The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 319: Age of Ultron #10, August 2013

Bendis does something quite lovely here in returning the tale right back to where it began in Avengers 16.1. After the insanity of the previous 10+ issues, it's nice to see Ultron get what's coming to him. What's interesting, though, is that we experience this cathartic moment, this, and I won't be shy about it, vengeful moment, for something that Ultron has not yet, nor ever will do.

It's a very interesting facet of fiction, and particularly of time travel fiction, that our linear perspective of the narrative is not the same perspective of the characters that we've read the linear narrative about. Ultron perpetuates one of the most brutal genocides the Marvel U has ever seen, and we, you and I, witness it first hand, follow the adventurers through their attempts to fix this, only to wind up back at the start, before all these events, which is also the end.

Now, that said, the original iteration of 16.1 does not feature the defeat of Ultron, so we're left with the notion that there was an "original" timeline that was rewritten - in many ways this mirrors the set-up of DCs crisis-rewritten universes. There's always some holdover, someone or thing that remember the previous continuity, serving the function of keeping all those old stories in continuity, but also of acknowledging the long-time reader's emotional investment in those stories.

All this is to say that Ultron gets his ass handed to him, which he deserves, and everyone gets to live. I'm curious as to whether or not anyone's ever dealt with Wolverine and the Invisible Woman having lived through and remembered all of the events of AoU. You'd think that those two, at least, would be suffering some serious PTSD. But, as with many shattering events in superhero universes, they likely let it slide from their shoulders and their minds, and get on with their lives. Their abilities to cope with trauma are also super, it appears.

I know I said this was the end of the AoU, but there's actually an epilogue comic, written by none other than Mark Waid, and I happened to find it today while I was out comic hunting. So we'll actually finish up Age of Ultron tomorrow, and then get on to some quarter bin treasures. See you then.