Henry and Chris are joined by Brett for a double-sized episode of fun and adventure. The first half is the guys diving deep into their Free Comic Book Day exploits, reading Secret Wars and Divergence, and a huge crop of comics news! Then, in the second hour, it’s time for the spoiler-filled, mega-discussion of Avengers: Age of Ultron! Plus a special giveaway that you can only learn about by listening to the break!
Also, be sure to check out how Free Comic Book Day went for the Laser Time community! And, of course, if you still haven’t seen it, Laser Time has brand new commentaries for The Avengers and Iron Man 3 available on the Laser Time Bandcamp page, and you can buy them if you want to help while Henry is in-between jobs.
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CAPE CRISIS RECOMMENDS:
Cape Crisis #136 Question: What did you think of Age of Ultron?
Really curious to hear what you guys thought of Age of Ultron.
I bet they hated it. They’re total DC fanboys.
Hey, how come you guys never got around to talking about that Rage of Ultron comic that came out a little while ago?
I know you guys said you were planning to read it, and what happens in it is pretty important, and Marvel says it is canon, so I’m curious what Henry and Co. think.
We actually do “celebrate” free comic book day here in Australia…well Sydney at least. It’s obviously not as big but there’s hugely long lines to enter the 2 main comic book shops in the city plus tonnes of nifty cosplaying
I think that Age of Ultron moved too fast and Ultron wasn’t nearly as threatening as it should have been. I don’t want my robotic villains doing liners for the camera.
I agree with what most people said and loved the vision but also think brett is 100% is completely in the right with his problems with Ultron.I kept saying those same things to myself the entire film.
I loved this episode and y’all’s differing opinions but I have to say Age of Ultron may be my favorite Marvel film. I can see the problems but I guess they don’t rub me in the wrong way as much as it did with you guys. That being said F those robo-lips! I also look forward to some Android and Inhuman boning.
My eyeballs couldn’t roll any harder listening to Brett complain about Ultron. “But but canon!!!” is one of the dumbest things to listen to.
He was shit, he didnt accomplish anything and acted like a wiener instead of the death machine that he is.
It was less “the canon’ and more about how, when you change a character on such a fundamental level, it’s not the character anymore. Bane in Batman & Robin is not Bane – he’s something else. Ultron in AoU isn’t Ultron – he’s something else.
I don’t mind when movies deviate if it makes sense within that world. And in this case, it does make sense, it just compromises the character in the process. A Stark-minded Ultron is interesting, but the combo of the gags (both by Ultron and at his repeated expense) and the robo-lips make him hard to take seriously and kinda botch THE Avengers villain. Loki formed them, Thanos puts them to their limits, but Ultron is their mistake, their villain, their endless battle. The joke-bot that vexes them in this movie is another character entirely.
But! Vision was great and I don’t even care – spoiler! – if the hammer lifting is canon or in the comics. It made sense in this movie and was a great scene that followed “show don’t tell.”
I agree with your main criticisms, but I do think you went a bit overboard in the podcast when you compared ultron with the Michael bay’s transformers. I get your anger of how the character was miss-represented to a point. But when that anger leads you to make hyperboles that don’t really fit? I think that’s when it becomes harder to take your complaints seriously.
It’s like the people that condemned the entire iron man 3 film because of it’s treatment of the mandarin. That one also doesn’t represent the character of the comics well at all. But if you step back from your attachement and preconceptions of the character, it DOES work great within the tone and feel of the movie.
BladedFalcon dropping some hard truths. exactly right.
I’ll def cop to a bit of hyperbole (and podcast posturing) but I think the Mandarin thing is a bit different. The character was an impostor, so the “real” Mandarin is still a possibility. I don’t think they’ll ever actually go down that road, but the core character is still, allegedly, lurking in the shadows.
Whereas Ultron, this is it. And the core of Ultron is rage and resentment, not snappy retorts and comebacks. It didn’t ruin the movie for me in the way it did for the Mandarin fans (which I was surprised to know existed! Never registered for me or any of my comic-reading friends) but it bums me out.
True, even the one shot alludes to an actual Mandarin existing, and being none too happy with the impostor. And you’re right, this is the one Ultron they went with for the movie, and even if he appears and is fixed later, it doesn’t retroactively fix the mistakes made in this film. That I totally understand and agree with.
