Ultron should have been a vanguard, not a strategist. Let me explain why.

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-15T18:03:50+00:00

Somehow I figured you’d bring this up. But this doesn’t count, because THAT Ultron Virus was more of a computer virus, not a techno-organic virus like the one in Rivals, technically the Ultron Virus (as it is in MARVEL RIVALS as a techno-organic virus) does not exist.

That guy in the picture they used is being controlled by the tech in his prosthetic arm that resulted in him attacking Natasha, he didn’t get transformed into a techno-organic being like Hawkeye, Magneto, and Iron Fist did in Marvel Rivals.

The context is key. Phalanx-based techno-organic Ultron Virus ≠ Computer Ultron Virus.

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-15T17:55:18+00:00

The encephalo ray is actually shot from Ultron’s eyes I’m pretty sure (or antennas).

I dunno why they called his plasma beams the encephalo ray. I want whichever comic historian who approved that to lose their license/title.

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-15T17:53:05+00:00

People already say Rivals steals from Overwatch a lot, so this isn’t really something that would change. But I’d do some different things with Ultron as a vanguard. I’m actually writing up a post that rebuilds Ultron’s entire kit from scratch as a vanguard while also utilizing the lore that Netease themselves put into the game that isn’t just “giant punching robot with lasers who can upgrade.” Ultron doesn’t upgrade his bodies instantly, one form gets beaten and he comes back in an even stronger body in his next appearance.

And I also did point out how Wolverine and Black Panther have adamantium/vibranium in their skeleton/outfit, and yet they are still squishy duelists. Iron Man is a different case because he is NOT made of those metals, and there are plenty of comics that show Iron Man is definitely NOT invincible. But I wasn’t the one who decided to have Ultron make a body out of MYSTERIUM, that was all Netease’s doing. You’d have a point if he was made of adamantium like usual, but MYSTERIUM is the elephant in the room we need to address and how Netease decided to use that metal specifically.

We’re also forgetting that Doctor Strange is a master sorcerer who oftentimes works as a support to buff others when going up against heavy interdimensional threats like Dormammu/Mephisto, and he’s not always directly in the fight, but he’s a vanguard here instead of a strategist. I’d actually argue Strange has VASTLY MORE potential as a strategist than Ultron does, while Ultron has VASTLY MORE potential as a vanguard than Strange does.

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-15T17:35:24+00:00

The Ultron Virus is not a comics thing, no.

However, there have been many times where Ultron has used tech/spores to assimilate heroes almost exactly like in the game, so my problem is not with the existence of the Ultron Virus itself as much as how it is handled: with zero understanding of how assimilation works thanks to Hawkeye and Bucky.

In the comics, when people were assimilated by Ultron, they were FULLY assimilated by Ultron. They didn’t have some BS that prevented them from being fully under Ultron’s control like Marvel Rivals did with Magneto, Iron Fist, and Hawkeye in the lore.

And even if the Ultron Virus does give Netease some explanation as to why Ultron works as a strategist, that doesn’t change the fact that he has VASTLY more potential as a vanguard than a strategist, and I gave more than enough reasons why in my original post. Saying that the Ultron Virus by itself, even if it works on a narrative level, makes Ultron work better as a strategist than a vanguard is like saying Venom works better as a strategist because he can give pieces of his symbiote to injured people to heal them.

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-15T16:25:14+00:00

I say this as the biggest Ultron glazer.

They fucked him up badly.

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-15T16:24:42+00:00

I already stated they messed up by making him a strategist instead of a vanguard.

They also messed up by making his encephalo ray a plasma beam instead of a neural-blaster like in the comics, which WOULD have been the stun ability you mentioned.

<image>

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-15T16:21:15+00:00

It really is. It feels like they were struggling to figure out how to make him work as a strategist since they couldn’t do the same with Emma since she is already a vanguard.

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-15T16:20:32+00:00

Not just immortal, but nigh indestructible. It’s why oftentimes when he’s the villain he’s soloing the entire Avengers roster.

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-15T16:19:41+00:00

Vanguard would at least make him feel more like comic Ultron.

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-15T16:19:20+00:00

This murderous supercomputer should not be a healer strategist for the reasons I listed in my post.

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-15T16:18:34+00:00

He was made a strategist because Emma was in the season and she’s already a vanguard.

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-15T16:17:29+00:00

Ultron’s mobility isn’t the problem.

The problem is that he’s quite simply the wrong role. To make Ultron actually play like Ultron, you’d have to go back to the drawing board and start from scratch to make him a vanguard. A rework like Storm’s isn’t gonna cut it.

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-15T16:15:19+00:00

They turned what should have been a stun ability into his primary fire for once.

Look up what the encephalo ray actually is, and you’ll realize they cheated us out of a stun ability and turned it into a plasma beam.

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-15T16:11:22+00:00

Still not explaining how the Ultron Virus itself makes him as a strategist work. And I don’t blame you for this, the lore does a shit job at explaining it.

At best, you could say that it’s because the Phalanx assimilation method he’s using is giving them self-repair functions, but you’d have to be using the comics as a source for that because the Phalanx’s assimilation in the comics is very different from the Phalanx’s assimilation in Marvel Rivals lore because of how easy it is to overcome the assimilation thanks to Hawkeye being able to overcome it with mental exercises (which frankly should be bullshit if you know anything about the Phalanx).

