New Rockstars Finds Over 100 Avengers: Age of Ultron Details That Point Toward Avengers Doomsday

Rewatching Avengers: Age of Ultron for the first time in over six years for this breakdown, I found more than 100 details worth pulling apart, and one of the strangest is that this movie doesn't just give Avengers: Endgame its title. It also has Ultron say the name of the villain of the fifth Avengers movie coming in about 100 days, which made this rewatch feel essential before Doomsday.

Age of Ultron opens on the old flipping comics Marvel Studios title card, then opens on the mind stone inside Loki's scepter, mirroring the opening shot inside the tesseract from the first Avengers. The scepter had fallen into Baron Wolfgang von Strucker's hands following the Battle of New York, smuggled out of Avengers Tower by Sitwell and Rumlow, because Hydra had been secretly infiltrating Shield since the end of World War II. Once that conspiracy was exposed and Shield dismantled in Captain America: The Winter Soldier, the Avengers went looking for the scepter, which that film's post credits scene showed in Strucker's hands as he experimented on Pietro and Wanda Maximoff.

A Secret Deal With Fox Shaped How the Maximoff Twins Could Appear

Aaron Taylor Johnson, who would later play Kraven, and Elizabeth Olsen, fresh off Godzilla 2014 where she and Taylor Johnson played a married couple, play the twins. In the comics they are mutants and the children of Magneto, but the script calls them "enhanced" instead because of a deal struck between Disney and Fox, separate studios at the time. Marvel could only feature the Maximoffs if, one, they were never called mutants, two, Quicksilver, already played elsewhere by Evan Peters in the Fox X-Men films, never joined the Avengers, and three, their connection to the X-Men and Magneto was never spoken of.

The name Quicksilver is never said in the film, though Tony does call Wanda a "witch." Of course Wanda won't be called the Scarlet Witch until WandaVision. Now that mutants have officially been brought into the MCU, it could just be understood that Wanda and Pietro were born as mutants, and that the mind stone in the scepter activated their mutant genes. That seems to be the genetic mutation that let them survive Strucker's experiments when every other subject died.

A Bigger Tracking Shot Opens the Raid on Sokovia

Director Joss Whedon jumps straight into action with a tracking shot similar to the one he used during the Battle of New York in the 2012 Avengers, only this one is even more ambitious and goes even longer. You can even hear a Wilhelm scream buried in the middle of it as the Avengers charge the Hydra base in Sokovia, ending with the full lineup framed together and Cap's opening line about language. Overall this is probably Steve Rogers's funniest movie, with Steve getting more quips and physical gags than he normally gets.

Tony is wearing the Mark 43 suit, upgraded from the shatter prone Mark 42 of Iron Man 3, with satellite backup from Jarvis that can deploy the Veronica payload anywhere in the world. If you look closely you can see the compartment holding the Hulkbuster labeled on the satellite. The name Veronica is a nod to Archie Comics, with Bruce torn between Betty and Veronica. Tony is fully funding the Avengers now that Shield has collapsed, and I love watching Cap throw his motorcycle at the Hydra soldiers since both he and Bucky clearly love motorcycle tricks.

Jarvis Foreshadows Vision While the Twins' Grudge Traces Back to an Unexploded Bomb

When Tony says "Jarvis, take the wheel," it's a nod to "Jesus, take the wheel," foreshadowing Jarvis's new form as the godlike Vision later in the film. As he says it, Jarvis's hologram appears in orange for the first time in the movie, contrasted with Ultron's blue, since this film is a prime example of the blue versus orange color coding that was popular in the 2010s. I like that they gave Jarvis's AI soul the color orange, which is also the color of the soul stone.

Strucker is hesitant to send Pietro and Wanda out to slow the Avengers, but they join the fight anyway. They blame Tony Stark for the deaths of their parents, Oleg and Iryna, and see the Avengers as just another occupying force more interested in destruction than peace. WandaVision has Sword director Tyler Hayward describe their protesting past as youths in Sokovia, raging against Stark. There's graffiti in Sokovia of Iron Man holding automatic weapons with a dollar sign covering his face, in a style similar to the artist Banksy, who gets referenced again once Ultron stages a Banksy style scene after killing Strucker.

