Become the animal.
"They found me...found me out. Brought me here. Cut me. Got into my body. Tortured me. Tore up my mind. I gotta get away. Gotta get away..."
— Logan
Weapon X is a comic book story from Marvel Comics, published in issues 72-84 of the Anthology Comic Marvel Comics Presents. Written and drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith, it was set in the shared Marvel Universe and was the first comic arc to give a partial origin story of Wolverine, specifically the nightmarish non-consensual experiments that led to his Adamantium skeleton and identity amnesia. In terms of its lingering effects through the entire X-Men franchise, it is one of the most important story arcs, and inspired multiple films and episodes of television.
It tells the story of the "Experiment X", a military Super-Soldier project who capture and experiment on a recently discharged veteran-turned-drifter named Logan. Told from the perspective of the scientists overseeing Logan's unwilling transformation from an anonymous loner to an unstoppable killing machine, later designated "Weapon X". And yes, this is a horror story.
The first volume provides examples of the following tropes:
- Achievements in Ignorance: The project chose Logan because they thought he wouldn't be missed and because his military file showed he had remarkable stamina. They did not know he was a mutant with a powerful Healing Factor, Claws, and Super-Senses. The Anonymous Benefactor of the project did know, however, but chose not to inform the staff or the Professor. It's left ambiguous whether Logan would have even survived the bonding process without his healing.
- Accidental Discovery: The scientists don't realize Logan is a mutant until they notice his hair has grown back and his wounds have healed. They are completely perplexed by why extra Adamantium is automatically being redirected to his forearms and wrists until his claws pop out.
- Acquired Poison Immunity: Courtesy of Logan's Healing Factor, he eventually develops a tolerance and fights off the effects of all the drugs being constantly pumped into him.
- Admiring the Abomination: Early in the story, the Professor convinces an extremely unfortunate junior technician to enter Logan's cell as he wakes up, which rather unsurprisingly leads to his death. The Professor, who's been watching on a CCTV monitor, mutters "Magnificent".
- All Just a Dream: After coming to some of his senses late in the experiment, Logan proceeds to go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge, massacring as much of the staff as possible as he tries to make his way towards the Professor. Eventually, he seems to kill everyone in the facility. However, it turns out this is all an elaborate virtual simulation to test out how Logan would fair against the heavily armed security forces, and he never actually escaped.
- The Alcoholic: Logan was not a good man before being kidnapped. His military discharge report cites "self-destructive behaviors...resulting from chronic alcohol abuse". He's later seen mixing whiskey and pills.
- An Arm and a Leg: During his escape rampage, Logan attacks the Professor, and slices off his right hand. The Professor manages to escape, but Logan follows and eventually cuts off the other hand for good measure, before killing him. Except he doesn't. The escape and rampage are all a simulation by Experiment X to see how Logan faces off against armed humans.
- And I Must Scream: Logan is subjected to horrific experiments and goes in and out of awareness throughout due to being drugged out of his mind. He does end up screaming about how much pain he is in on multiple occasions.
- Special mention goes to him waking up during the Adamantium bonding process (i.e. having his skeleton coated in molten metal).
- Asshole Victim: Logan was a miserable, alcoholic thug before getting kidnapped. Not that it meant he deserved anything close to what gets done to him.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Experiment X wanted to turn Logan into an Implacable Man. They succeeded all too well.
- Black-and-Grey Morality: There are no heroes in this story. Logan is almost a completely mindless beast. Dr. Cornelius and Carol Hines have a few qualms, but willingly experiment on and enslave Logan. Their leader, the Professor, is an outright villain.
- Body Horror: The series is full of it. Logan is injected with liquid metal, has his arms cut open to the bone, he tears apart a pack of wolves, and later has his body covered in nuclear waste. We are also treated to several shots of his claws gruesomely tearing through the skin of his hands. Later, the project installs ports in his hands to keep the claws from cutting him every time they emerge, adding even more to the body horror.
- Boxed Crook: Implied. Several panels show the Professor recruiting Hines and Dr. Cornelius into the project — regarding the latter, a newspaper is seen with the headline '"Mercy killer" quack evades FBI', implying Cornelius is a fugitive, and quite possibly that the Prof made him An Offer You Can't Refuse.
- Censor Shadow: While he's nude for the majority of the story, Logan always has his parts obscured by either a shadow or a convenient piece of technology.
- Clashing Cousins: Retcons made after the release of Wolverine's Origin story arc has retroactively made the Professor, real name Truett Hudson, a cousin of Logan's through Logan's mother, Elizabeth Hudson. However, neither Logan, nor the Professor were aware of this.
- Dehumanization: Logan deliberately has his humanity stripped away, with the project turning him into a living weapon. They pay lip service to his humanity by referring to him as "Mr. Logan", but it's clear he is just a lab specimen to them.Once a man. But scored to the bone. A mindless, restructured, murdering animal.
- The Drifter: Logan starts the series having recently been discharged from the military. His basic pattern includes going from town-to-town, getting into drunken fights, and eventually moving on.
- Didn't Think This Through: Making Wolverine into a living weapon and somehow expecting it to go well counts, though they initially thought he was just a regular, albeit tough, human. Continuing on with the experiments after realizing that he's already a nigh-indestructible, inhumanly strong mutant with a really bad temper is just begging to get hurt.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: With the tendency of future writers to Retcon and add elements and factions to the original project, the story comes off quite differently than it would in future stories:
- The fact that Logan is even a mutant comes off as a surprise to the entire staff, who seem only vaguely familiar with the phenomenon. Later stories imply that Logan (and the other test subjects) were chosen specifically because their mutations allowed them to survive the experiments.
- The special properties and history of Adamantium are not gone into. In this story, it just seems to be a very strong alloy.
