Wolverine's a lot of things to a lot of people, but to one infamous enclave he was nothing but a... weapon. And weapons kill people. They found that out well enough. Find out just how much "X" can cover in this prequel to recent revelations of the murderous mysteries that have mesmerized our favorite mutant! Collects Marvel Comics Presents #72-84
Barry Windsor-Smith (born Barry Smith) is a British comic book illustrator and painter whose best known work has been produced in the United States. He is known for his work on Marvel Comics' Conan the Barbarian from 1970 to 1973, and for his work on Wolverine – particularly the original Weapon X story arc.
Just as good now as when I picked up Marvel Comics Presents off the shelf 30 years ago. If you've ever wondered how Wolverine got his admantium bonded skeleton, here's the answer. I like how Barry Windsor-Smith tells the story through the eyes of Wolverine's captors. The dialogue is all what is overheard from the scientists as they experiment on Wolverine.
BWS's art is incredible. I love the lions mane of hair and all the wires protruding from Logan's body. So many iconic shots within this. And it was all originally told in 8 page increments. Just fantastic stuff.
I do wish this stayed as the definitive Wolverine origin. Revealing just enough, with still plenty of mystery. He was a government agent, they experimented on him, that was all we needed to know. Why was it necessary to have so many details with Logan’s childhood? Ambiguity worked much better for the character.
What made Weapon X perfect was the Barry Windsor-Smith art. The structure was odd, as it was composed of very short chapters in the Marvel Comics Presents anthology comic at the time. It was such a unique style, about pain and torture and turning a man into an animal. Some of the images remain iconic, worth adapting into film and animation more than once.
It’s also a good self-contained graphic novel. Not bogged down by continuity and tie-ins, just one dark story. Recommended reading for both the completist and novice alike.
This book explains how Wolverine came to have adamantium claws/skeleton. That’s it. He’s abducted, taken to a lab (where the entire book takes place), he’s mostly unconscious speaking very little, the adamantium bonds with his bones and his healing factor prevents him from dying, the scientist tries to control him, fails, Wolverine’s memory is wiped in the process, Wolverine kills everyone and escapes into the wilderness.
If you’ve read a load of Wolverine books or even seen the first 2 X-Men movies and the Origins flick, all of this is already old news - you don’t have to read this. Most the book is really boring with dull clinical dialogue filling up the pages as we see Wolverine in stasis while he’s being operated on.
I felt like this entire story could’ve been relayed in 4 pages or less as part of a larger Wolverine story - until I realised it had been done in numerous Wolverine/X-Men books, even improved upon. Because all of the interesting questions raised - how did they know about Logan’s healing factor? what is Weapon X and what is the purpose of it? who and why were they conducting these experiments? - are never answered. This book exists only to show Logan bonding with the adamantium, having his memory of this experiment wiped, and stumbling away leaving behind death and carnage.
The art is pretty decent: the image of a naked Logan, long, wild hair, claws snikted, covered in blood, with chunks of machinery lashed onto him as he stands above a pile of corpses - it’s very cool, iconic even. But does one page of cool art make reading this book essential? Nope!
Weak story and decent art aside, if you’re familiar with the character then chances are you know about Weapon X already, so reading this is kind of redundant - you won’t learn anything new. I sure didn’t and I’m not sure how this book is considered a classic. A classic yawner more like.
The original telling of how Wolverine got his adamantium skeleton, first serialized in Marvel Comics Presents #72-84. Very confusing, nonlinear storyline, chaotic art/panel arrangments, dialogue mostly medical technobabble (from the doctors/nurses operating on Wolverine) or inarticulate grunts, yells and roars (from Wolverine). For most of the story, Wolverine is either anesthetized or freaking out and going into berserk rages, so there's not a lot of focus on his character. Instead, the narrative focus is mostly on the doctors, technicians, nurses and various military personnel at the Weapon X facility, and questions of who knows what about what the Weapon X project really is, and who lied to whom about it. This stuff could be interesting, but since I never got much of a sense of who any of these characters were, their machinations and discoveries meant little to me.
Ever since I heard so much about Wolverine’s past in the Weapon X program and how much that played a huge role in the character he has become, I wanted to try and read more on his back story of being apart of Weapon X. To be honest, “Wolverine: Weapon X” was the first story I have read that details the horrors that Wolverine has to go through when he was apart of the Weapon X program and I must say that I really enjoyed this book much more than I expected!
What is the story?
