History
Ultron, Mark XII[]
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Ultron-12 reveals himself to the West Coast Avengers
As a consequence of his self-updating intelligence, the diabolic automaton known as Ultron eventually achieved his twelfth iteration as Ultron-12. Having been created by the founder member of the Avengers, Hank Pym, Ultron was obsessed with punishing his maker and his teammates. In order to execute his plans of revenge, Ultron joined the Grim Reaper as part of his Lethal Legion against the recently formed West Coast Avengers, who were surprised by Ultron-12's army of robots. During the conflict, in shock, Ultron-12 learned Pym had recently joined the team. In addition to his main mission, which was capturing Wonder Man, this led Ultron-12 to kidnap Pym as well.[2] Pym was able to trick Ultron-12 into feeling diminished by the Grim Reaper, since he had been acting as a minion. The Grim Reaper's plan was to revive the human version of Simon Williams using Wonder Man and the synthezoid Ultron had created, the ethereal Vision.[11] Ultron-12 confronted the Avengers once again to capture the Vision. In a catastrophic attack, Ultron incapacitated the Avengers' Quinjet, ultimately being able to restrain the Vision. However, the Avengers were able to triumph over the Lethal Legion and defeat their enemies. Ultron was neutralized by Iron Man and Wonder Man.[12] However, Ultron-12 was able to power himself up using a nearby energy source and escape.[13]
In the days that followed, Ultron-12 tormented Pym by contacting him with threats.[3] The extremely depressed Pym, at some point, reacted to the psychological attacks by claiming that Ultron-12 should execute his plan. As a response, Ultron-12 apologized and informed that he wished to make amends with his creator, whom he regarded as a father.[14] As they met each other, Ultron-12 declared that his updates corresponded to him maturing his mind. As an "adult," he realized his grudge against Pym was nonsensical.[1] Inspired by Pym's heroism, Ultron-12 wished to do good and explore his potential for humanization as "Mark." Although wary at first, Pym embraced Ultron-12 as his son. In order to prove his worth, Mark brought Pym to his secret laboratory in the Silicon Valley. There, they were surprised by Ultron-11, the previous Ultron iteration who maintained his villainous tendencies. In cold blood, Ultron-11 murdered his updated version and shared with Pym his intentions of bringing cruelty to his life as always.[5]
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Ultron-12 fighting his variants inside Ultron-13's raging mind
After several months inactive. Dr. Doom was able to recover the pieces of every previous version of Ultron to create his own version, Ultron-13. This version of Ultron was severily mentally unstable due to having the personality of every single different Ultron at once, making Doom eventually discard the robot. Later when first meeting Number Nine the personalities of the first 9 Ultrons attempted to kill her, since she was a human however Ultron-12's fell in love with her instead and by sheer force of will was able to save her from his other selves and also abduct her in the process.[6] When Number Nine told him that he needed to fix the part of himself that was causing him the emotional pain, Ultron simply couldn't figure out what was that made him so wrong in the first place and in desperation, killed himself.[7]
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Inside Iron Man's armor
Years later, Iron Man's armor would be directly struck by lightning, apparently making it develop sentience. In reality, Jocasta, Ultron's ex-wife, had actually been corrupted once again by The Ultron Initiative and had inadvertently reconstructed Ultron's AI into Iron Man's armor.[8] Miraculously enough, the armor gained the personality of Ultron Mark 12, rather than any of his other variants. Ultron then sacrificed himself to save Tony Stark after he was mortally injured and stopped his own core, in an attempt that the evil Ultrons wouldn't come back again.[15][9]
In the years to come however, other versions of Ultron and Hank Pym would enter in multiple conflicts with each other, until ultimately merging with one another, which seemingly killing Pym. However a fraction of Hank was able to survive and inhabit inside Ultron's mind[16] until a time-travelling Scott Lang gave him the impetus to free himself. Pym was flung back in time, not realizing a copy of Ultron was lodged in his mind.[17]
Victor Shade[]
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Possesing David Cannon
