Weapon X (story arc)

"Weapon X" is a comic book story arc written and illustrated by Barry Windsor-Smith and published by American company Marvel Comics. The story arc appears in Marvel Comics Presents #72–84 and tells the story of Wolverine during his time in Weapon X. 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 protagonists: Abraham Cornelius, Carol Hines, and a man referred to within the story as only "the Professor".

"Weapon X"
Cover of Marvel Comics Presents vol. 1, #79 (Mar 1991), art by Barry Windsor-Smith
Publisher	Marvel Comics
Publication date	March – September 1991
Genre	Science fictionSuperhero
Title(s)	Marvel Comics Presents #72–84
Main character(s)	Wolverine Abraham Cornelius Carol Hines
Creative team
Writer(s)	Barry Windsor-Smith
Artist(s)	Barry Windsor-Smith
Wolverine: Weapon X	ISBN 978-0-7851-3726-9

Much of the story arc roughly follows the formula of a slasher film, 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 adamantium, the hardest known substance on Earth, to his bones 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 for an unknown reason, resulting in his claws, leading to the installation of silicon sheathes around the claws to prevent sepsis and silicon bushings through which the claws emerged from his body, and surgical alterations to connect his musculature and nervous system to the claws to provide sensation and control.

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.

Themes

Psychologist Suzana E. Flores has interpreted the storyline as a narrative of the psychology of torture, including the perspective of the victim and the perpetrator of torture, particularly as practiced historically by states, now recognized as a crime against humanity. She argues that the story illustrates Martha Nussbaum's understanding of objectification, including aspects of instrumentality, denial of autonomy, inertness, fungibility, violability, ownership, and denial of subjectivity. Flores particularly compares the behavior of the scientists in the story with the medical professionals of Nazi Germany. Flores also draws the studies of obedience and complicity in torture by Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo.

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 (ISBN 0871359464) then a 2007 hardcover (ISBN 0-7851-2667-8) which was reprinted in 2009 as a paperback (ISBN 0-7851-3726-2).

Additionally, the story is one of several others in the Best of Wolverine, Volume 1 hardcover, published in 2004 (ISBN 0-7851-1370-3), and the Wolverine Omnibus, published in 2009 (ISBN 978-0785134770).

In other media

Television

• The Weapon X storyline is being adapted in X-Men: The Animated Series. In this version, the Weapon X program was responsible for Wolverine's adamantium implants and memory alterations. The program (directed by Professor Oyama and Dr. Cornelius) captured Logan, Sabertooth, Silver Fox, and Maverick and used a combination of false memory implants and brainwashing techniques in order to turn them into an elite team of mind-controlled assassins. Most of the experiments and training were administered at a secret research compound in Canada. There, Thorton and Cornelius forcibly laced Logan's skeleton with adamantium. Enraged by what was done to him, Logan broke free of his restraints and rampaged his way out of the facility. During the ensuing chaos, Sabretooth, Silver Fox, and Maverick were also able to escape.

Film

• The Weapon X storyline is being adapted in the X-Men film series.
  • In the 2009 film X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Wolverine is thrust into the Weapon X Program by Colonel William Stryker as a promise to kill his brother Victor Creed, who had faked the murder of Logan's girlfriend Kayla Silverfox to manipulate him. In the Alkali Lake Weapon X facility, Wolverine's skeleton bonds with adamantium. He then escapes the facility when he overhears that his memory will be erased. Weapon XI was portrayed in the film as a genetically-altered Wade Wilson / Deadpool. Weapon XI is referred to by Stryker as a "deadpool" possessing powers extracted from several mutants.
  • The program under the younger Stryker appears in the film X-Men: Apocalypse. Hugh Jackman appears as Weapon X, wearing headgear and costume based on Barry Windsor-Smith's designs from the Marvel Comics Presents #72–84 story arc.
  • The Weapon X program is mentioned in Logan, where both Logan and Zander Rice acknowledge Rice's father as one of the men responsible for Logan's adamantium bonding in the new timeline.