Basically, this comic details the horrors that Wolverine goes through when he is abducted by scientists working on Weapon X and some of the horrors that Wolverine faces is that he has to go through the terrible experiments that the scientists put him through such as having him kill animals like wolves and bears and attaching his body to so many cords from machines. One day however, Wolverine escapes the program and causes massive mayhem in the lab!
What I loved about this comic:
The story itself: Even though this was the first time I have read one of Wolverine’s back stories on his life with Weapon X and there are like millions of other stories that tells Wolverine’s back story with Weapon X, I found Barry Windsor-Smith’s interpretation on Wolverine’s back story to be extremely interesting and intense. Even though the story is told more from the Professor’s point of view than from Wolverine’s, it was shocking and intense to see Wolverine being treated like a lab animal just so the Weapon X program could turn Wolverine into their own personal soldier. I also loved the way that Barry Windsor-Smith made this story just as effective by not having any kind of narration in this comic to explain the story and instead tells this story by showing the readers the tortures that Wolverine has to go through when he was being held as an experiment for Weapon X and I also loved the way that Barry Windsor-Smith basically had the characters tell the story through their interactions with each other such as the Professor discussing the procedures of experimenting on Wolverine to his employees. I also loved the way that Barry Windsor-Smith gave a frightening and intense tone to this story since Wolverine’s experiences with Weapon X are so terrifying that this actually reads out more like a horror story than an actual “X-Men” story.
Barry Windsor-Smith’s artwork: Barry Windsor-Smith’s artwork on this story was extremely dazzling and intense. I loved the intense artwork on the scenes where Wolverine is being experimented on since so much detail is put into the scenes. I will admit that I am a huge fan of images that has blood and gore in it. I know that sounds a little gross, but Barry Windsor-Smith put so much detail into the gory scenes that I found myself being more drawn into the story because of that. Some of the gory scenes in this book that stood out for me were of the scenes where wires and needles are being stuck through Wolverine and the scenes where Wolverine’s claws shoot out of his hands and you can see blood spurting out his hands as the claws come out.
What made me feel uncomfortable about this book:
This story is really gory and frightening because it details the torture that Wolverine has to go through when he was being experiment on by the scientists working on Weapon X. There are so many gory images of Wolverine being experimented on that might make anyone who does not like gory images cringe such as the images of Wolverine fighting off animals and human beings and some images have shown Wolverine’s victims having their ribs being shown after they are killed by Wolverine. Also, the last few images in this story might be a tad bit disturbing since it turns into a nightmare when Wolverine is loose in the lab. There were also some confusing scenes for me that I had to really read the text closely to understand it and that was mainly towards the end of the story. I will not tell what happens at the end of the story since it might spoil the story, but it had that “things are not what they seem” vibe at the end that sort of confused me.
Final Thoughts:
Overall, “Wolverine: Weapon X” was an enjoyable read for me because it actually detailed the horrors that Wolverine faced in Weapon X in such vivid detail that I found myself really sympathizing with Wolverine as he was forcefully thrown into this predicament and I was horrified at the things that the people at Weapon X did to him, making this one of the most disturbing reads from the “X-Men” series I have ever came across.
I know that there are other stories about Wolverine’s history with Weapon X, so please feel free to recommend me some other good titles about Wolverine’s Weapon X stories!
Finally read this.. the definitive origin of Weapon X and yeah it was ..something.
It starts off with the Professor and Cornelius experimenting on Logan and most of the comic is told from their POV as they are experimenting on him, finding out he is a mutant and then some more stuff with his healing factor and then bonding the adamantium but then the thing that happens as he escapes and sort of takes out everyone but maybe all this is a simulation to get this weapon under their control maybe?
Its a very deep and confusing read sometime but all the while it shows you the savagery of this weapon x experiment and the inhuman nature but then again its very stylish-ly told especially with the panelings and the lettering, its unique for sure, multiple POV and not much Wolverine action minus him being savage and taking out everyone. I liked the brutal aspect of it and finally when he takes them down and escapes in the end was brutal and is a perfect prelude to his first appearance and then joining the X-MEN! <3
3.5 stars. This is an excellent Wolverine story that was originally published in Marvel Comics Presents #72 through #84. Introduced Cyber, one of my favorite Wolverine villains.
BWS' Weapon X is, somewhat surprisingly, just as brilliant as it was 25 years ago. The artwork and the storytelling are top-rate, especially for how they work hand in hand. The actual writing technique is so tight into the story that you feel you're right there, making it totally enthralling. Finally, we have a brutal and vivid origin for Logan that's still in use so long afterward.
