First Look At Avengers: Age Of Ultron's Big Bad

Mr. Roboto makes his bow with Tony & Cap

Ever since his presence in the film (and its subtitle) was revealed at last year’s Comic-Con, we’ve been waiting to get a glimpse of mechanical baddy Ultron in Avengers: Age Of Ultron. Now we know, thanks to the gang at EW, because he’s made his first appearance on the cover alongside Tony Stark, Steve Rogers and what appears to be a host of drone henchmen. {Avengers: Age Of Ultron EW cover}

Yes, Ultron is the particularly thorny problem that Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony and the rest will have to deal with in the superhero sequel, once again written and directed by Joss Whedon. And as he confirms to the magazine, it is indeed Stark who creates Ultron, originally designing the self-aware AI as a way of reacting to threats, with a legion of drones at his command to let Thor, Cap and the others get some much needed downtime after saving the world a lot. Sadly, things don’t go exactly to plan, with the electronic intelligence quickly figuring out – like so many tech-types before him – that the human race is the biggest threat to peace and happiness.

“Ultron sees the big picture and he goes, ‘Okay, we need radical change, which will be violent and appalling, in order to make everything better’; he’s not just going ‘Muhaha, soon I’ll rule!’” Whedon tells EW. Cue trouble, and for more on what that entails, head to EW’s site.

Avengers: Age Of Ultron features Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Chris Hemsworth, Samuel L. Jackson and Cobie Smulders back together again alongside an array of new and old friends including James Spader (as Ultron via performance capture), Paul Bettany, Elizabeth Olsen, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Andy Serkis and Thomas Kretschmann. It’ll be out in the UK on April 24 next year.

from Empire News