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Brian K. Vaughan’s and Fiona Staples’ celebrated series may not quite be finished yet, with Vaughan stating he envisions the long-running Image-published comic to run for 108 issues. Currently at issue 72, now is the perfect time to jump into Saga, and what better way to start the series than digitally? You have a handful of options to get the incredible space fantasy story on your mobile device or reading tablet, and we’ve broken them down for you here.

Where to Read Saga Online

Read Issue #1 For Free on Image’s Site

Battery life is a huge point of contention among smartwatch users right now, especially given that it’s such a hassle to have to constantly charge an ambient device that’s meant to track lifestyle patterns in the background and provide quick information cues while posing as a timepiece. After one full week of testing the OnePlus Watch 3 against my older-model Apple Watch Series 6, I’ve found the OnePlus Watch 3 to be a fashionable little Andoid device that excels in several big areas while stumbling in others. But even with a battery that seems to keep a charge for several days in Smart Mode, its moment-to-moment tracking capabilities didn’t quite live up to the polish of its exterior… until I manually activated its workout mode, after which it held its own against the Series 6 when I tracked workout performance side-by-side.

OnePlus Watch 3 – Design and Features

The OnePlus Watch 3 makes a strong first impression with its big and bright 1.5-inch LTPO AMOLED display and stainless steel frame. The crown and touchscreen offer precise navigation through menus, while the dedicated workout button provides quick access to fitness functions – a thoughtful touch for active users who want to quickly jump into their routine, and it isn’t too different or unfamiliar for a longtime Apple Watch user to figure out intuitively. However, the included fluoro rubber wrist strap is a major disappointment that immediately gave me trouble upon first setup; it’s ugly and cheap-feeling, and the lugs detach too easily, making it difficult to wear securely without randomly snapping off. And that undermines the premium feel of the watch itself.

The 466 x 466-resolution AMOLED screen offers bright and crisp visuals with vibrant colors that pop even under direct sunlight, thanks to excellent contrast at 2,200 peak nits. Its bigger size and brighter screen make it easy to read notifications and workout metrics at a glance. Touch responsiveness is also snappy and precise, with smooth animations that make the interface feel fluid and slick. My Apple Watch Series 6 doesn’t have this same internal slickness anymore, and upon first setting up the Watch 3, I felt a little bit of new tech euphoria from how fast its Snapdragon W5 and BES2800 chips make it feel, even with Power Mode turned on. The haptic feedback deserves special mention: each vibration feels refined and intentional rather than buzzy or jarring.

The watch’s crown is shaped in a sharp-looking pyramid pattern designed for precise control. Once I put the watch on my wrist for the first time, it immediately felt way more sophisticated than what I’m used to, and I kept coming back to this distinction whenever I reached for words to explain why the OnePlus Watch 3 feels so premium. The pancake-shaped crown of the Series 6 is such a small detail (literally), and yet it makes the watch feel small by comparison. Like a toy rather than a timepiece. The only downside to the OnePlus Watch 3’s outward aesthetic design, aside from its wristband, is that it’s only available in Emerald Titanium and Obsidian Titanium colorways. Both of these are boring in comparison to its competitors – both the Google Pixel Watch 3 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 7 can be customized a bit, while the Apple Watch Series 10 has a much larger collection of aluminum and titanium colorways. Even the Series 6 had way more customizability in terms of size and color.

Water resistance is rated at 50 meters, which should theoretically make it shower and swim-friendly. However, I encountered issues with water on the screen triggering false inputs and causing erratic behavior, forcing me to remove it during showers – something I’ve never had to do with my Apple Watch. This raises questions about its practical water resistance in daily use. Of course, the Apple Watch isn’t perfect in such conditions either, but it usually stops being interactive (as in, none of my inputs or presses do anything) rather than invasive, as the OnePlus Watch 3’s touchscreen became when I tested it during a short ten-minute shower.