I guess that really, at the core I agree with you, it was just the way you went about it in the podcast that kinda ticked me off. But then, we all tend to do that even when we’re supposed to know better. Heck, I’ve been plenty guilty of that in some of my posts here in the past ^^;
I actually think the opposite is true. With Mandarin. That is it. The little short film was a ways to appease fans. But they won’t ever bring him back ever.
Ultron most certainly will come back in Guardians I am guessing, and without Whedon at the helm. This will be a new Ultron who has experienced massive failure, and probably a bit of madness, having suffered whatever happens to him between his appearances. Whatever the reason.
My point is they have plenty of ways to grow and develop him as a character past this film. His last scene in Avengers 2 looked and sounded much more like the Ultron I’m more familiar with, and I suspect that will be more in line with any future appearances.
And like you said, Ultron is extremely more popular than Mandarian. He will be back with criticisms addressed I am almost certain.
I love that you guys are arguing. Brett’s one of the hardest Marvel fans around, so who exactly are you defending from his scathing remarks? Marvel? I think Brett knows what he’s talking about, and so do you too. I personally really disliked the Ultron portrayal as well and I’m barely aware of him, because he’s meant to be an epic threat (ignoring canon, just for “Avengers 2” he has to ) and just was a small roadblock that felt totally cliched Joss Whedon instead of threatening.
As for my dislike of Iron Man 3’s Mandarin, I barely know anything about him either but I DO know that Marvel have very few good villains so it’s really bad when they screw up the best ones they have – Mandarin and Ultron being the main examples, and Red Skull was also pretty damn ineffective too.
Gorilla Grodd > Ultron.
Gotta correct you there:
Gorilla Grodd > Everything.
I really liked Ultron in the movie.
Yes, he’s nothing like comics Ultron, but I loved what he was.
His personality was a huge breath of fresh air after how flat and one dimensional both Ronin and Malekith were. Probably the most entertaining MCU villain besides Loki.
But that may be it’s biggest flaw as well. Like Loki, he’s charismatic and fun to see him say stuff, but also like Loki, never really feels like a huge threat.
Heck, in that sense, I’d say Winter Soldier felt way more threatening than Ultron did.
Barely started listening but thought I’d say: we TOTALLY celebrate Free Comic Book Day here in the UK! We had two comic marts here in Glasgow, and a queue down the street for our “main” store – I was gonna take a picture for y’all but I didn’t even get in!
Yep. Same logo and everything. I’m sure even many non-English speaking countries do it to.
We do?
After Avengers: Age of Ultron, I’ve hit MCU fatigue. It was a good popcorn film, but it also felt repetitive and dull.
The climax is the Avengers killing the same robot hundreds of time. I agree with Brett that everything is stitched together poorly during the action scenes. Ultron, like the other Marvel villains, was forgettable. As I haven’t read any Marvel comics, I don’t know why I should care about Vision. And the mid-credit scene was pointless.
So, I’m going to take a break from the MCU, which is good because I have no interest in Ant-Man after Edgar Wright left. Guardians 2 will be the next MCU film I see in theaters.
Also, it doesn’t help to watch Ex Machina two days later after Age of Ultron. One was the best film I’ve seen this year, and the other was Avengers: Age of Ultron.
I rather enjoyed the vision in this film, i had my reservations on how i felt this character would work in the film. Especially due to the fact he was infused with the mind gem. I cannot wait to see how Thanos will get his hands on the mind gem from the vision. Well i cannot wait to hear more from you guys and i am stoked to hear you guys had an awesome free comic book day.
Age of ultron was fun but I wished they would have focused on characters that were spotlighted. Hulk and Natasha I wanted to see more and it was nice to see Hawkeye story but then there were the twins and thor and his vision, there was way too much going on in that movie. Still enjoyed it
Does Vision even have a penis?
Why would he need one? He’s a synthetic life form. He has no need to reproduce, no need to have sex.
I know in the comics he does and even marries, but that doesn’t make it canon in the movies.
I assume he can simply make one appear at will whenever he wants like he did with the cape.
Vision was awesome in the movie and loved his cape inspiration. Loved age of Ultron so much and it is one of my fav in the marvel universe.
Also I’ve been playing a lot of marvel heroes lately.
Thor was great in the movie and had fantastic moments
And as listening, Chris had some confusion on vision making.
Vision would work because stark had said Jarvis protocols were fighting and winning against Ultron from the internet hub so it was explained, not just “lets make a second robot!”
And the Thor lightning was needed because vision’s cradle had no power to finish the process. Quicksilver had unplugged the power source and cap destroyed the computers. thor was simply providing the electricity to activate him.
