5. The Dragged-Out Story And The Tedious Tie-Ins
Looking at the Age of Ultron story as a whole, it's really a straightforward tale thats been as stretched out as Reed Richards. Its the classic Good Vs Evil story the bad guy wins, the good guys lose, but thats how the story begins and the interest for the reader is seeing how their favourite heroes rise up and defeat the bad guy. Looking at how it was played out, its really unnecessarily long as Bendis stretches what little happens to fill entire issues. Issues 1 and 2 couldve been easily compressed into one all that happens is the aftermath of the invasion and the scale of the devastation. Issues 3 and 4 the Luke Cage/She-Hulk non-plan to infiltrate Ultron City and do some damage - are utterly pointless and couldve been left out altogether or else dealt with in a page or two (we tried this but it didnt work then show flashbacks of Cage and She-Hulk then move on). Issues 5 and 6 couldve been compressed into one issue where the heroes meet Fury, one group travelling into the future while Wolverine and Sue head into the past and kill Hank Pym. Issues 7, 8 and 9 the alternate future storyline - couldve either been done in one issue or cut entirely because it doesnt matter. Overall, this arc is a mini-series but more of a 4 parter than a 10 part series. And thats not even counting the numerous, tedious tie-ins! We find out a little more about Black Widows story, a little bit about Spideys, there are glimpses of similar disastrous Ultron drone attacks happening elsewhere in the world, and a few random issues about characters who have no impact on the main story at all. But if you never picked up a single tie-in, you didnt miss anything important and the comics themselves besides Fractions Fantastic Four and Gages Superior Spider-man were pretty terrible. Age of Ultron is a decent story but if Marvel werent going for the cash grab and were aiming for art, a 4 issue mini-series with no tie-ins wouldve made this one of the story arcs of the year. As it is, stretched out over 19 comics, it became one of the stupidest arcs ever.