Battery life is where the OnePlus Watch 3 truly shines. After the average full day of use, including casually moving around my apartment and doing chores, receiving daily notifications, and tracking a light workout or two (typically walking for an hour or playing the VR fitness game Supernatural), the battery dropped by only around 15% on average. For the record, my Apple Watch was left at around 20% by the end of each day, without fail, no matter what I was doing. Given the age of my Apple Watch, its shorter battery life is somewhat expected due to predictable battery degradation over the years. Even so, the difference between what I was previously used to (only having to charge the Apple Watch every two or three days) is still remarkable when the OnePlus Watch 3 could easily last five days on a single charge. Smart Mode needs to be enabled to get the most out of this, but it’s simple to set up in the watch’s onboard interface.

The Watch 3 includes standard smartwatch sensors for heart rate, blood oxygen (SPO2), and movement tracking. It also features wrist temperature tracking, though this requires five days to establish a baseline before providing meaningful data. Wrist temperature may seem unconventional at first glance, but that data stream is incredibly useful for things like the Watch 3’s 60 Second Health Check-In feature, which gives an all-in-one contextual summary of my overall well-being. It’s a little frustrating that I need to get on the OHealth phone app to make that happen instead of doing it all on the watch – it’s decently easy to set up, but I don’t want to have to pull my phone out for something that feels like it should run easily on the watch alone. At least the results are comprehensive thanks to the Watch 3’s onboard PPG (photoplethysmography) sensor and ECG (electrocardiography) sensor working in tandem. Unlike the Apple Watch, it lacks AFib detection capabilities in the United States and Canada, which could be deal-breakers for users with specific health concerns.

For fitness enthusiasts, the OnePlus Watch 3 offers detailed workout tracking for various activities. During walks, it captures metrics like heart rate zones, pace, calorie burn, and distance traveled. Of course, not all walks count as outdoor activities – when your workouts take you outdoors, whether you’re walking or running, the Watch 3’s excellent GPS tracking creates route maps with elevation data. The GPS-routed maps look bright and detailed on the watch’s screen, and don’t seem to be reliant on proximity to the Android phone that the Watch 3 is paired to. In fact, Bluetooth connectivity between the Watch 3 and my Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra has been nothing short of excellent, seamlessly reconnecting whenever I returned home and the devices were together again.

OnePlus Watch 3 – Software

Setup is not particularly intuitive for someone coming from the Apple ecosystem. Getting in requires downloading the OHealth companion app, and its interface feels more complex and requires deeper familiarity with Google services and Android structure that I’m still getting the hang of. Mainly because I am not the primary user of the phone – and especially since an additional OnePlus account is required to even begin pairing the watch to the phone, it was difficult to get things aligned properly. It’s not a huge deal as I was able to sort everything out in less than 20 minutes, but YMMV.

For the record, I understand that the vast majority of people who will be interested in the OnePlus Watch 3 aren’t going to feel these concerns – they’re already Android-savvy, they already know what they’re doing, and (as I imagine what the pushback in the comments section will look like) they don’t want to hear some Apple fanatic complain about complicated interface structure. Totally fair! Still, the companion app layout is organized in ways that caused me some extra frustration and took time to learn, and that probably isn’t going to attract non-core users into Android’s ecosystem if they’re not already in the mix.

Onboard UI navigation is straightforward once you learn the basics – swipe down for quick settings, up for notifications, and use the crown to scroll through menus or apps. The user interface is responsive with minimal lag when moving between screens. Using apps like Spotify and Google Calendar is also seamless, sleek, and highly responsive.

The OnePlus Watch 3 runs on Wear OS, which is basically the same thing as Apple’s watchOS by any other name. Of course, instead of tying into the Apple ecosystem it instead grants direct access to Google’s ecosystem of apps and services. For example, giving the user the option to store health data in Google Fit, pushing data via notifications from Gmail, and granting access to Google-specific applets (Google Play Store, Google Maps, etc) found directly in the watch’s central menu. This is no different from any other Android smartwatch in practice, but I’d like to imagine the Watch 3 simply does a better job of running its services than all the others, due in part to its powerful battery and advanced Snapdragon 5 chipset. Upon this foundation, OnePlus has added its own layer of customization with attractive-looking exclusive watch faces and health features – like its Vascular Health check-in feature that uses several sensors to determine how close the user is to being at risk of developing severe heart disease. Fortunately, I’m still over the green line of what is considered “Normal” vascular health for a 31 year old, but I wouldn’t have known this if I hadn’t reviewed the Watch 3. It could be a powerful warning tool that informs long-term health decisions, even without Afib detection.

