First Official ‘Avengers: Age Of Ultron’ Plot Points Released, Show Big Role For Iron Man

With Guardians of the Galaxy now secure as a hit franchise, Marvel is now gearing up to kick the Avengers: Age of Ultron hype train into overdrive, releasing on Tuesday the first official plot details for the inevitable blockbuster. This first snippet isn’t too heavy on spoilers, but it does tell us that the Avengers’ Tony Stark will likely have some blood on his hands by the time the credits roll.

We caught wind of the new Avengers: Age of Ultron synopsis by way of Comic Book Resources, which reproduced the official project profile for the next Avengers flick, courtesy of Disney. Hailing Age of Ultron as “the epic follow-up to the biggest Super Hero movie of all time,” the new plot snippet gives us a better idea of just how Ultron will come to be, as well as what kind of scope the Avengers will be dealing with.

“When Tony Stark tries to jumpstart a dormant peacekeeping program, things go awry and Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, including Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Incredible Hulk, Black Widow and Hawkeye, are put to the ultimate test as the fate of the planet hangs in the balance. As the villainous Ultron emerges, it is up to The Avengers to stop him from enacting his terrible plans, and soon uneasy alliances and unexpected action pave the way for an epic and unique global adventure.”

“Jumpstarting a dormant peacekeeping program,” you say? That jibes well with what we’ve heard from previous Age of Ultron leaks, which claimed that Tony Stark’s tinkering would in fact be the catalyst for Ultron’s rise. As the Inquisitr reported in July, the Ultron program will grow out of Stark’s desire to keep himself and the other Avengers safe.

“For better or for worse,” a report from July read, “Tony Stark has devised a plan that won’t require him to put on the Iron Man suit anymore, and should allow [the Avengers] to get some much needed R&R as well.”

The fact that the “peacekeeping program” is “dormant” before Iron Man starts mucking about with it leads us to believe that Tony might be going back over the work of Hank Pym, who is the “father” of Ultron in the comics. Tony’s tweakings, though, won’t go as planned, and they’ll eventually give rise to Ultron, a self-aware, self-teaching artificial intelligence with the ability to assess threats on its own.

“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,'” according to Age of Ultron’s writer/director Joss Whedon, “he’s not just going to go ‘Muhaha, soon I’ll rule!’ He’s on a mission. He wants to save us.”

With his ability to take over any machine connected to the internet, Ultron will likely wind up giving the Avengers all that they can handle, and rumor has it that not all of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes will make it out of the Age of Ultron alive. With Robert Downey, Jr. already on record as saying there are no plans or an Iron Man 4, it could well be Tony Stark himself that pays the ultimate price for his misguided attempt to make the world safer.

Of course, if Tony were to bite the big one in Age of Ultron, that would make it a bit difficult for him to face off against Captain America as the leader of one of two opposed Avengers teams. That’s the big rumor circulating nowadays, and recent interviews with folks from Marvel have us thinking it’s a real likelihood. We’re betting that Iron Man lives through Age of Ultron, but that Stark’s reputation doesn’t. That way, we’ll be set for a Marvel Civil War and an eventual team-up with the Guardians of the Galaxy.

As to the rest of the project profile, we’re of course psyched to get to see the Vision on screen, as well as Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch. Avengers: Age of Ultron is looking like it’s going to be packed to the gills with action and heroes, and Marvel probably has even more surprises it’s keeping close to the vest for now.