Home Columns Classic Comic Compendium Classic Comic Compendium: WOLVERINE – WEAPON X, a glimpse at Logan’s past

Classic Comic Compendium: WOLVERINE – WEAPON X, a glimpse at Logan’s past

This story is a key puzzle piece in Logan's history.

07/22/2024 11:00 am

A confusing, hazy past is part of the mystique around Wolverine.

Despite being almost an immortal, unkillable soldier, what made him remained a mystery for the longest time. His memory of his past was fragmented, not quite leaving him a blank slate, but rather an enigma where elements from his past adventures could bubble forward and cause havoc at any time. Like an old flame, a secret organization, or an enemy with a penchant for energy vampirism. It was part of his appeal.

Wolverine: Weapon X by Barry Windsor-Smith and Jim Novak is a key puzzle piece in Logan’s history. Essentially giving us an origin story for what made him into the adamantium-clawed feral creature that we knew and loved for decades. Mining into shadowy government organizations and mind-altering experiments.

“I see a wild beast that was once a man.”

Barry Windsor-Smith is one of my favourite artists. I find it kind of strange that it’s taken me two years to come around to covering one of his works, and that it’s not Storyteller, Rune, or Conan the Barbarian first, but here we are. Arguably, Weapon X is his most famous in the mainstream and it represents a thoughtful, singular work from a master at the top of his game. His artwork here is phenomenal, what I’d consider actually visceral. There’s a grit to his shading, a scratchiness to his lines, but still a beautiful, almost effortless flow to his action and musculature.

Serialized over the course of Marvel Comics Presents #72-84, the Weapon X story details of how Logan was kidnapped by ostensibly the government. Who and what the Professor, Doctor Cornelius, and Hines represent is deliberately left vague, with some details being revealed later over the years, but in the beginning it’s kind of hand-waved. It’s one of the bits that helps leave a lot of mystery to the story. Just giving you enough answers to keep you hooked, but not over-explaining anything.

The storytelling throughout is intriguing. More experimental techniques had popped up through the late ’80s and here Windsor-Smith does more interesting things. The prologue can be considered challenging in how to read it. Many pages move in a way that’s not necessarily intuitive, sometimes in a spiral. What makes it work, though, is that’s kind of the point. It has an uneasy feel about it, puts you on edge, and makes sense going into Logan’s capture and experimentation.

The rest of the story is more straightforward in its layout, but maintains a unique approach to narration boxes. It’s dialogue. Disembodied. Putting you at a distance in certain scenes. Reinforcing some of the cold nature of the experiments on Logan’s mind and body. Making you question some of what you see through the tale. It also certainly makes an interesting job for both himself and Jim Novak with the letters, keeping it mostly intelligible who is who through colour coding.

“Am I…dead? Is that what you…done to me?”

Wolverine: Weapon X by Windsor-Smith and Novak gives an origin to Logan’s adamantium-laced skeleton and part of the experiments who left him an almost mindless weapon. It doesn’t fill in holes before that or really give an explanation of who the Weapon X programme works for. It still leaves a sense of mystery to the tale, not robbing Wolverine of his enigma. There’s a sci-fi horror feel to the story more than superheroics, which I think help leave this as a timeless classic. Along with that gorgeous Windsor-Smith art.