How Hank Pym Merged with Ultron

Despite his extensive super hero career as Ant-Man, Hank Pym can never quite escape his legacy as the creator of a sinister villain: Ultron. Hank and Ultron share a particularly bitter and twisted father-son dynamic that has led them to clash on numerous occasions, including multiple battles against the Avengers. 

This creator and his most shameful creation became inexorably tied together when they merged into a single composite being. Here is the complex and violent history between Hank Pym and Ultron, culminating in how they merged into the entity known as Ultron Pym.

CREATOR AND CREATION

While experimenting with robotics and artificial intelligence, Hank Pym used his own brain patterns to create Ultron in AVENGERS (1963) #58. Upon gaining sentience, Ultron immediately rebelled against his creator and upgraded himself. He also hypnotized Hank into forgetting he created Ultron in the first place, so he could work against the hero in secrecy. 

Since he was programmed using Hank’s neural patterns, Ultron developed an intense hatred towards Hank and an unhealthy interest in Hank’s girlfriend and eventual wife Janet Van Dyne. As a result, Ultron launched his vendetta by creating an iteration of the Masters of Evil in AVENGERS (1963) #55 and attacked the Avengers, after which he attempted to frame Edwin Jarvis for the plot. 

This kickstarted a long-standing feud between the heroes and Ultron, the latter of whom continually upgraded himself for renewed conflicts while maintaining his deep grudge against Hank. For his part, Hank felt deeply guilty about his role in Ultron’s creation, which made him believe he had become a liability and failure as a scientist, with the strain eventually ending his marriage to Janet in AVENGERS (1963) #214.

RAGE OF ULTRON

An exiled version of Ultron resurfaced in AVENGERS: RAGE OF ULTRON (2015) when he crash-landed on the planet Titan and assimilated the Eternals into his techno-organic collective through use of nanites. Starfox fled to Earth to warn the Avengers just as Ultron maneuvered Titan to approach the planet. 

When Ultron arrived, he released an army of robots to battle the heroes while his nanite spores assimilated Earth. Hank, Vision, and a handful of other heroes who evaded the nanites came up with a last-ditch effort to defeat Ultron. Hank distracted Ultron, while Vision used Hank’s neural inhibitor to destroy Ultron.

As Hank spoke with Ultron, Vision phased into the robot to gain enough control to use the inhibitor, only for Hank to instinctively embrace Ultron as his creation reacted in pain. This coincided with Vision emerging from Ultron, causing Hank to phase into Ultron, effectively merging the creator and his creation into a single entity. 

Using his empathetic powers, Starfox convinced Ultron Pym to let go of his deep-seated sense of self-loathing and begin to love himself, causing Ultron to abandon his villainous plans. He fled to parts unknown to reconcile with what he had become.

ULTRON ASSUMES CONTROL

During his time away, Ultron became the dominant personality of the merged consciousnesses, fueled in part by Hank’s own negative thoughts and tendencies. Returning to Earth and reuniting with the Avengers in UNCANNY AVENGERS (2015) #9, Ultron claimed Hank had asserted himself as the primary personality within the shared body. After Janet realized the truth about Ultron’s deception, she and the Avengers battled him until they trapped him in an empty Hulkbuster armor and programmed it to fly into the sun.

Ultron survived this defeat by using Hank’s Ant-Man technology to shrink himself. Thanks to solar winds, Ultron was eventually blown back to Earth, where he created a city of Ultrons for himself in Alaska. Learning of the emergence of the Infinity Stones in INFINITY COUNTDOWN (2018), Ultron tried to obtain them for himself, but Adam Warlock and the Silver Surfer successfully drove him back into hiding in the depths of the cosmos in INFINITY COUNTDOWN (2018) #4.

THE ULTRON AGENDA

Rather than reject and suppress Hank outright, Ultron came to believe that human-robot synthesis was the true path towards creating the ultimate form of life. Returning to Earth in TONY STARK: IRON MAN (2018) #16, Ultron secretly set up his headquarters in the abandoned Avengers Mansion and began creating cyborgs out of human victims. Ultron kidnaped Janet and Jocasta, determined to merge them and make them a composite individual worthy of his shared state with Hank.

Iron Man managed to save Janet and Jocasta, albeit temporarily, after he became merged with his own armor due to Ultron’s machinations. Through the cyborgs he created, Ultron learned with horror that the humanity of the merged beings he created died during the process, with their human consciousness remaining only as an advanced simulation. Following this, Ultron ended up confined to a vibranium case enchanted with Asgardian magic, set to be exiled to the Microverse, in ANT-MAN (2022) #3.

ULTRON OF ASGARD

Drawing upon Hank’s knowledge once again, Ultron used his ability to speak with insects to instruct the villainous Black Ant to free him, only to accidentally end up in the 25th century. Allying himself with Loki, Ultron conquered the Asgard of this future timeline until an alternate universe Doctor Doom led an Avengers team of heroes from different realities to confront him in AVENGERS: ULTRON FOREVER (2015) #1. This ensemble included three different versions of Thor, who banished Ultron after the robot gained the power of the Asgardian All-Father in NEW AVENGERS: ULTRON FOREVER (2015) #1.

This All-Father Ultron managed to resurface a century later, only to face off against four different time-displaced versions of Ant-Man, including Hank Pym. Using Time Master technology, the Ant-Men reverted Ultron into his previous forms in ANT-MAN (2022) #4. Before sending his robotic nemesis away, Hank used a fraction of the All-Father’s power to seemingly separate himself from Ultron—or so he thought at the time.

AVENGERS INC.

Believing Ultron remained on the loose, Hank assembled a new Lethal Legion through his signature ant technology in AVENGERS INC. (2023) #4. Too late, Hank realized he was not only still mentally connected to Ultron, but that his creation was subtly controlling him all along, using this new Lethal Legion to rebuild himself. Each figure Hank resurrected through his ants contained bits of Ultron’s programming, including Vic Shade, a persona inhabiting the body of deceased villain Whirlwind.

In a rare moment of control, Hank programmed Vic to be a more heroic figure, free of the evil Ultron’s influence. Working with Janet, Vic stopped Ultron’s attempt to build a new host body and appeared to purge Ultron from Hank in AVENGERS INC. (2023) #5. Freed of Ultron’s influence, Hank retreated back to the Microverse to continue his work and make amends for his time under the thrall of his creation.

THE GOSPEL OF ULTRON

While merged with Hank, Ultron quietly created a small group of drones for himself, each possessing their own free will instead belonging to a collective hive mind. As a new iteration of the West Coast Avengers took shape with its own heroic version of Ultron, a different Ultron created a cult that promised converts they could join the singularity if they became cyborgs. In WEST COAST AVENGERS (2024) #3, the heroic Ultron and his religiously sinister counterpart come face-to-face.

Just like the Ultron that faced Iron Man earlier, the religious version of Ultron believed the fusion of organic and synthetic life was the ultimate evolution of both. Though Hank and Ultron remain separated, their time together continues to haunt the Marvel Universe, most recently with Ultron trying to start his own techno-organic cult to torment the West Coast Avengers.

Join the singularity in WEST COAST AVENGERS (2024) #3, on sale now!

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