Who is Red Reddington? Little did we know he was Ultron.

If you were Marvel and nobody seemed nearly as excited by your choices of actors to voice The Guardians of the Galaxy, what would you do?

You'd let the furor over Ben Affleck as Batman and the attendant rumors of Bryan Cranston as Lex Luthor and Timothy Dalton as Alfred simmer down just a little bit. Then, in an ironic move against the Zack Snyder Superman vs. Batman you sucker punch 'em.

And so today Marvel's own website announced that they had cast a master of psychologically disturbing performances as Ultron, the A.I. that will challenge the Avengers in Joss Whedon's Avengers: Age of Ultron. Whether physically present, wearing a mo-cap suit or just providing his voice, James Spader IS Ultron.

It seems a pretty pre-emptive announcement, with filming not scheduled on the sequel to The Avengers until April of 2014. And indeed, we're all kind of presuming that Spader is still busy right now filming the first season of his anticipated NBC series The Black List. Plenty of time, then, to work out just how his performance will go.

Interesting choice, and it makes me wonder if The Vision might be part of The Avengers: Age of Ultron after all. Because you could see those smooth features of Spader's inhabiting that android hero and then being revealed to just be a pawn or a front for Ultron. (And there also went my theory that Paul Bettany's JARVIS would evolve into Ultron -- or did it?)

The great thing about the casting is the controversy is all over plotline, not the actor. Since July at Comic-Con, purists have complained that the creation of Ultron would no longer tie into the character of Dr. Hank Pym, who has not made it into Marvel movie continuity yet and is presumably being withheld for Edgar Wright's adaptation of Ant-Man.

So we're not tied to any particular actual story from the comics -- even the title, Age of Ultron, is taken from a storyline that would never work on film. (Heck, a couple of issues barely worked in comics.)

And for the record -- it was Vin Diesel as Groot and possibly Bradley Cooper as Rocket Raccoon in The Guardians of the Galaxy. Missed that last part, didn't you?

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Derek McCaw