And I seemthor’s vision as explaining his need to create vision as a safe way to keep the stone. He saw those stones out there and figured keeping it in vision would be safer than having another stone in asgard.
And I’m seconding this as well. Damn I was yelling at the podcast every time they brought up Thors magically lighting creating Vision. It was just becuase Quicksilver unplugged him. The little status bar was loading to 100% regardless of Thor.
I enjoyed the Hickman discussion as much as the Ultron review. It really voiced the things I do not like about his writing, going back to his run on FF.
I like his overall plots, but he makes the story too dense and seems to fall in love with his created characters. They all seem to be deus ex machina’s who need more powerful deus ex machina’s to fight. Ex Nihlo, Corvus Glave, Proxima Midnight, I just can’t care about them.
I enjoyed Secret Wars 1, but I think it is hurt by knowing it will all be reset by the end of the series since most of the characters who die, including the big one at the end, are already announced for titles after the relaunch.
It was like Brett said about Age of Ultron, it was hard to feel the stakes when you know all the characters have movies or are announced to be in movies for the next 4 years.
yay this is the AOU discussion i’ve been waiting for.
QOTW: i thought Age of Ulton was good not great, having being spoiled with Cap2 & Guardians being such a tough act to follow.
Witch was great but i found Vision a bit daft looking & a bit jarring.
QS looked the part but was not as scene stealing as Brian Singers take.
having known nothing about Ultron i loved him, funnier than i thought he would be.
I do fear i’m getting superhero fatigue…
AoU SPOILER! I made the mistake of accidentally reading a spoiler that Quicksilver dies in the movie but I didn’t read when, so the entire movie I was waiting for it, turns out quick silver almost dies like 4 times before actually dying. Bullets wiz past him almost hitting him twice, hawkeye almost hit him with an arrow, and he was even shot once before that. It was surreal almost thinking he would die like 3 different times.
Age of Ultron was great better than the first but felt clunky with all of the Thor magic pool stuff and set up for Ragnarock.
Ending felt the same as the first as well and set up Civil War but Cap and Tony still seem to like each other at the end of AOU so not as much as I thought.
Biggest issue was Hulk flying away in a Quinn Jet while Hulked out. I just image his giant hands trying to navigate the joystick.
All in All its another Marvel film that I really enjoyed and will watch a 100 times.
I’d like to throw my 2 cents in that I doubt there will be an Adam Warlock character in the upcoming Infinity War movies because Vision will fill that roll.
So sad to see Quick-Ass go… But great episode!
V – Virescent
I -Infertile
S – Synthetic
I – Immaculate
O – Optimistic
N – Naive
Anyway I enjoyed hearing your discussion even if I disagreed with most of it.
Vision was easily one of my favorite parts of Age of Ultron. It would be Fantastic to play as him in Marvel Heroes….
What characters you got in marvel heroes? I’m playing as Thor right now
I urge everyone involved to see AOU again (if they haven’t already). This seems to be one of those movies that locks into focus after kicking it around in my head the day after, and my second (and third) viewings were smmoooothhh…
And I don’t mean to dump on the ‘Comparison to Bayformers’ thing, but as someone who…for reasons unknown…opted to pay money to see the second and third entries in the series…the ‘Bayformers’ movies are mean-spirited, graceless pieces.of trash. The first one is almost NUANCED by comparison (emphasis on ‘by comparison’). Bits like Hawkeye running back for the kid, or Cap’s “If there’s one civilian left on this rock, then I’m staying.” just don’t exist in Bay’s dojo. AOU felt like a mission statement on other ‘hero’ franchises…by having our heroes being actual HEROES. The shot of the carrier lifting up, and War Machine and Iron Man defending the civilian transports gets me every time. You’d think it would be an obvious thing to do, but the “Fuck it, let it crash” finale of STID, and 75% of the running time of Man of Steel argue otherwise.
Brett is 100% spot-on. I’m on team Brett. Henry and Chris; Avengers 2 will not hold up well over time.
I think it says a lot that Ultron was at his most interesting the very first time we see him, and the very last time we see him. He was frail and creepy. And no lips.
Hearing the entire theater gasp when The Vision handed Thor Mjölnir was one of the best parts of the movie for me.
I really enjoyed Avengers 2, especially Vision. I hope they can build on the new Avengers Initiative in Civil War, and I’m excited to see Thanos personally start his quest, maybe even in Guardians 2.
Think I might just skip movie review episodes from now on…