Main story
Ultron has returned and taken over the world, with Ultron Sentinels guarding the streets and looking for fugitives. After rescuing Spider-Man, Hawkeye takes him to an underground area beneath Central Park, where the other surviving heroes have taken refuge.[10] Captain America has the idea to offer a hero to Ultron to be captured to infiltrate his base; Luke Cage and She-Hulk volunteer and Cage delivers She-Hulk to Ultron's forces. Cage is shocked when he discovers that they are going to negotiate with Vision instead of Ultron.[11] Vision reveals that Ultron is acting from the future using him as a conduit. She-Hulk is killed freeing Cage and the other superheroes flee Manhattan. Cage dies from radiation poisoning, but is able to tell the heroes what he learned about Ultron.[12]
Meanwhile in San Francisco, Black Widow meets with Moon Knight in one of Nick Fury's old bases to search for fail-safe plans Fury had for different apocalyptic scenarios.[13] The heroes regroup in the Savage Land, and Black Widow arrives with Moon Knight and Red Hulk, and they reveal Fury had a fail-safe plan to defeat Ultron should he conquer the world.[12] The heroes meet with Fury, who plans to use Doctor Doom's Time Platform to go into the future and defeat Ultron before he attacks the present. Iron Man, Captain America, Nick Fury, Red Hulk, Storm, Quake and Quicksilver go into the future, but Wolverine goes into the past to kill Hank Pym before he can create Ultron, and is followed by the Invisible Woman.[14] The Invisible Woman attempts to convince Wolverine to reconsider his plan, but he reminds her of the crimes Ultron will commit and kills Pym.[15]
The two return to the present to find the Savage Land covered in crashed ships, as in this timeline the war between the Kree and the Skrulls came to Earth. They go to New York and find it patrolled by three Helicarriers, and are attacked by the Defenders, who believe the two are Skrulls.[16] A cyborg Iron Man scans their minds and sees their timeline, and explains that the Avengers broke up after Pym's death and that Morgan le Fay has conquered half the world. The two attempt to break out of the Defenders' Helicarrier when Morgan le Fey attacks with a swarm of Doombots. During the battle, le Fey crashes the other two Helicarriers into New York. Most of the heroes are killed, and a dying Iron Man tells Wolverine he cannot go back in time to try and correct this again, as time will break if ripped too much.[17][18]
In the past, the previous Wolverine is about to kill Pym when the new Wolverine stops him, and warns him that killing Pym will result in a disaster worse than Ultron. Pym says he will simply not build Ultron, but Wolverine realizes he must preserve the original timeline, and Pym decides to instead install a fail-safe to destroy Ultron. The Invisible Woman and the two Wolverines go to the Savage Land, and the present Wolverine has his past self kill him, since he does not want to live with memories of the ruined future.[18] The Avengers attack the headquarters of the Intelligencia to rescue Spider-Woman, the event that originally led to Ultron's reactivation. Once Ultron serves his purpose in the attack, Pym gives Iron Man the algorithm and it is uploaded into Ultron, destroying him.[19]
Wolverine and the Invisible Woman return to the present and find New York back to normal, but a massive shockwave across time and space seemingly shatters reality before putting it back together. At Avengers Tower, Giant-Man, Iron Man and Beast theorize that Wolverine's time travel journeys caused stress to the space-time continuum and has created tears across the multiverse. In his lab, Pym has a realization on what went wrong and how he must fix it.[19]
Pym reflects on his life and contemplates suicide when he considers that his scientific pursuits resulted in the world's destruction by Ultron, but realizes that the future where Ultron was not created was worse, and takes this as proof he can be a force for positive change in the world. Thus he rededicates himself to superheroics as Ant-Man, a decision that satisfies both sides of his curiosity.[20]
Tie-in books
While traveling through time and space, the Fantastic Four are contacted by the Black Panther, who informs them that Ultron has taken over the Earth with an army of Ultron Sentinels. After returning to Earth, the team discovers that Manhattan is almost in ruins. While looking for survivors, they are attacked by the Ultron Sentinels. Mister Fantastic, the Human Torch, and the Thing seemingly die in the attack while the Invisible Woman escapes with She-Hulk where they join the resistance.[21]
While visiting her old friends George Smith (the former Stunt-Master) and Richard Fenster in San Francisco, Black Widow was spending the day with them. When a squadron of Ultron Sentinels start attacking San Francisco and killing people, Richard becomes one of the victims while Black Widow and George escape. Afterwards, George Smith's tech-prosthetic arm fell under Ultron's control and he started obeying Ultron. Black Widow was forced to kill George Smith and was partially disfigured in the process.[22] Captain Marvel is vacationing in London when the Ultron Sentinels invade. She fights them alongside Captain Britain and MI-13. After Computer Graham and Magic Boots Mel are killed, Captain Marvel and Captain Britain sacrifice their lives to destroy Ultron's main forces in London.