Sleep tracking on the OnePlus Watch 3 provides detailed breakdowns of sleep stages, including deep sleep, light sleep, REM, and awake time. It also offers a sleep score and breathing quality assessment. While these metrics seem comprehensive, I’m still evaluating their accuracy compared to other dedicated sleep trackers. For the most part, the Watch 3 seems to track closely to my Apple Watch Series 6’s readouts. Additionally, the automatic sleep mode activation is a nice touch that dims the display and reduces notifications when it detects the user has fallen asleep.

The watch’s fitness interface provides impressively detailed data visualizations. After workouts, it breaks down heart rate zones with time spent in each zone, shows pace variations throughout routes, and offers insights that Apple doesn’t surface as clearly. The “Wellness Curve” is a proprietary metric that attempts to measure your overall physical state based on various health parameters, though I’m still learning how to interpret its fluctuations meaningfully as someone who is still only just breaking in the Watch 3.

Notification handling is pretty standard compared to my experiences. Text messages, emails, and app alerts appear promptly, and you can respond with quick replies or voice dictation. Additionally, the watch does offer Google Assistant integration, which performs well for basic tasks like setting timers or checking weather forecasts, but at this moment it’s not all that perceptibly different from Siri.

OnePlus Watch 3 – Performance

Fitness tracking is where the OnePlus Watch 3 shows its most significant weaknesses. Step counting consistently lagged behind the Apple Watch, sometimes by dramatic margins. During one VR fitness session, the Apple Watch recorded 5,255 steps while the OnePlus only registered 1,612 – a massive discrepancy that I’m still trying to wrap my head around, as this was a pretty consistent occurrence. On one hand, I use Supernatural for my primary VR workouts, which is attuned to my Series 6 and (from my understanding) feeds in extra contextual data to Apple Health. But on the other hand, this pattern continued throughout testing, with the OnePlus Watch typically recording about 25-30% fewer steps than the Apple Watch whether I was working out in Supernatural, doing a core workout, or playing some other high-intensity VR game like The Thrill of the Fight. When not in workout mode, the Watch 3 also seems to update step counts in bursts rather than in real-time, sometimes missing passive movement entirely.

At one point I saw the number of recorded steps suddenly drop from around 2,500 to 1,700, only for the step count to level out later in the day and become nearly equal to the Series 6’s step count after recording an outdoor walk. This is bizarre, considering that I wore both watches at the same time, at all times. It’s highly possible that the Watch 3’s fitness tracking mechanisms need time to calibrate to the user, but it seems like the only way to get the Watch 3 to accurately track daily steps is by taking it on long stretches of outdoor activity where it can deliberately track movement over a longer period of time.

In fact, workout tracking showed way more consistency with calories burned and heart rate measurements generally aligning with the Apple Watch’s readings. During a brief core training session, both watches reported similar calorie burns (30 vs. 27 active calories) and average heart rates (120 vs. 115 BPM). The OnePlus Watch did provide more detailed heart rate zone analysis than I’m typically used to, breaking down time spent in warm-up, fat burning, and endurance zones.

GPS accuracy during outdoor activities was pretty good, with the OnePlus Watch recording slightly longer distances than the Apple Watch (4.04 vs. 3.94 miles on one walk). This could be due to different sampling rates or algorithms, but the difference wasn’t significant enough to be concerning. What was impressive was the battery efficiency during GPS tracking, with minimal drain even after stacking a longer outdoor session together with a full VR workout routine on the same day, dealing with notifications, and so forth. All of that activity still rounded up to no more than 16% battery drain on that day, which is exceptional.

This article contains spoilers for Avengers: Age of Ultron.

