widow he grows Bruce Banner's head out of his chest who then proceeds to reattach it.
• Noodle Incident: Captain America mentions having seen the Doom of her time die.
• No-Sell: Ultron's Captain America tries to take over Rhodey's Iron Man armor and make him blow his head off. It doesn't work, because Rhodey's armor is from the 1980s. No Wi-Fi to hack.
• Off with His Head!:
  • Vision blasts off the future Spider-Woman's head.
  • The future's Black Widow slices off Hulk's head with Captain America's shield. Mercifully, Hulk's from a time when his powers and abilities fluctuate wildly, so it doesn't kill him.
• Redeeming Replacement: Doom, for both Ultron and the original Doctor Doom.
• The Reveal: Doom isn't Doom. He's a Doombot. The Doombot, that is. The one who served alongside Vision in ''Avengers A.I.
• Sealed Badass in a Can: The entirety of Asgard (except Thor, Loki and Odin) has been sealed away inside a magic mirror.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: Seven Avengers of five different eras are pulled together to face Ultron; Hulk from early in his existence when his mutation could be relatively random, James Rhodes during his time as Iron Man, Thor when he was afflicted by the curse of Hela (making his bones fragile but Thor himself is basically immortal), Danielle Cage/Captain America from the "future" (by the standards of the current reader), and Vision, Black Widow and the Jane Foster Thor of the "present".
• Tragic Villain: Ultron has conquered the galaxy, ascended to godhood and enslaved or murdered hundreds of billions at minimum...but, he's also miserable and has no idea why he did these things, or what he's supposed to do now that he's done it. In the end he's just a crazy robot that was a slave to its' own defective programming.
• Villainous Breakdown: Ultron, once confronted by the three Thors. Even though he's all-powerful, and has the Odinforce and the Norn stones, he still can't figure out what any of it was for, and goes into a screaming breakdown.
  Ultron: "Why?" That is what I ask myself. Now that Earth is conquered, now that humanity is subjugated — what was it for? Revenge? Ideology? Programming? Why? I have the God-Sight now! I see everything! I see inside myself! I see circuits! Subroutines! Loops of data! Yet! I! Do not! See why! WHY? WHY?
• Villainous BSoD: Ultron has fallen into one after finally accomplishing his goal of conquering his Earth (and Asgard), only to find that not only was it not satisfying, but that he couldn't find a single reason for why he'd done any of it despite assimilating the power of Odin. In his private moments he cries to himself, and when the heroes arrive he rants about being unable to answer the question he can't stop asking himself.