Ultimo (Marvel Comics)

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comic_color=background:#ff8080
character_name=Ultimo
real_name=Ultimo
publisher=Marvel Comics
debut="Tales of Suspense" (1st series) #76 (April, 1966)
creators=Stan Lee
alliance_color=background:#c0c0ff
alliances=
aliases=Doomsday Machine
powers=
*Superhuman strength, durability, speed, agility, reflexes and stamina
*Eyebeams
*Absorb energy to grow in size|

Ultimo is a fictional giant robot in the Marvel Comics universe. It was once controlled by the Mandarin and used against Iron Man, but has fought Iron Man several times even when not under the Mandarin's control. While having been dismantled by S.H.I.E.L.D. at one point, it has reappeared since.

Fictional character biography

Origin

Ultimo is a gigantic android that is thousands of years old, and he was constructed by an alien species that has since been destroyed by their own creation. They called the robot "The doomsday device", apparently a weapon of mutually assured destruction. Ultimo confirmed that his "masters" have not contacted him in "thousands of years".

The first time (chronologically speaking) Ultimo is depicted in print (in flashback in "Iron Man" vol.3, #24), he is already travelling through space, and has attacked the planet Rajak, ultimately killing all its people. The only survivors, a group of merchants who were off-planet at the time, attempted to destroy him, but had to flee before his might. In the end they managed to lure him into an asteroid belt, where both he and the ship were battered by space rocks until they were driven off-course and separately crashlanded on an unknown planet - Earth. This happened around the 1840s.

First appearance

In "Tales of Suspense" #76, the Mandarin first reveals Ultimo as his "Greatest creation". (Later issues suggest he must have found the robot and reprogrammed it to serve himOr|date=March 2008.) He charged it with geothermal energy inside a volcano and gave it its current name. The giant robot vanquishes a force of Chinese soldiers sent to despatch the Mandarin and nearly destroys Iron Man, but is drawn by him back into the volcano. Unfortunately for him, it has been destabilised by his activity and erupts, swallowing the robot whole in a conflagration of red-hot lava.This proved not to be enough to destroy him, however.

In later appearances Ultimo fights both Iron Man and the rest of the Avengers, even on the Capitol Mall, before finally being dumped in yet another volcano. He is not heard from for years after that, until, in "Iron Man" vol.1 #298, he is revealed to be the cause for a series of earth tremors. Over the years, he has drifted across the entire length of the continental plate, soaking up gigantic amounts of geothermal energy, and is thus "For the first time in centuries, fully charged". The then-current version of Iron Man (the remote-controlled NTU-150) proves no match for him, and is torn to pieces - and the cybernetic backlash to Tony Stark's nervous system renders him comatose.

Ultimo Versus the Iron Legion

In "Iron Man" (1st series) #300, the 64 pages edition, Ultimo fights the Iron Legion. The Iron Legion is led by Jim Rhodes, in the War Machine Armor, as he is accompanied by Happy Hogan, Eddie March (the first substitute Iron Man), Bethany Cabe, Mike O'Brien (formerly Guardsman) and Carl Walker (formerly Force). With the exception of Bethany, each has previously worn an Iron Man suit. However, Rhodes says that he knows from "personal experience" that Bethany knows how to handle herself. Since Stark is down, Rhodes calls them in, and has Abe Zimmer (Stark's tech wiz) take a number of old armors out of storage, (see Iron Man's armor) and has him get all of them up to somewhat functional standards. However, Zimmer says that they will not function anywhere near capacity, since Stark stored them for sentimental reasons only, not with the idea that they would ever be used again (The fact is that these suits must be copies anyway, since the originals were unequivocally destroyed in #175Or|date=March 2008). Eddie is in the gray, original suit, and is the first to get hit by Ultimo. His attempted rescue by Carl Walker, in the "classic" Iron Man armor, leads to Carl getting shot, and the suit begins to melt, forcing him to have to eject. While Beth and Happy aid Carl and Eddie, Rhodes, together with Mike in the Silver Centurion suit attack Ultimo in order to provide a distraction. At this point, Rhodes has decided that this wasn't what he had in mind for this battle, and decides on a change of plan. Happy is to get Carl and Eddie to the hospital, while Bethany and Mike head to Futura to start evacuations. Bethany objects, and convinces Rhodes to allow her to buy time against Ultimo with him. At this point, Tony Stark has come out of his coma and has donned the new Modular Iron Man suit. With a Full-Spectrum Scanalyzer and Railgun Launcher, he heads out to aid in the fight against Ultimo. Stark successfully takes out Ultimo single-handedly, by causing a lightning bolt to strike the robot's "central nervous system" . His scans indicate that Ultimo is several thousand years old, and Stark intends to have it hauled off for study.

