First Look at 'The Avengers: Age of Ultron'

Entertainment Weekly's Upcoming Cover
For It's July 25th Issue

In 2012, writer/director Joss Whedon changed superhero films forever with Marvel's The Avengers. Not only was it the highest grossing movie of all-time but it was also highly critically acclaimed and loved by audiences everywhere. Fast forward two years later and mostly everyone is anticipating the sequel, The Avengers: Age of Ultron. The pieces are coming together for Age of Ultron as Disney's "Phase Two" for the Marvel is almost complete. So far audiences have gotten Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, and Captain America: The Winter Soldier. The highly anticipated Guardians of the Galaxy comes out in less than a month on August 1, 2014, and then Phase Two will be completed with Age of Ultron on May 1, 2015. Disney has done a brilliant job with the Marvel Cinematic Universe if I do say so my self and I am very much looking forward to Age of Ultron like everyone else. Well, today was an extremely special day because we finally got our first look at the highly anticipated sequel.

That is right ladies and gentlemen, today we got our first official look at Age of Ultron as Entertainment Weekly released the cover for their upcoming Comic-Con issue along with a few photo stills for film and a summary of the plot. First, let me start off by showing you these sweet new stills!

From what I've gathered, the plot goes a little something like this (includes Iron Man 3 spoilers): At the end of Iron Man 3, Tony decides that he is done being Iron Man. It is time for him to settle down. Instead of protecting the world himself he decides to create "Ultron", an artificial intelligence program that is self-aware and is suppose to detect threats and neutralize those threats as Iron Man would. Tony also gives Ultron the power to control his Iron Legion of drones that he had built; that way they could help Ultron fight crime. All of this is suppose to help Tony and The Avengers as they would just have to sit back and let Ultron do all the heavy lifting. But of course there is a down side to all of this. Ultron realizes that all possibilities of crime could be eliminated if he just got rid of the human species. Robots eliminating the human species; isn't that the plot for the Terminator movies?

This is how director Joss Whedon describes Ultron:

 "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!’ He’s on a mission. He wants to save us.”

So far everything looks and sounds awesome! The stills look incredible and the plot sounds pretty interesting. As of right now I am loving the designs for all the characters; especially Ultron. I have never read the comics so I don't know much about Ultron other than the fact that he was originally created by Hank Pym, but he looks like a total bad-ass on the cover of this magazine. I am really interested into seeing where the character of Ultron is going. At first I was a little skeptical when I heard that the plot was going to revolve around robots killing off humans, but after reading Whedon's comments on Ultron as a character my faith was restored. Other then Ultron everyone else looks pretty awesome. It's good to see Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) and Bruce Banner (Mark Ruffalo) side by side again. Thor (Chris Hemsworth) and The Captain (Chris Evans) looks so cool standing by each other. Scarlett Johansson still looks great as Black Widow. Then again, when doesn't Scarlett Johansson look great? Jeremy Renner looks so cool as Hawkeye. Even Don Cheadle is joining The Avengers on this adventure, and that is pretty cool to me! We also got to see the Wanda and Pietro Maximoff (AKA Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver) in these stills. Elizabeth Olsen looks fantastic as Scarlet Witch, but I still think Aaron Taylor-Johnson looks a little out of place as Quicksilver. Maybe it's just because of the silly blonde wig.

I know it's hard to judge a movie by a magazine cover and photo stills, but so far The Avengers: Age of Ultron looks like it's heading down the right track. But we already knew that because Disney has done an amazing job at crafting this universe. Every single one of these Marvel films have been successfully both critically and financially. These films may not be for everyone, but they certainly make the fan boys and fan girls (like myself) very happy. Marvel has shown that they care about their fan base and that they will do anything to make them happy. Right now we are about nine and a half months away from witnessing The Avenger: Age of Ultron. That may seem like a long time from now but trust me when I say that it'll be hear before you know it. Until then enjoy these stills! I'm sure we'll be getting a lot more Age of Ultron news next week because Comic-Con is next week and it has already been confirmed that the cast of the film will be there for an Avengers panel.

The Avengers: Age of Ultron is set to come out on May 1, 2015. The film is directed by Joss Whedon and stars Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, Scarlett Johansson, Jeremy Renner, Elizabeth Olsen, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and Samuel L. Jackson.

I do not own any of the photos used. Those belong to Entertainment Weekly.