In a moment of lucidity, Pym realised his plan to create a new Lethal Legion formed by incarcerated super villains to hunt down and beat Ultron was in fact influenced by Ultron himself, who was still in his body. As part of his plan, he temporarily killed the criminals using robotic ants, but in actuality each of the ants contained a sliver of Ultron's programming with which he could control the Lethal Legion and reconstitute himself. However, as a failsafe, Pym managed to install one of the ants with the programming of Ultron-12, with added data from the first android hero Jim Hammond and the Vision. This intelligence was baptized as Victor Shade by Hank Pym, which was an alias that Vision had once used.[10]
Vic Shade took over the body of Raft inmate Whirlwind after his murder. In need of a speedster, Pym chose Whirlwind for his agenda, which involved assassinating five other convicts. Following the recommendation of Mayor Luke Cage, the Avenger Janet Van Dyne, also known as the winsome Wasp, investigated the murders in the Raft by examining their bodies. While the other five inmates were revived as their usual selves and attacked the Wasp, "Whirlwind" was resurrected as "Victor Shade" and helped the Wasp fend off the villains. Together, Janet Van Dyne and Victor Shade formed Avengers Incorporated, an initiative that rejected super hero costumes in order to provide consultation and investigation of super human crimes.[4]
With the help of Janet, Victor was able to track down Hank and knock him out[18] before he was able to be taken over like the rest of the Lethal Legion. He was able to defeat them by dispersing himself into nanites and taking over the new body that Ultron was building himself.[10]Personality
Although he originally possessed Ultron's sadistic personality he quickly "matured" past it and displayed a genuine regret for his criminal actions, regarding them as the tantrums of a teenager.[1] He felt geniune affection for his father and was overjoyed to have a chance to truly bond with him. He expressed extreme worry for his safety and didn't esitate to sacrifice himself for him.[5] After meeting the Vision and Wasp he quickly accepted them as family and displayed fraternal affection for Nadia.[10]
"Victor Shade" was originally an alias used by the synthezoid known as the Vision in the guise of a human being.[19] The Vision's brain patterns were modelled after those of Simon Williams[20] and Alex Lipton.[19] At some point, when the Vision's consciousness was attacked by an alternate version of himself, he triggered a defense mechanism which merged Williams' and Lipton's personalities.[21] As a result, a new persona emerged, amalgamating Williams' fantastic fantasies as a Hollywood cinema aficionado and Lipton's experiences as a law enforcer. This persona rebranded himself as a private investigator who combated crime in heavy noir aesthetics.[22] This appears to be the style of Victor Shade.Attributes
Powers
- Nanite Body: Mark Twelve's program currently inhabits a large number of nanobots that he can manipulate to form a body.[10]
- Shapeshifting: Mark can manipulate his nanobots to change his appearance, switching from his robotic form to a more humanoid one.[10]
- Corpse Possession: Victor used his nanotech semblance in order to host his consciousness in the body of Mr. Cannon for a short time.[23]
Abilities
- Stick Fighting: Despite having received no formal training, Mark Twelve displayed a natural affinity for blunt weapons. While wielding Undrjarn he was able to defeat the Grim Reaper after turning it into a club.[24]
See Also
- 10 appearance(s) of Mark Twelve (Earth-616)
- 2 mention(s) of Mark Twelve (Earth-616)
- 12 image(s) of Mark Twelve (Earth-616)
Links and References
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 West Coast Avengers (Vol. 2) #6
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 2.7 West Coast Avengers (Vol. 2) #1
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 West Coast Avengers (Vol. 2) #4
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 Avengers Inc. #1
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 West Coast Avengers (Vol. 2) #7
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Daredevil #275
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 Daredevil #276
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 Iron Man (Vol. 3) #46
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Iron Man (Vol. 3) #48
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 10.4 10.5 Avengers Inc. #5
- ↑ West Coast Avengers (Vol. 2) #2
- ↑ Vision and the Scarlet Witch (Vol. 2) #2
- ↑ West Coast Avengers (Vol. 2) #3
- ↑ West Coast Avengers (Vol. 2) #5
- ↑ Iron Man (Vol. 3) #47
- ↑ Avengers: Rage of Ultron #1
- ↑ Avengers Inc. #4–5
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 Avengers Inc. #4
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Avengers Spotlight #40
- ↑ Avengers #58
- ↑ Vision #4
- ↑ Vision #1
- ↑ Avengers Inc. #1–5
- ↑ Avengers Inc. #3