Avengers Theory Uncovers The MCU Secret Of Ultron's James Spader Voice

After the blockbuster success of Marvel's groundbreaking 2012 crossover event "The Avengers," it was easy enough to imagine the franchise might have a little trouble matching not only the first film's box office success but also its narrative ambition with the sequel. While 2015's "Avengers: Age of Ultron" didn't quite match its predecessor's impressive Rotten Tomatoes scores, the film did manage to deliver a villain worthy of the titular heroes' attention in the AI-come-to-horrifying-life beast known as Ultron.

That big MCU bad was, of course, voiced by the inimitable James Spader, who also performed in character using motion capture technology. Though opinions were mixed on "Age of Ultron" as a whole, most Marvel fans agree Spader's work in the role was one of the film's highlights, with many agreeing the casting of Spader was a legit coup for Team Marvel. And according to a compelling theory posited by Redditor u/schulzinho7, Spader's casting in "Age of Ultron" takes the sequel into meta territory, with the user questioning whether or not the AI creation actually borrows its voice from a version of the actor that actually exists in the MCU.

In their post, the user praised Spader's work as Ultron, noting his voice "sounds intelligent and peaceful, but also eerie and menacing at the same time." They went on to posit that Ultron may have felt the same, opting to borrow the MCU version of Spader's voice upon awakening.

Working up the theory, u/schulzinho7 was quick to admit it may not entirely track timing-wise, as Ultron is fronting James Spader's voice pretty much the moment they "wake up" to consciousness. That's a problem largely because it means Ultron likely would've borrowed the voice before they'd had time to scour the web and discover MCU Spader's body of work. Timeline issues aside, fans of Marvel and Spader were still having fun spinning the theory, with u/RTR7105 pointing out Tony Stark's Iron Legion apparently uses an electronically manipulated mix of Spader's Ultron voice and that of Paul Bettany's Jarvis in "Iron Man 3."

That nugget prompted u/Silver_Punk to question whether or not Stark has paid MCU Spader to voice his AI. u/spideybiggestfan chimed in to ask if Stark hasn't just taken the same route in giving Ultron a voice as other AI compositors do, writing, "Tony scraped it off the internet like how most people train their AIs." 

Further down the line, u/Otzil hilariously pointed out that an online outlet indeed conjured a mashup video of Ultron espousing pearls of wisdom from James Spader's infamous "The Office" character, posting, "RedLetterMedia have a video where they redub Ultron scenes with Robert California dialogue," which obviously opens a whole other Pandora's box of meta madness.

As it happens, there was at least one voice of dissent regarding the Spader theory, with u/SkippyMcHugsLots hilariously commenting, "Unfortunately Ultron got it wrong, the correct voice to steal is Sam Jackson." Now that this particular theory is out there, we can't help but wonder if it isn't right.