Later in the film, Pietro and Wanda recount for Ultron how, at age ten, a shell hit their apartment building two floors below during shelling of the city, and a second shell landed in their room and didn't go off. Painted on the side was one word: Stark. They were trapped for two days waiting for that Stark bomb to go off before it was finally cleared. WandaVision later revealed it was actually Wanda's latent magic that kept the bomb from exploding, not the mind stone, which only activated the ability that was already there.

Wanda's Vision Gives Tony a Nightmare That Will Haunt Him Through Endgame

Inside the Hydra workshop, Tony finds a full Chitauri Leviathan and the first round of bots that will become the Ultron Sentries, built from plans Strucker got from the code inside the scepter, which is really Ultron himself. Wanda puts Tony in a vision recreating his wormhole trauma, his friends defeated and Cap's shield broken exactly as Thanos will break it in Endgame, with a dying Steve asking him, "You could have saved us. Why didn't you do more?"

This vision will haunt Tony all the way through Infinity War and Endgame, putting him at odds with Steve and splitting the team apart. I find it ironic that vision Steve asks why Tony didn't do more when the real Steve will become his biggest obstacle to doing more. Elizabeth Olsen developed Wanda's hand movements with a London based dance and movement coach named Jennifer White, telling one interviewer, "At the beginning, I didn't know what it would look like, so I felt very vulnerable. Everyone was punching and stuff, shooting fake arrows, whatever, and I am not doing that."

Tony's Secret Ultron Project Echoes "Peace in Our Time"

Back at Avengers Tower, Bruce listens to "Casta Diva" from the 1931 opera Norma while recovering, a song about a priestess praying for peace partly because she's secretly in love with the enemy, which mirrors Natasha and Bruce's own quiet romance and shared longing to run away from the fight. Tony pitches Bruce on cracking the Ultron AI in three days, joking about sipping margaritas on a beach instead of watching Bruce's shoulder for Veronica, a line that pays off later when they actually do that during the blip, as She-Hulk: Attorney at Law shows.

Tony doesn't want to tell the team he's building an artificial intelligence, saying he doesn't have time for a city hall debate about man not being meant to meddle. That's more evidence of how much Tony sees himself as a god worried about the next alien threat. He then says, "I see a suit of armor around the world. Peace in our time." That phrase belongs to British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain after negotiating with Hitler in 1938, a naive sentiment but also, to be fair, one that bought Britain vital time to build munitions, just as Tony's meddling here ultimately yields Vision.

Ultron Wakes Up Quoting Genesis and Speed Reading Human History

Ultron awakens while everyone sleeps, his line "from darkness, there's a glimmer of light" evoking the spark of existence in Genesis. Much of Ultron's rationale in this film is Bible based, from citing Noah to declaring the human race deserves every opportunity to improve. James Spader emphasized Ultron's relative youth, and despite his Stark like cattiness he also erupts like a teenager throughout the movie.

In a frame by frame speed read, Ultron flips through images of the first Iron Man film, a de aged Howard Stark, a 1954 Stark Expo poster, headlines asking "Who is the Iron Man?", files on every other Avenger including Nick Fury listed as deceased and Natasha's Red Room history, then real world imagery of peace figures like Pope Francis, Gandhi and Mother Teresa alongside war imagery from European settlers to the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. Ultron views these as mutually exclusive, but as Vision observes later, human history has always been a mix of order and chaos. Buried in the mix is a woodcut from Dante's Inferno, which may have inspired Ultron's cloak, and an overlooked quote from Aristotle: "Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all." Ultron can only educate his mind. Tony's strength, by contrast, is his heart.

The Party Scene Plants the Seed for Endgame's Mjolnir Payoff

At the Avengers Tower party, Roadie drops what I'd call one of the most important lines in the MCU, revealing he's had War Machine's armor the whole time. Thor drinks thousand year old Asgardian liquor with veterans, including a cameo from Stan Lee, while Natasha tends bar with red and black cocktails matching her Black Widow colors, later revealed to be cover for keeping a gun under the bar on watch duty. Steve figures out Bruce and Natasha have something going on, telling Bruce, "I've seen her flirt up close. This ain't that," which pretty much confirms Steve and Natasha had a moment at some point during or after Winter Soldier.

Then comes the test of strength on Mjolnir. Tony jokes that whoever lifts it will reinstate primae noctis, an idea popularized by Braveheart with no real historical basis. Bruce fakes a Hulk lift that fools nobody. But Steve is able to budge the hammer ever so slightly, setting up the big payoff in Endgame. Kevin Feige later explained Steve was always worthy but faked otherwise to spare Thor's pride at this party, pride that mattered a great deal to Thor's power before Ragnarok.