As Marvel prepares to launch massive new Multiverse Saga films like The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Avengers: Doomsday, and Secret Wars to try and recapture the franchise’s glory days, it’s sobering to remember that ten years ago the Marvel Cinematic Universe was only just getting to its first Avengers sequel. MCU mania was at an all-time high back in 2015; fresh off the critically acclaimed one-two punch of Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel was on top of the mountain as they kept comic nerds and general audiences invested in the teases for Thanos and the ongoing Infinity Saga. But after Avengers: Age of Ultron, there was a bit of concern that the franchise was going through some growing pains.

Age of Ultron wasn’t hated, mind you. It received mostly positive reviews and was a big financial success. But as the franchise moved forward with more beloved films like Captain America: Civil War, Thor: Ragnarok, Black Panther, and the two-part finale of Infinity War and Endgame, Age of Ultron has been relegated to history as the “just okay” Avengers sequel. However, looking back ten years later, the film stands out from the MCU pack as one of the more dramatically ambitious Marvel films, and is perhaps the only one that makes the Avengers feel like a regular part of the universe instead of a team that only shows up for massive events. Let’s take a look at why the MCU should’ve taken a lot more from Age of Ultron.

The Weight of Your Failure

Before we begin, let’s get one thing straight: Age of Ultron is a mess. It has way too many moving pieces, there isn’t enough runtime for everything it tries to cram in, and it’s a startlingly inelegant feature, whipping from place to place and struggling to find a consistent tone. It’s a movie that is practically buckling at the seams between writer-director Joss Whedon’s narrative sensibilities and its larger franchise obligations. Yet despite these not-insignificant problems, Age of Ultron has always been better than the sum of its parts, and that largely comes down to how it’s one of the few big ticket MCU films that places the emphasis on the anxieties and relationships of its characters over feeling like an event designed to rock the cinematic universe.

Being the middle entry in the Avengers “trilogy” (if we’re semi-cheating and considering Infinity War and Endgame as two parts of one giant movie) was both a blessing and a curse for Age of Ultron. There needed to be a direct sequel to The Avengers, but the larger machinations that had been set in place in regards to Thanos and the Infinity Stones were instead being left for the big finale. When Thanos was first teased in the mid-credits scene of the first film, many fans assumed the Mad Titan would be the villain of Avengers 2. So when Age of Ultron’s title was announced the following year, there was a mix of excitement and confusion. Ultron is one of the Avengers’ most prominent antagonists, if not the archenemy of the team as a whole, but how much of an effect could he really have if we knew he was merely a lead-in to Thanos?

Age of Ultron wisely dismisses the idea that any of its principal characters are in mortal danger and instead focuses on digging deeper into what makes them tick. Tony Stark has become a frenzied neurotic terrified of the oncoming cosmic storm. Bruce Banner is desperate to reach out for a more intimate connection despite still not being convinced he’s not a threat to everyone he cares about. Hell, this is probably the only film in the franchise that makes an effort to give depth to Clint Barton, dramatizing him as a man among gods who nevertheless feels responsible for keeping this team of oversized personalities in one piece. Add in the entire dark side to redemption arcs for newcomers Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, and Age of Ultron has more dramatic meat for its characters than most of its MCU brethren.

But if we really want to dissect what makes the film work, we have to dig into one of its most controversial aspects: the big bad bot himself.

Everyone Creates the Thing They Dread

Despite being based on one of the Marvel universe’s most prominent villains in the comics, the MCU’s take on Ultron hasn’t penetrated the cultural consciousness in the same way Loki or Thanos have. Part of that is a lack of exposure; Tom Hiddleston’s Loki has made numerous appearances in MCU projects, and Thanos was the main villain of two massive films after several teases beforehand. But even taking that into account, MCU Ultron had a decidedly mixed reception from fans, even if James Spader’s slithery line delivery is second to none. However, part of that lukewarm welcome comes down to a misunderstanding of who Ultron actually is in the comics, and what type of character he’s supposed to be.