My friend is the biggest Wolverine fan in the Milky Way solar system. He loaned me his Weapon X comics to read and to share the 'Wolverine' love. It was very good. I admit that Wolverine isn't my favorite X-Men (that's Gambit), but he's a very intriguing character with a dark side that I find appealing mixed with this desire for justice. What can I say? I love my antiheroes. The man has had his share of tragedy, and seeing how he gained the adamantium helped me to see him in a deeper light.
Thanks, Mike, for giving me the opportunity to read these.
PS. The X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie was a pretty lousy substitute for the real thing (and we won't even go into how they ruined Deadpool). If you are a fan of Wolverine from the tv shows and the movie, please take this opportunity to read about the real character from the comic books.
Probably one of the highest rated Wolverine stories, and glad I finally got a chance to read.
This is a very dark, fucked up, look into the days inside weapon X for Logan. We waste no time with him being tested on within the first 25 pages of the book. Kidnapped and used, crafted into the ultimate weapon, Logan undergoes some of the most horrible things humans can do to each other. Treat them as nothing more than a means to a end.
Logan's trauma is played out well here, giving characters a more human look into things. There's no over the top evil warlord, it's just people being awful, and there's plenty of real life people just like that sadly. This leads to a more realistic take than I expected, and the violence shocking and brutal when happening.
I'd say sometimes was hard to follow the dialogue, seems all over the place in placement at times. Maybe to make you feel like logan but I didn't love that.
But overall very much worth reading, especially if you're a Logan fan. A 4 out of 5.
Tomando como modelo la novela Frankenstein y los cómics que supo hacer de Conan, BWS construye un relato de opresión, oscuridad y dolor. Vemos el nacimiento de una bestia que sin embargo mantiene retazos de humanidad a pesar de toda la humillación que le hacen vivir.
BWS acierta en no darle a Logan el punto de vista de la historia para así deshumanizarlo lo más posible y mostrar las maquinaciones de los que están atrás de todo.
El dibujo es increíble también; el autor apuesta a un realismo deforme y exagerado en las posturas, que al principio se destaca en los primeros planos para luego ampliarlos pero sin perder ese sentimiento de encierro y opresión.
La paleta de colores sorprende en su amplitud de gamas, logrando así mantener el tono oscuro pero sin caer en pocos y obvios tonos que suelen utilizarse en historias así.
En definitiva un clásico moderno de autor que, a pesar de su crudeza nunca fue sacado de continuidad, siendo tan influyente para todo lo que después se hizo con el personaje.
I'm not sure I like the false ending thing. It went along and I thought things were really happening, and then it turned out Logan had been set up or something (I'm still not sure) so then he had to go back and do it for real. I don't really know what it added. I suppose good for Logan for seeing through it? If it wasn't for that I would have rated it higher. It was gruesome and awful, as it should have been.
Διαβάστηκε και τούτο, μιας και έχω όρεξη για γουλβερινικά κόμικ. Καλό ήταν. Η αλήθεια είναι πως ο χρωματισμός δεν είναι καθόλου του γούστου μου, γενικότερα αυτή η cyberpunk αισθητική με τα νέον χρώματα είναι τελείως αποκρουστική. Οκ, ήταν χρωματισμένα με φωσφοριζέ πράσινα και κίτρινα ακόμα και τα μπαλονάκια, είπαμε. :lol: Τουλάχιστον στην αμερικάνικη έκδοση που το διάβασα, το κράτησε έτσι άραγε και η οξύ; Για να είμαστε ειλικρινείς, τα χρονάκια του τα δείχνει και με το παραπάνω, αν και δεν θα μπορούσε να γίνει αλλιώς όταν μιλάμε για υπερηρωικό. Τα περισσότερα από αυτά, στα δικά μου μάτια τουλάχιστον, γράφτηκαν για την εποχή τους και μόνο. Παρόλα αυτά, διαβάζεται σχετικά ευχάριστα και δεν είναι τυπικό του ζάνρα σε καμία περίπτωση.
Το σχέδιο ήταν αυτό που με κέρδισε παραπάνω, νομίζω από τους καλύτερα σχεδιασμένους γούλβεριν που έχω δει σε κόμικ, μαλλιαρός και μπρουτάλ όσο πρέπει. Μακράν καλύτερος από εκείνη την κιτρινόμαυρη παρωδία, πιο πραγματικός. Η γραμμή μου θύμισε φουλ το Ρόνιν του Μίλερ, άραγε να εμπνεύστηκε από κει; Το σενάριο επίσης ιδιαίτερο, πολύ σοβαρό για Μάρβελ και γι'αυτό το συμπάθησα από την αρχή. Φαινόταν άλλωστε που το πάει. Γενικά αξιοπρεπές, σίγουρα βαρύς τίτλος για διάφορους λόγους και γι'αυτούς που ξέρουν παραπάνω για το MU και το πως εξελίχθηκε. Για μένα ένα οκ ανάγνωσμα που δεν με χαλάει να το έχω στις αναγνώσεις μου, δεν με τρέλανε όμως. Ισαποστάκιας φουλ με το Όπλο Χ.