Ultimate Devastation

Years later, the robot is the property of Stark-Fujikawa, the company which bought Stark's company when he was believed dead (after the events of "the Crossing").Stark-Fujikawa's engineers, having performed extensive research of the hulking, inert robot, managed to access its control programs, and now the company intends to use the enormous energy reserves stored inside Ultimo to provide cheap electricity to the entire Western USA. Unfortunately, the ship built on top of the dormant doomsday device is attacked by Goldenblade and Sapper - ironically, representatives of the doomed Rajaki race, seeking to steal energy to resurrect those Rajaki that still survive as data patterns aboard the crashed vessel - who accidentally wake up Ultimo, and the robot immediately sets out to destroy the ship. Unfortunately, the city of Spokane is on his route, and will be destroyed unless he is stopped. Goldenblade, Sapper, the superheroine Warbird, SHIELD and the US army all work together with Iron Man to slow the giant down, while he attempts to use what data the Stark-Fujikawa engineers managed to obtain to break into Ultimo's core programming once more.Moments before the city is reached, Tony Stark manages to convince the giant killer robot that he is one of his "Masters" and orders him to shut down.

Afterward, Ultimo is dismantled and his systems "fried" by the transfer of his energy stores to the Rajaki vessel.

Initiative

However, he reappeared in "" #1, facing the Mighty Avengers - just long enough to be deactivated by a "single shot" of the Tactigon, a weapon of unknowable power, at the time in the hands of the girl called Armory. Despite this lacklustre showing, it does mean he reassembled himself from being completely dismantled, and also that is it extremely likely that he will return in timeOr|date=March 2008.

Powers and abilities

Ultimo is incredibly strong and nearly indestructible. Despite his bulk, he is deceptively fast, being able to walk at about 100 miles per hour. He can absorb and store immense amounts of heat energy. He can project destructive energy beams from his eyes, the power of which varies with his own energy level (but at full power they can easily "vaporize" several dozens of tons of rock in a single blast). He can, over time, significantly increase his size (and presumably strength and durability): When he first appeared, he was 25 feet tall, but after his years-long lava bath underneath the Earth's crust, he had grown to 60 feet; later, after Stark-Fujikawa's engineers accessed his systems, they made him grow to "over a hundred feet" (depiction details are somewhat variable, with footprints implying a height of about 500 feetOr|date=March 2008).

Ultimo has also shown he can adapt his defenses; for instance, while he once was deactivated by a lightning bolt, this later proved ineffective.

Finally, he seems capable of repairing himself even when deactivated and completely disassembled.

In other media

Television

* Ultimo appeared in the Iron Man portion of "The Marvel Superheroes".
* Ultimo appears in the 1994 "Iron Man" episode "Rejoice! I Am Ultimo, Thy Deliverer" voiced by Ed Gilbert. Mandarin and MODOK have brought him to life despite the warnings of Justin Hammer. He later appears in 19th episode called "Iron Man, On the Inside". Hawkeye was shown fighting him and was infected during the battle. It turns out that Ultimo was controlled by The Hacker to get vengeance on Stark Enterprise for rejecting his job offering. Hacker then uses the shrink machine to send Ultimo into Hawkeye's system. Upon the exiting of Hawkeye's body, Iron Man couldn't finish off Ultimo with low battery and Hawkeye defeated Ultimo with Julia Carpenter's help.
* Ultimo also makes a brief cameo in the 1994 "Fantastic Four" show, actually appearing on an "Iron Man" TV show-in-the-show battling the superhero.

Video games

* Ultimo appears as several lines of the Mandarin's defenses in "". He also appears in Iron Man's simulation disk.

External links

* [http://www.marvel.com/universe/Ultimo Ultimo] at Marvel.com

* [http://www.marvunapp.com/Appendix/ultimoim.htm Ultimo at marvunapp.com]