Hello and welcome back to my weekly column spotlighting a fantastic book from pre-1995. I mostly present Bronze Age books, but I remembered I had this little gem, and so I’ll be sharing it with you for the next couple of weeks. Back in 1990, comics were on the verge of exploding and then deflating even faster. Most books got thrown into the scrap heap from that era due to that time period, but guess what, there were a few good books, you just had to look a bit harder for them. A man named Barry Windsor-Smith who had been around for quite some time, had many credits to his resume, but this one would be different. Why, you ask? Because it would be about none other than Wolverine. At this point in the Marvel U, Wolverine’s past was still shrouded in mystery, but thanks to this story, it unfolded ever so slightly for the fans. Written and drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith, and brought to you in the pages of Marvel Comics Presents (1990-1992). I present to you – Weapon X!
As our story begins, we see Logan thinking to himself about his past, and even the present. On the other side of the coin, Dr. Cornelius is looking at reports, test results, and trying to capture his thoughts. Logan is at a bar trying to drink his problems away, and soon he gets the feeling that he’s being watched. As he heads out to the parking lot, he gets hit with a poison dart, then a stun gun, too! He still puts up a fight, but eventually succumbs to the drugs and the beating by the three men.
Next, we see Logan hooked up to all sorts of advanced machines and being subjected to tests. The doctors in the room seem quite optimistic about the results they seek, but immediately find out that they may be wrong. Logan’s body tries to fight off the drugs and serums that they introduced to his body. This is alarming because of the fact that it is far more advanced than any other subject they’ve ever seen. This will be a recurring theme. The Professor and Miss Hines are now realizing that they are about to discover something unprecedented in science. A man that can seemingly recover from wounds in mere minutes instead of days. They try to talk to the Professor, but he’s slipped away to his private quarters. Suddenly, in the lab, the subject is getting jumpy, and the Professor watches on the view screen as Logan’s claws emerge from his hands. The Professor then instructs the assistant to go into the lab and help Logan. He has a grin on his face, which would lead one to believe that he had prior information on the subject and his special abilities. The doors to the lab open, and the assistant is lying in the middle of the floor, slashed to pieces. As the Professor returns to the lab viewing room, he and Cornelius are talking about this turn of events, but then Logan smashes right through the glass and looks as if he’s going to continue his murderous rampage. The life support lines get cut off, and Logan slumps to the floor. As he does, the claws slink back into his hands.
The Professor then tells Cornelius that there is more to this than he knows, and he’ll tell him everything if he agrees to keep it a secret. The Professor explains that Logan is part of the homo superior or mutant population, and has abilities that most people do not yet understand. Logan then begins to awaken and starts to go berserk. The Professor immediately hits him with knock out gas and some other kind of blast that levels Logan and hurts him badly. Cornelius then asks if this brutality is really necessary, because Logan is still human. The Professor says, “Well, in some way.” The pair then decide that he’ll be brainwashed, then trained, and used as a weapon. Their weapon.
Well, that’s it for now, but be back next week, as we’ll see Logan endure more pain and then fight a Grizzly bear! Be here!
Billy Dunleavy
billy@comicattack.net
This was my first comic and it made me a Wolverine and BWS fan!