The magazine Entertainment Weekly has revealed its cover for their Comic-Con preview edition. The image represents the first official look at one of the most anticipated movies ever, “Avengers: Age of Ultron” (in theaters May 1, 2015).

Here we can see the robotic villain Ultron (and his/its army of killing droids), Captain America (in a new suit with red acents) and Tony Stark (in an armor that doesn’t look that different from his previous Marks).

The post (by Anthony Breznican) confirms some key plot details regarding Ultron’s origin, powers and motivations:

“The good guys are tired, S.H.I.E.L.D. has been destroyed, and there’s no one else for the planet to turn to when menace looms on the horizon. Everyone wants a break—and that’s exactly how they’re about to be broken. There’s no abdicating heroism.

“What you said about abdication is apt, but I think it’s also about recognizing limitations,” Robert Downey Jr. says. “The downside of self-sacrifice is that if you make it back, you’ve been out there on the spit and you’ve been turned a couple times and you feel a little burned and traumatized.”

For better or worse (trust us, it’s worse), his Tony Stark has devised a plan that won’t require him to put on the Iron Man suit anymore, and should allow Captain America, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye, and the Hulk to get some much needed R&R as well. His solution is Ultron, self-aware, self-teaching, artificial intelligence designed to help assess threats, and direct Stark’s Iron Legion of drones to battle evildoers instead.

Photo Credit: Marco Grob/Marvel 2014

Photo Credit: Marco Grob/Marvel 2014

The only problem? Ultron (played by James Spader through performance-capture technology) lacks the human touch, and his superior intellect quickly determines that life on Earth would go a lot smoother if he just got rid of Public Enemy No. 1: Human beings. “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’; he’s not just going ‘Muhaha, soon I’ll rule!’” Whedon says, rubbing his hands together.

“He’s on a mission,” the filmmaker adds, and smiles thinly. “He wants to save us.”
The hard part about battling Ultron, as the cover image suggests, is that he’s not just a robot—he’s a program, capable of uploading himself and disappearing not into the clouds but the Cloud. And he has a bad habit of rebuilding himself into stronger and more fearsome physical forms.”