"Weapon X" is a

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

story arc A story arc (also narrative arc) is the chronological construction of plot in a novel or story. It can also mean an extended or continuing storyline in episodic storytelling media such as television, comic books, comic strips, board games, vid ...

written and illustrated by

Barry Windsor-Smith Barry Windsor-Smith (born Barry Smith, 25 May 1949) is a British comic book illustrator and painter whose best known work has been produced in the United States. He attained note working on Marvel Comics' ''Conan the Barbarian'' from 1970 to 197 ...

and published by American company

Marvel Comics Marvel Comics is an American comic book publisher and the flagship property of Marvel Entertainment, a divsion of The Walt Disney Company since September 1, 2009. Evolving from Timely Comics in 1939, ''Magazine Management/Atlas Comics'' in ...

. The story arc appears in ''

Marvel Comics Presents ''Marvel Comics Presents'' was an American comic book anthology series published by Marvel Comics originally from 1988 to 1995. It returned for a second volume in 2007–2008, and a third volume that started in 2019. Volume 1 The first volume ...

'' #72–84 and tells the story of

Wolverine The wolverine (), (''Gulo gulo''; ''Gulo'' is Latin for " glutton"), also referred to as the glutton, carcajou, or quickhatch (from East Cree, ''kwiihkwahaacheew''), is the largest land-dwelling species of the family Mustelidae. It is a musc ...

during his time in

Weapon X Weapon X is a fictional clandestine government genetic research facility project appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. They are conducted by Department K, which turns willing and unwilling beings into living weapons, ca ...

. Only the prologue and part of the final chapter are told from the perspective of Wolverine, who is in a near mindless state for the bulk of the story. Instead, three members of the Weapon X team serve as the

protagonist A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a st ...

Abraham Cornelius Abraham Cornelius is a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He works as a scientist for Weapon X and was one of the people who played a part in the origin of Wolverine. Publication history He was fir ...

Carol Hines This article lists Marvel characters beginning with the letter "H", with a brief description introducing each one. Hala the Accuser Gabrielle Haller Gabrielle Haller was a catatonic Holocaust survivor who awoke from the disorder after Charle ...

, and a man referred to within the story as only "the Professor". Much of the story arc roughly follows the formula of a

slasher film A slasher film is a genre of horror films involving a killer stalking and murdering a group of people, usually by use of bladed or sharp tools like knife, chainsaw, scalpel, etc. Although the term "slasher" may occasionally be used informally as ...

, with the protagonists being stalked in an isolated location by a seemingly unstoppable killing machine.

Plot

The series begins with Logan being captured and prepared for the adamantium bonding process. There are several mentions of his being tough, and the Professor, the director of the Weapon X program, along with his assistants Dr. Cornelius and Miss Hines, wipe his mind and bond him to adamantium, the hardest known substance on Earth, to prepare him to be a mindless, soulless killing machine. Prior to ''Wolverine'' volume 2, #75, the plot had too much adamantium bonded to his forearms, resulting in his claws, leading to the development of tubes in his flesh to keep the skin apart for claw extraction. Throughout the program, Logan is constantly referred to not as a person but as a subject, and his humanity is almost completely disregarded in the course of the experiments. Logan frequently comes to odds with his mental programming, and eventually escapes into the wilderness after killing all of the soldiers there (except for one, future Weapon X Director Malcom Colcord) while the Professor, Cornelius, and Hines lock themselves in a secured room that Logan cannot break into.

Sequel

Issue 48 of Wolverine's first ongoing series has a cover plugging itself as "The sequel to Weapon X". The issue involves Wolverine making preliminary investigations into his past, and included remakes of three scenes from the Weapon X story. It is collected in ''Wolverine Visionaries: Marc Silvestri'', among other Wolverine stories from the era.

Collected editions

The story has been collected numerous times, first in a 1993 hardcover () then a 2007 hardcover () which was reprinted in 2009 as a paperback (). Additionally, the story is one of several others in the ''Best of Wolverine, Volume 1'' hardcover, published in 2004 (), and the ''Wolverine'' Omnibus, published in 2009 ().

References

{{Weapon Plus Fiction about amnesia Science fiction comics