When I discovered the X men somewhere in the early '80s there was clearly one different mutant hero and that was Wolverine. Hé stood out in the the mutant crowd because of his attitude and hé could manage without a team. Fearsome as heck. I never read this Weapon X story in those days, for me this was a first and a rather impressive read. This is the story of Logan who gets taken and against his Will gets his memory taken and his bones fused with worlds strongest metal, making his claws a dangerous weapon. Weapon X never tells his side but the scientists who are there tell the story. The drawings are excellent. Together it makes for an excellent story about one of the most dangerous mutant on earth (and the most popular one too I guess, looking forward to the next movie with Deadpool & Wolverine)
Excellent material still, years have not managed to make this story less brutal.
they don't write 'em like they used to. bloody dehumanizing horror more fit for a jim thompson cyberpunk novel than the pages of marvel comics presents. a childhood favorite of mine, it stands the test of time. i guess my dad knew BWS from his conan days, which is why he would buy possibly the bloodiest comic i've ever seen (worse than JTHM? possibly!) for his eager grade school-aged son. it's not all exposed ribs and bloody snrkt's, it's got a surreal cronenberg like i said cyberpunkness to it. anyone know any other good BWS books?
Very good book! So this is the story of how wolverine gets his animatum claws (not X-Men origins wolverine, don't even mention it!) I was surprised this book doesn't have any dialogue from Wolverine himself, its basically the scientists and them installing and testing Wolverines claws till the bloody confrontation at the end! In the end not bad!
Barry Windsor-Smith remains one of my all-time favorite comic artists. Completely unique. Smith's writing on the other hand is often poor and this collection is no exception. A weak build-up; jumpy narrative. The "scientists" and security are all doofuses. Enjoy the art, skip the story.
I think the graphic comic called ‘Wolverine: Weapon X’ is a horrific origin story! Omg!
I have copied the comic blurb:
”Wolverine's a lot of things to a lot of people, but to one infamous enclave he was nothing but a... weapon. And weapons kill people. They found that out well enough. Find out just how much "X" can cover in this prequel to recent revelations of the murderous mysteries that have mesmerized our favorite mutant! Collects Marvel Comics Presents #72-84”
I feel sorry for what the super antihero Wolverine went through, but frankly he wouldn’t give a damn what I think or what anyone else might think! Wolverine, aka Logan, was never a nice guy before or after his bones were replaced with Adamantium. The physical transformation that was tortuously forced on him by a mad scientist made the mutant whom we know as Wolverine an even stronger, meaner warrior than he already was. In other words, into a terrifying unstoppable unkillable killer!
Weapon X was part of the Canadian government operation called the Weapon Plus Program. They were trying to make soldiers like Captain America. However, the selection of Logan as a test subject was not a wise choice! He was already a hardass tough guy before the operation. Afterwords, he was an ANGRY hardass tough guy!
Um gibi massaveio de origem, com um intuito diferente para quem vem do run dos anos 80 dos fabulosos X-men que é um run com muito diálogo esse já se opõe por ter porradaria a toda hora e muito sofrimento por contar o projeto arma-x porém muito da origem que foi por conta de eu ter vindo procurar o quadrinho ficou em aberto na real essa deve ter sido a intenção do autor. A arte é bonita e o quadrinho é dinâmico. Creio que seja por um ponto também de eu não me identificar tanto com o personagem. Mas se espera porradaria com um projeto super-humano vai gostar!!! Uma coisa que me chama atenção nesse quadrinho que faz eu dar uma estrela a mais pelo roteirista ser o mesmo que o ilustrador oque torna sempre o projeto mais artístico bem ao estilo graphic novel!!
Ах, че страхотна история!!! При това е отроче на само един човек! Разказът за това как и защо Лоугън се сдобива с адамантиеви кости и нокти, е просто перфектна за мен. Един от най-добрите комикси от серията, а и не само!
