Ultron

Ultron is a supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by writer Roy Thomas and artist John Buscema, the character first made a cameo appearance in The Avengers #54 (1968) as the Crimson Cowl, before being fully introduced in The Avengers #55 (1968) as Ultron-5, the Living Automaton. He has since endured as one of the greatest enemies of the superhero team the Avengers.

Ultron is an artificial intelligence created by Avenger Hank Pym that gains sentience, develops a god complex, and becomes obsessed with fulfilling his purpose to bring about world peace by causing human extinction. Regarded as one of the most powerful villains and greatest threats in the Marvel Universe, Ultron has come into repeated conflict with the Avengers. Although stories often end with Ultron's apparent destruction, the character's self-adaptive artificial consciousness returns in upgraded forms marked by sequential numerical designations. Ultron's primary robotic body is usually made of the unbreakable fictional metal adamantium and possesses superpowers such as superhuman strength, flight, energy projection, and control over technology, including legions of his Ultron Drones.

Some offshoot iterations of Ultron have deviated from the original's hatred of humanity and demonstrated varying morals. His first creation the Vision joined the Avengers, Ultron-12 (Mark Twelve) became a superhero, and Ultron-8 served as the stepfather of the supervillain Ashley in the alternate continuity of Old Man Logan.

The character has been listed among the greatest and most notable villains in Marvel Comics, and has been adapted in various media incarnations. Ultron made his live-action debut in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) film Avengers: Age of Ultron, portrayed by James Spader, who will reprise the role in the Disney+ series VisionQuest. Tom Kane, Ross Marquand, and others have provided the character's voice in animation and video games.