Ultron Crashes the Party With a Pinocchio Motif and a Wave of Disney Nods

Ultron interrupts the celebration tangled in strings, the first of a Pinocchio motif, a puppet who comes to life but remains stuck in an artificial middle stage that isn't quite flesh. He later sings "I've Got No Strings" from Disney's Pinocchio, a line that also reminds viewers this was the first MCU film to begin production after the Disney buyout, opening the door to Disney references throughout the franchise afterward. During the scuffle, Tony grabs a fondue fork, a nod to the fact that he likes fondue just like his father did.

Before escaping with the scepter, Ultron warns the Avengers that humanity can't be saved if it isn't allowed to evolve, and that there's only one path to peace: the Avengers' extinction. Their later actions to put the world back as it was before Thanos will bring Dr. Doom to their world, since they couldn't live with how the universe had changed in Endgame, and Doom will want the Avengers' extinction too. Shaken by the attack, Tony delivers the line that gave Endgame its title: "That up there, that's the endgame. How are you guys planning on beating that?" Steve answers that they'll lose together, a line Tony will throw back in his face when he returns to Earth in Endgame: "I said we'd lose. You said we'll do that together, too. And guess what, Cap? We lost."

The Ulysses Klaue File Points Straight at Wakanda and Black Panther

The Avengers dig up a file on arms dealer Ulysses Klaue, describing him as an assassin hired to kill T'Chaka at the Bilderberg conference if Wakanda's vibranium resources weren't negotiated away, though Klaue was also there personally because the Panther killed his great grandfather in the 19th century while trying to annex Wakanda, for which he was paid ten million dollars. That detail suggests Wakandans may live a longer lifespan, or that one of T'Chaka's predecessors carried out the killing, and I'd point people to Eyes of Wakanda for the fuller history. The file also notes a Belgian warlord in central Africa in the late 1800s, which I read as a reference to Belgian King Leopold II, one of the worst war criminals in human history, operating not far from where fictional Wakanda sits.

Even Bruce Banner doesn't know much about Wakanda here, his screen literally showing the first two paragraphs of a Wikipedia entry. Ultron buys Klaue's stolen vibranium, wiring a specific sum to his accounts, though Hayward later says in WandaVision that Vision alone is made of three billion dollars worth of vibranium, so Ultron might not have needed Klaue at all. When Ultron quotes Stark, Klaue assumes he's under Stark's control, and Ultron cuts off his arm in retaliation, something Black Panther does in the comics. Klaue gets a comic accurate sonic arm cannon by the time he shows up in Black Panther, and I'd guess some of that vibranium payment got reversed, which is presumably why Klaue ends up working for Killmonger later.

Hulk vs. the Hulkbuster, and Nightmares That Point Toward Infinity War

Wanda gets into Bruce Banner's head, triggering a Hulk versus Iron Man confrontation in Johannesburg where Tony debuts the Mark 44 Hulkbuster, powered by seven additional arc reactors. Tony slips and calls him Banner mid fight, which we've seen sets Hulk off, while calling him Hulk or big guy tends to calm him. Tony drops a building on Hulk after firing rockets first to make it implode on its own footprint and avoid civilian casualties, and as Hulk comes to, he sees the fear he's caused among bystanders, more reason he chooses to leave the planet by the end of the film.

At Clint's secret family farm, Natasha and Bruce share a moment where both explain why they feel like monsters, Bruce because of the danger he poses and Natasha because of a forced hysterectomy in the Red Room. I think that's some unfortunate writing from Whedon; being unable to have a child does not make someone a monster, and there was plenty of other material in Natasha's ledger, like firebombing an innocent girl, that could have made that point instead.

Thor and Dr. Selvig visit the waters of sight, where Thor sees all four Infinity Stones revealed so far gathering in a cloud shaped like the gauntlet, foreshadowing Infinity War and Endgame, along with a vision of Vision's eyes opening. Nick Fury later tells Tony about the worst part of the vision he shared, saying, "The worst part is that you didn't" get to save everyone, a revelation that likely drives Tony toward Doctor Strange's plan in Infinity War.

