Avengers 2 Concept Art Gave Marvel's Ultron A Terrifying (And Gross) Upgrade

After defeating the God of Mischief, Loki (Tom Hiddleston), during their first outing as a team, in "Avengers: Age of Ultron," the titular heroic unit takes on a vastly different threat. Its members and the entire Earth are threatened by Ultron (James Spader): an artificial intelligence who desires nothing more than to build himself a physical body and destroy humanity. During this quest, he takes on a few robotic forms, with his grand plan for Vision (Paul Bettany) to become his final one. Along the way, he could've taken on a body with a ghastly and pretty gross upgrade.

Concept artist Josh Nizzi (@joshnizzi.art on Instagram) shared some unused looks for Ultron during his battle against the Avengers. The first post he made features Ultron concepts that evoke the look of Megatron from the "Transformers" franchise, which Nizzi recalled was something he found difficult to navigate around. The second Ultron post in question includes a similar unused design, albeit with a bit more bulk and armor plating. Notably, these pieces of concept art both include mechanical tentacles protruding from Ultron's arms. Nizzi notes that they would slide around beneath the armor plates in a snake-like way.

Though the idea of Ultron battling do-gooders with electrified tendrils makes for a cool visual, leaving them on the cutting room floor was the right call. After all, if Nizzi was worried about Megatron comparisons, tentacles would've led many comic readers to draw a line from Ultron to an infamous DC villain.

Ultron has been a villainous presence in the pages of Marvel Comics for decades, and throughout his time in print, his look has remained pretty consistent. He has lived predominantly in some variation of a silver body with red accents with only minor deviations here and there. Thus, those were the basic design elements required to bring a definitive version of him from the page to the silver screen via "Avengers: Age of Ultron." Josh Nizzi and the minds at Marvel Studios worked hard to reinvent Ultron for his live-action debut, though if they went with either of these unused designs, there could've been some issues.

As Nizzi pointed out on Instagram, staying away from a Megatron-esque design was a challenge enough. Had the tentacles stuck around, comparisons would've likely been made between the MCU's Ultron and Brainiac of DC Comics lore. The immensely intelligent alien cyborg, who often comes to blows with Superman and the Justice League, has taken many different designs over the years. In his most well-known interpretations, his look includes mechanical tentacles, which also tend to protrude from his imposing warship. Surely, the last thing Marvel Studios would've wanted for its next Avengers antagonist is comparisons between him and a main villain from their chief competitor.

Tentacles would've undoubtedly made the MCU's Ultron more imposing, but for the sake of keeping the design in line with his classic look and avoiding Brainiac comparisons, leaving them behind during the concept art stage was the right choice.