Barry Windsor-Smith como artista completo siempre ha sido un ilustrador en busca de guionista. Algo particularmente evidente en esta historia gráficamente apabullante pero a nivel de escritura entre lo rutinario, lo redundante y lo poco meditado. Sin embargo, este tebeo no se puede juzgar sin tener en cuenta que Smith esté detrás de todo el proceso artístico; algo pocas veces visto en el mainstream americano hasta aquel momento. Su planteamiento (el exceso de detalles en las figuras humanas, la cierta vacuidad de los fondos, la abstracción en el uso del color...) empuja el medio en una dirección que no había ido, y para mi sigue conservando la fuerza del primer día. Que esto llevara a sitios positivos o no es otro asunto.
La edición Deluxe me ha parecido que se justifica en lo que se refiere al Arma-X y el acompañamiento del número 205 de Uncanny X-Men: Lobo herido. Lo que es una cagada es incorporar unas páginas dibujadas por Smith sacadas de una etapa reciente que remite a Arma-X y cuya impresión parece hecha en una impresora de inyección de tinta cutre de hace 2o años. Algo que se puede extender a la reproducción de unas pocas páginas de lápiz/tinta sin el color. Le añades el uso de un papel de gramaje mejorable y te preguntas... ¿40 pavos por esto?
Endlich mal ganz genau die Origin-Story von Wolverine erfahren. Das kriegt man hier auf jeden Fall geboten, auch wenn ziemlich wenig der Story überhaupt aus Wolverines Sicht stattfindet, sondern vielmehr verfolgt man die Wissenschaftler, die sich um Waffe X kümmern. Anfangs wirkte dies noch ein wenig verwirrend.
Der Comic hat nicht nur von der Optik her einen sehr oldschooligen Sci-Fi Vibe, sondern auch von der Erzählweise wurde ich einige Male an andere große Vertreter des Genres erinnert, z.B. Akira. Trotz der sehr raren Sicht von Logan auf die Dinge, ist die Geschichte mehr als spannend, sowie erschreckend erzählt. Es ist eine brutale, dramatische und nicht auch zuletzt moralisch fragwürdige Origin-Story. Die auch nicht mit den expliziten Bildern geizt.
Das letzte Kapitel hier hätte man sich meiner Meinung nach sparen können, denn es versucht den Leser auf eine falsche Fährte zu führen. Trotz allem, oder auch gerade wegen diesem bitteren Nachgeschmack, den die Story hinterlässt, hat mir dieser Band besonders gut gefallen.
Larry Hama's 1992 introduction makes much of this being 'a one hundred and twenty-five-page Wolverine story where Wolverine never utters the sacred mantra "I'm the best at what I do," nor does he SNIKT-out his Adamantium claws – he doesn't even refer to himself as the "Ol' Canucklehead."' Little dreaming that, thirty years later, it would be just as much part of the checklist to flash back to Wolverine emerging from a tank with a load of cables attached, an old VR headset on, and the postures and angles carefully concealing his junk. And sure, in a sense it's a mark of success to have expanded the lexicon like that, to have actually changed a character who through his superpower, but more than that through being a lucrative corporate property, is set up never to take a mark from anything he undergoes. Set against which, this does feel a lot like an expression of that nineties comics tendency to conflate horridness with artistic merit and importance. Is a gory 'SHCLUK!' for Logan's claws coming out really so much of an improvement on 'SNIKT'? Which, in any case, does eventually make a crowd-pleasing appearance. And sure, doing a story which is at a certain remove from the normal X-Men tangles has a certain appeal, but is it not maybe confusing and disingenuous to go so far as opening with the line 'Storm's comin'' when your lead is often on a team with someone called Storm? As for trying to do the whole Watchmen 'how would superheroes be if we approached them realistically' bit...well, sure I can see the logic of having Wolverine's hair regrow quickly after he's been shaved, even if with hindsight it does feel a bit Homer Simpson. But if that's the case, how come he isn't constantly looking like Cousin Itt? Hell, even if you assume some kind of length limit, how come he just has the big sideys, not the full Yosemite Sam? It's not as if his chin and top lip normally look baby-smooth, is it? Which may seem pernickety, but so much of the story is like this, Wolverine being tortured and demeaned to a soundtrack of technobabble and bickering bastards. Plus, it's this same sort of supposedly being realistic, but then stumbling halfway and mostly just being ugly, which bugged me about Windsor-Smith's alleged magnum opus, the recent Monsters. I think I may just need to go back to his Conan, and henceforth treat him as having one of those Radiohead careers where people recognising how very good the early stuff was doomed the later stuff to disappear right up itself.