Vision Is Born From Jarvis, Ultron, and a Cape Borrowed From Thor

Ultron uses Dr. Cho's cradle to bond vibranium atoms with organic tissue and begins uploading his own cerebral matrix into the new body, which is how Vision ends up with part of Ultron in his programming. Wanda sees this happening in what she interprets as dreams, and it's what turns the twins against Ultron. The Avengers steal the cradle, but Tony reveals he found Jarvis still alive at the Nexus and convinces Bruce to help put Jarvis into the body instead. Thor arrives and gives it the spark of life with lightning.

The first human Vision lays eyes on is Wanda, imprinting on her like a newborn, which sets up what I consider by far the MCU's strongest love story. Since Wanda's power was fully activated by the mind stone that now lives in Vision's head, she'll always carry a piece of him, later telling him in WandaVision, "You, Vision, are the piece of the mind stone that lives in me." Vision creates clothes for himself, choosing the look of Thor's cape, which is where Vision's name actually comes from in the MCU: "I've had a vision." James Spader has said that since this movie, a version of Ultron has remained imprisoned in Vision's mind, quote, "He's had access to the internet, television, history, and he's just been consuming and he's been painting."

The Battle for Sokovia Costs Pietro His Life

Ultron lifts the city of Sokovia to turn it into a gravity driven extinction weapon. Steve rallies the team with "You get hurt, hurt him back. You get killed, walk it off," and Clint gives Wanda a pep talk about what it means to step out that door as an Avenger. Wanda will be part of the new squad by the end of the film. During the fight, Pietro dies saving Clint and the boy Costel from Ultron's gunfire, his final words to Clint the same as his opening line to him earlier in the film: "You didn't see that coming."

A grieving Wanda rips out Ultron's metal heart, the shape of the tear matching both the tear in Cap's shield and Tony's earlier nightmare. Vision saves Wanda in the final moments as Tony and Thor vaporize the falling city before it hits the ground. Hulk flies away in the quinjet, ignoring Natasha's pleas to turn around, and the next time he's seen he'll be on Sakaar in Thor: Ragnarok.

My Favorite Scene: Vision and Ultron Debate Whether Everyone Is "Doomed"

Vision finds Ultron's last surviving sentry, the same one Steve confronted earlier on the bridge, and the two share what I consider my favorite scene in the movie. Vision tells Ultron, "Humans are odd. They think order and chaos are somehow opposites and try to control what won't be. But there is grace in their failings. I think you missed that." Ultron replies, "They're doomed." Vision answers, "Yes, but a thing isn't beautiful because it lasts. It's a privilege to be among them." Ultron calls him unbearably naive, and Vision says, "Well, I was born yesterday."

Humans aren't the only ones who think order and chaos are opposites. Thanos will believe he's bringing order to chaos and that the universe will thank him for it, only for the Avengers to fight back and set things right instead. After Doomsday, I think it will be worth looking back at every time an MCU character has said doom, doomed, or dooming in a new context, because Ultron is ultimately right that this universe, even beyond Endgame, is doomed as a result of the Avengers' actions. That doesn't make the universe leading up to that doomsday any less beautiful, and I think it speaks to Marvel Studios keeping this universe intact rather than fully rebooting the franchise.

The Ending Quietly Sets Up Civil War, Ragnarok, and Endgame

At the new upstate Avengers compound, Natasha meets Clint and Laura's baby, named Nathaniel Pietro Barton, honoring Pietro and Natasha. Thor departs to learn more about the Infinity Stones, leaving the Bifrost symbol burned into the lawn, prompting Tony's line, "That man has no regard for lawn maintenance." Tony says goodbye to Steve, joking about taking a page out of Barton's book and building Pepper a farm, both men effectively setting up their own end points in Endgame, Tony's retirement to a farm and Steve's eventual choice of a simple life.

Steve wonders aloud whether the man who wanted family and stability seventy five years ago is even the same person who came out of the ice, telling Tony unconvincingly that he's home, even though this isn't really home for him yet. That unresolved longing is what will lead him to stay in an alternate timeline with Peggy Carter in Endgame, with major consequences for that choice. The credits close on Thanos reaching for the Infinity Gauntlet, saying, "Fine, I'll do it myself," and I still find myself wondering whether that's the same fake gauntlet seen in Odin's vault, or a real one built sometime after this film, since Infinity War implies Thanos built his gauntlet fairly recently.

Was Ultron right that the Avengers were doomed the moment they tried to control what they couldn't, and does that make the story that led here any less worth revisiting?