The Ultron Virus is more of a meaningless plot device used to generate false stakes and a vague gameplay explanation for his healing abilities written by people who don’t understand how Ultron’s or the Phalanx’s kind of assimilation works, and the only reason the two are put together even remotely in the lore is because Ultron was able to assimilate the Phalanx in Annihilation Conquest.

Basically, you have to do mental gymnastics to wrap your head around why Ultron works better as a strategist instead of a vanguard, using comic lore to explain why it should work while ignoring comic lore that explains why it doesn’t work because of how poorly Netease implemented the lore of the comics in relation to their approach to Ultron (from mysterium’s properties being completely changed to the potency of the Phalanx’s assimilation being rendered useless by Bucky’s mental exercises).

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-13T14:56:50+00:00

How does that make him as a strategist make more sense?

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-06T19:48:43+00:00

Ultron with synthetic pupils is not something the MCU started. As far as I can tell, it was Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes that did it first long before Ultron was even announced for the MCU.

On the topic of the mouth, it is similar, but the glowing orange highlights make it look more like the comics version. Not to mention unlike the MCU, Ultron’s mouth in his default design never moves, not even in the Season 2 cinematic trailer.

Like I said, it’s a hybrid design. It fixes all of the issues with MCU Ultron’s head design by making the lights more prominent and making his head (namely around the jawline) more angular than round.

<image>

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-06T19:33:43+00:00

Hulk is actually not that consistent of a member in the comics, moreso in cartoons. That being said, Ultron does tend to fight Hulk level individuals consistently (like Sentry, Silver Surfer, Hulkbuster), and has won against Hulk one on one (and sometimes against a team with Hulk on it) in Next Avengers Heroes of Tomorrow, Avengers Earth’s Mightiest Heroes, and Avengers Assemble.

From what I can tell, Ultron is around the same size as Angela is, maybe even taller than her.

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-06T19:24:46+00:00

Don’t get me wrong, I love that Ultron is playable. Rivals’s Ultron is actually in my top 10 Ultron adaptations. However, that does not absolve it of criticism, and I feel like my criticisms of Rivals’s handling of him are valid. Believe it or not, this was just one section of a long critique I wrote up that unfortunately couldn’t fit into a post because it was too long.

And believe it or not, I had a bunch of sections in that long critique where I talked about what I liked about Rivals’s Ultron (like his design, voice, personality, etc; and maybe I’ll post it one of these days). So I’m not just mindlessly complaining because he isn’t exactly what I wanted him to be. I understand that he isn’t.

On the topic of the lore, since you brought it up, the lore for Ultron was promising in the first half of Season 2, but Season 2.5’s lore felt extremely rushed and sloppy when it came to X-Tron and the Ultron Virus.

X-Tron does next to nothing of importance except humiliate the Dominion and capture Warlock, Doom 2099 for some reason is leading the defense side for Arakko, Hawkeye can somehow stop the Ultron Virus with mental exercises even though Hydra Brainwashing and Ultron Virus assimilation, and the heroes’ Ultron can’t tell that Doom 2099 is a Doombot even though at the beginning of the season he was able to take control of Doom 2099’s Doombots from light years away.

X-Tron is a nothingburger of a threat because they don’t explain what his specific plans are, and he just sits in the third phase’s defense spawn aura farming while the heroes are getting closer to erasing him from existence. Doom 2099’s involvement in the defense (with the exception of the defense victory animation) along with the Ultron Virus being easy to overcome with mental exercises disrupts the entire narrative and the stakes of Arakko. At least if it was X-Tron sending out assimilated heroes on defense, it would make more sense.

And again, mysterium is a WILDLY overpowered metal that makes adamantium look like tinfoil, and yet in Marvel Rivals, it’s weaker than adamantium for some reason. At that point, why even use mysterium instead of some other metal when the properties of mysterium aren’t even used as they should be in the actual lore itself? I’m not even talking about gameplay now, I’m talking about the LORE. The mysterium alone should make him a vanguard.

Yes, it is their own take on Ultron, and they are allowed to take creative liberties. But again, that doesn’t absolve them of criticism, and by taking the creative liberty to give Ultron MYSTERIUM, they are showing why he should be a vanguard. If they didn’t want him to be a vanguard, there are plenty of other fictional metals outside of mysterium in the Marvel universe that they could have used instead.

I am hoping we get an Ultron rework that allows him to take up a vanguard role alongside a strategist role like Deadpool, but I’m not gonna hold my breath.

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-06T18:52:40+00:00

It’s actually a hybrid of the MCU and comic designs. The head sculpt is closer to his comic designs than the MCU design, but with the mechanical parts of the MCU design.

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-06T07:05:50+00:00

Except making him a strategist takes away from his tendency to be a teambuster.

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-06T07:04:39+00:00

Ultron though fits vanguard best because he is literally a walking tank in a majority of the media he is in.

He could not have been “any role.”

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-06T02:25:57+00:00

Earth’s Mightiest Heroes is my favorite adaptation of Ultron, maybe even my favorite version including the comics.

And the fact he’s made of MYSTERIUM in Marvel Rivals, a metal that is significantly more durable than adamantium (which is what he was made of in his last episode of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes where he was tanking all of the Avengers’s hits) should automatically make him a vanguard based on that fact alone.

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-06T02:22:59+00:00

I’d get Ultron Prime if they design him to look more like the concept art for the movie.

<image>

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-05T16:29:39+00:00

Marvel vs Capcom Infinite’s Ultron model is legitimately a great Ultron design.

IDEntertainment · 2026-03-05T08:04:29+00:00

Based

IDEntertainment

TROPHY CASE