In 2015, Marvel released an original Avengers graphic novel by Rick Remender and Jerome Opeña entitled Avengers: Rage of Ultron. At the time, the book was meant to coincide with the release of the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Avengers: Age of Ultron by shining a spotlight on the team's mechanical nemesis. Set firmly in the current comics continuity, the OGN told a decades-spanning tale that saw the Avengers take on the resurgent threat of Hank Pym's nefarious creation, the villainous robot known as Ultron.
While the book was self-contained, Remender recently revealed that it was originally meant to be the start of a new Avengers run that ultimately never happened. "I was going to take over the Avengers after Secret Wars but left to go work on X-Men," the writer wrote on Twitter. "Rage of Ultron was setting up my Avengers stuff."
Coincidentally, this past April 1 marked the five-year anniversary of the release of Avengers: Rage of Ultron. Now, we're taking a look back at the graphic novel and everything that went down in it and where it could have led, had Remender's original plans remained.
Rage of Ultron begins with a flashback to a time when an older version of the Avengers took on Ultron when the villainous artificial intelligence was still in its infancy. It's a difficult battle, but Earth's Mightiest Heroes are eventually able to defeat the supervillain and exile him into space. However, that is far from the end of their troubles. Years later, in the present, the shuttle that once carried the defeated Ultron crashes into Saturn's moon Titan, home of the Eternals and the Mad Titan, Thanos.
Ultron is quick to assimilate every single inhabitant on the planet, taking over both technology and lifeforms alike. He essentially ends up transforming the entire moon into Planet Ultron, and only Starfox -- Thanos' brother and a former Avenger -- is able to escape. Eros travels directly to Earth, where he warns the Avengers -- who are now comprised of Sam Wilson's Captain America, Vision, Spider-Man, Jane Foster's Thor, Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Wasp and Sabretooth -- of Ultron's coming.
The emotional crux of the book is carried by Hank Pym, aka Giant-Man, father and creator of Ultron, who joins the Avengers in their fight against his son. Rage of Ultron focuses greatly on the relationship between the two. The robot threatens not only the Earth, but the entire universe, as he plans on using consciousness spores to infect every single being in the cosmos to transform them into himself. Thankfully, the Avengers are able to defeat him, but it comes at a great cost -- Hank Pym is lost, after having merged with Ultron. The last we see of this Pym-tron, he is unconscious, frozen in the depths of space, and the Avengers are left to mourn his loss.
Now that we know Rage of Ultron was supposed to be the start of Rick Remender's Avengers run, the ending of the OGN might hold clues as to what the writer had in store for Earth's Mightiest Heroes. First of all, his roster of the super-team seemed to be established. On top of the eight Avengers who join the fight against Ultron in the present, the end of the book also seemed to confirm Eros was set to join the team of superheroes once again.
With a member of the Eternals on the team, it's more than likely Remender's run would have gone full cosmic. It's no wonder Pym-tron was left in the depths of space -- the Hank Pym/Ultron hybrid would have probably returned sooner or later in the series, and it would have been interesting to see how his revised Avengers roster would have reacted to the merged character. What's more, Remender's run could have also continued to examine the robotic side of the Marvel Universe, as the graphic novel focused heavily on the idea of life for androids such as Vision, the Descendants and Ultron himself.
Rage of Ultron gave us a brief look at the fun interactions between the members of the Avengers that included classic characters and new additions alike. The added presence of a now-heroic Sabretooth was unexpected, but the mutant was quickly proving himself to be a fun addition to the team. There would have surely been plenty more fun interactions between team members, especially as we may have learned more about Jane Foster's Thor, whose identity was still a secret at the time.
Since Remender took the X-Men to stratospheric new heights with Uncanny X-Force, he and his collaborators would have delivered something just as epic -- if not more -- for the Avengers.