Many fans lamented that Ultron was a sardonic trash-talker, just as quick with sarcastic remarks and random philosophical musings as he was with laser beams. Numerous social media comments have been written by comic fans claiming they wanted a more “accurate” Ultron who was a cold, calculating menace with no emotion whatsoever. But this isn’t really what Ultron is like in the books at all. Ultron has always stood out from other artificial intelligence villains in fiction by being a character who thinks he’s driven by logic, but is actually one of the most petulant and emotionally stunted villains in Marvel lore. This comes down to the fact that his brain waves are based on his creator: in the source material, that’s Henry Pym aka Ant-Man, but in the film, it’s Tony Stark.

In the comics, Ultron is an Oedipal nightmare who isn’t sure if he wants to kill his father or prove that he’s better than him. He wants to have sex with his “mother” Janet van Dyne (no, really), despises his “children” like the Vision and Jocasta for turning on him, and in the excellent 2015 graphic novel Rage of Ultron, admits that he’s a manifestation of Pym’s hatred of others for loving him. MCU Ultron isn’t a direct representation of those traits, but that’s because we’re dealing with Stark’s son, not Pym’s. When seen as a dark reflection of Tony, Ultron’s severe superiority complex, mockingly cynical personality, and strange fixation on God and creation myths make a lot more sense. Ultron hates his creator, himself, and the world at large for his own imperfections, unable to process that wrestling with his darker impulses that derive from his ego is what makes Tony Stark a hero. Instead, Ultron doubles down on them, in the mistaken belief that his warped idea of “evolution” will save the world when it will only leave it in ruins.

Yet Age of Ultron’s most important quality is the way it treats the titular super team, a way that no Marvel film before or since has: as an everyday thing.

Peace in our Time

Age of Ultron is the only MCU movie starring the Avengers where the Avengers exist at both the beginning and end. Sure, they go through some trials and tribulations and shuffle the roster somewhat, but the Avengers, as an enterprise, exist in the present tense. They have a headquarters, go on missions together, and generally seem to like each other. Despite nearly every MCU film referencing the team or featuring at least one character who’s been a member of it, the Avengers rarely seem to actually “be around” in the MCU. They came together in the first film, were absent from each other’s Phase 2 sequels, had collapsed by Civil War, were still scattered for Infinity War, and were essentially over after Endgame. Even though the MCU is structured around the Avengers brand, the team’s place within the wider universe has rarely been all that coherent.

Yet in Age of Ultron, you can see a version of the MCU where that wasn’t the case. The party scene where the main cast and some of their supporting characters all hang out and interact like normal people is one of the best scenes in the franchise, and it’s because of how low stakes it is. Yes, we love the Avengers because they’re superheroes, but the reason they truly resonate with audiences is because they’re also interesting characters. But when going through their journey across the Infinity Saga, there were so few times where the movies slowed down to remind us of that basic humanity, that the Avengers had everyday lives beyond stopping bad guys and saving the world. Not allowing the audience to soak in the interpersonal dynamics of these larger than life heroes when they’re not being larger than life is what has kept many of the post-Endgame films from capturing the same emotional highs as the Infinity Saga.

For all of the perfectly fair criticisms that can be lobbied at Age of Ultron for being overstuffed, weirdly paced, or tonally inconsistent, it’s a movie that has an actual beating heart at the center of it. The conflict in philosophy between Steve and Tony at the farm is perhaps the most perfect illustration of their differences in the franchise. Ultron’s villain speech as he lifts Sokovia into the sky is practically Shakespearean. The final confrontation between Vision and the last Ultron bot is one of the MCU’s most beautifully profound scenes, a rare moment between two characters that’s still and patient enough to engender actual melancholy instead of manufactured catharsis. It will never be a perfect movie, but as time goes on, it has only become a more interesting one. That the MCU strived for the former instead of the latter is perhaps the franchise’s greatest mistake.

Carlos Morales writes novels, articles and Mass Effect essays. You can follow his fixations on Twitter.

The Star Wars universe continues to capture new audiences as it expands with new shows and movies under Disney’s ownership. For these fans, there are decades of older Star Wars movies to explore, while that same back catalog provides longtime fans a deep well of nostalgia and adventure to return to time and again.

Where to Watch Every Star Wars Movie Online