Wolverine: Weapon X

Wolverine: Weapon X is a dark, disturbing entry into the X-Men saga, comprised of stories in Marvel Comics Presents #72–84 with additional material by Chris Claremont. The story arc strips Logan of all semblances of cigar-chomping humanity, leaving him to be “reborn” via baptism in a scientific laboratory tank.

Floating in stasis, hooked up to a vast array of machines, The Professor, his assistant Dr. Cornelius, and his oddly submissive secretary Ms. Carol Hines (a subordinate, weak female stereotype that wouldn’t cut it in our present woke state of affairs) spend ninety percent of the book debating each other in floating word boxes suggestive of the laboratory communications system.

Logan, by the way, was kidnapped. The joint U.S./Canadian “Weapon X” project wants to turn him into a mindless, robotic automaton with razor-tipped claws of adamantium.

They’re pretty successful in this.

It is unclear, up to a point, just what is “reality” in Weapon X, and what is the implanted, suggested reality of computer simulation—experienced via neural hook-up between Wolverine and, I suppose, an AI (which didn’t exist when this particular comic story arc was written).

Logan was always one of the most human—if rather vulgar and lowbrow—of the Claremont-era X-Men. He stood in sharp contrast to Cyclops, Storm, Colossus, etc. His “blue collar hero” shtick was the template upon which countless imitations were based.

Of course, on the reverse side of this, the suggestion seems to be that the common man—the guys born and bred without privilege at the bottom of the social caste structure—are, like Wolverine, just a few short steps away from being vicious, half-animal killers, or even predators. Wolverine always balanced this, as a character, with his rough, Southern charm.

Here, he has no charm, and about as much humanity as Michael Myers. He’s become, like Myers, The Shape—or a shape—and Windsor-Smith, in his incredibly distinctive artistic style (which seems vaguely reminiscent of Frank Miller), accentuates all that makes Logan most fearsome and terrifying.

The Beast Without

Stripped of his humanity and any vocalizations beyond howling and grunting, Wolverine is the ever-present threat of the wild, rabid, untamed BEAST of our worst nightmares—a hideous thing kept in a technological womb. In this womb, The Professor—a cold, megalomaniacal, bespectacled bald man who is the inverse of Charles Xavier, seeking to turn him into that ultimate weapon—both hates and fears him in equal measure, while being obviously desirous and admiring of his immense power and savagery.

The Professor is an imperious, condescending stereotype of mad doctor arrogance. By contrast, Cornelius is simply a two-dimensional toady, but an apprehensive one nonetheless (one could easily see him having been portrayed at one point by actor Charles Haid, of Altered States fame). He recoils in disgust at the excesses of The Professor.

Carol Hines is also, as previously mentioned, simply brought into being as an unquestioning, stereotypical subordinate—a self-loathing, hysterical female submissive who acquiesces to The Professor’s will simply because she accepts the subordinate role. He, after all, must know best, right?

Wolverine escapes Weapon X, slaughtering his way through their security detail. This is a very bloody and violent series of comics (aren’t they all?).

Later flashbacks depict Logan, a shambling wreck of a human being, wandering through the desolation of a winter snowstorm. He battles razor-fingered cyborgs—biomechanical mutant soldiers he has, in some way, caused to be cybernetically bonded to machines. An appearance is made by the baby Energizer from Power Pack.

At one point, the dreadful, silent killer of Weapon X begins to regain some humanity, remembering who or what he is—was.

Visually excellent, if somewhat a strain at times for those of us with bad eyes, Wolverine: Weapon X reconceptualizes the wise-cracking, foul-tempered, bellicose Logan of the pop iconography painted in so much of what preceded in X-Men.

Reborn in his watery womb, he is now a speechless, brutal, homicidal slasher movie monster—seemingly beyond hope. But is he beyond redemption? The readers of Weapon X will determine that for themselves.

You decide.

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Comic Books and Graphic Novels