- Logan's claws seem to be made entirely of metal here and are an accidental product of the initial bonding process mistakenly pumping too much metal into his forearms and wrists. Somehow. It's later established that Logan had bone claws all along, and the process just bound the metal to them like it did to all his other bones. Apparently, the project never bothered to give their subject an x-ray before injecting him with metal.
- There is no indication that there are other test subjects besides Logan. The inclusion of "Team X" would come later.
- The memory erasure/mind control seems to be a purely chemical/mechanical process. Later stories would include a telepathic mutant assisting with this step of the process.
- The idea that the "X" in "Weapon X" is anything other than a codename is not mentioned. A later story would retcon the "X" actually being the Roman Numeral "10", with Logan being the tenth test subject of the project, dating all the way back to Captain America being the first, or "Weapon I".
- Empty Shell: The horrific trauma and intense dehumanization leaves Logan as little more than a husk of a man, essentially a remote-controlled living weapon. In the moments when he's not being brainwashed, he's instead regressed to a feral animal who brutally eviscerates anybody unfortunate enough to get close to him.
- Eye Scream: The Professor pours hot coffee onto Logan's face and into his eyes. Not even for some experiment, just out of sheer sadism.
- Fan Disservice: Logan is naked throughout most of the story. However, it's used to show his vulnerability and how the project has dehumanized him and is never played for titillation.
- 555: Cornelius begins the story contacting the Professor by one.
- For the Evulz: The Professor at one point pours hot coffee onto Logan's face, knowing that, due to the mind control, he literally cannot react to the pain of it burning him.
- Likewise, after forcing Logan to kill a bunch of feral wolves, the Professor doesn't bother bringing him back into the facility, and instead forces him to sleep naked in the harsh Canadian winter on the bloody pile of wolf carcasses.
- Gone Horribly Right: The virtual simulation that allows Logan to massacre the staff. It is designed to hone his current animalistic mindset into a more focused and deliberate method. The trauma and catharsis of the simulation actually allow Logan to wake up in the real world and escape.
- Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: After successfully forcing Logan to fight and behead a grizzly bear, the Professor decides that he should upgrade to test killing humans.
- Identity Amnesia: Logan admits in the opening narration that he doesn't remember who his mother was. Project X later erases his entire life.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: How Cornelius is killed by Logan. Except not. It was All Just a Dream.
- Implacable Man: One of the goals of the project is to create one. Logan was already superhumanly tough, but once he gains the Adamantium skeleton, he takes it to a new level. Climaxes when he is shown to survive a bath in molten nuclear waste and just keep coming.
- Internal Reveal: Partway through experimenting on him, the team finally discovers that Logan is in fact a mutant, after noticing his incredible healing abilities. As it turns out, they picked Logan for his toughness and fighting skills, completely unaware that he's near-indestructible.
- Info Dump: The Professor takes the time at one point to explain some of Logan's military history and his nature as a mutant.
- Instant Sedation: Subverted. Logan goes down quickly when tasered in the parking lot. When the assailants try to drag him out of the car, he punches one, showing it wasn't instant after all. They end up beating him senseless with the butt of a pistol.
- It's All About Me: The Professor, hands down. He takes personal offense after Logan tries to attack him, later makes it clear that Logan is his property, and takes pleasure in causing pain to Logan.
- Humans Are the Real Monsters: The story may be told from the perspective of seemingly ordinary scientists who think of themselves as pioneers trying to break new ground while controlling a monster who Was Once a Man, but it's clear from the start that they are the monsters of the story, with Logan just being the poor bastard victim who happened to fit their criteria.
- Hypocrite: The Professor is enraged that Logan would try to attack him, effectively meaning he is pissed that the man he has tortured and violated would have the audacity to be upset by this.
- Manipulative Bastard: The Professor, at one point, coerces a newly hired lab tech into a Logan, just after he has woken up from the process and popped his new metal claws. The Professor does this just to see what would happen. Needless to say, Logan immediately kills the tech.The Professor: Magnificent.
- Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: EVERYONE working for Experiment X is one, with the Professor being the worst of them. Most of the rest of them have a For Science! attitude about the whole horrific affair.
- Mysterious Benefactor: Someone powerful is backing the project, but only the Professor is aware of it, and only speaks to the figure by phone. None of the other staff seem to be aware of their existence. In a simulation, the figure releases Logan to attack the staff, and the Professor begs to be spared from his rampage after outliving his usefullness.
- Oh, Crap!: The scientists when they notice that all of Logan's hair somehow grew back within minutes after shaving him head-to-toe, giving them the realization that Logan is a mutant.
- Press-Ganged: Logan is attacked in a parking lot, tasered, beaten, and brought to the project in the first issue.
- Rapid Hair Growth: As part of the intake process, Logan's entire body is shaved. It's visibly growing back 20 minutes later, much to the bewilderment of the scientists.
- Red Herring: The unnamed "Professor" leading the project is a thin bald white man, and is introduced with his glasses refracting the words in the report he is reading, from "Experiment X" into "x men". This would readers to naturally assume that he is Charles Xavier, with the twist that Logan's mentor was behind his torture all along. He's actually a different character entirely, who in this series has No Name Given. A later comic revealed he was using the alias of "Professor Andre Thorton", with his real name being "Trett Hudson".
- Red Scare: Cornelius sarcastically wonders if Logan is being trained to "protect us from the Commies or something".
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Logan. Twice in fact. First in a virtual simulation to see how he would fair against armed resistance. The second occurs when he finally manages to at least halfway wake up from the experiment, Logan goes into a frenzy, killing at least some of the staff and finally escaping.
- Super-Soldier: The purpose of Experiment X is implied to be trying to create one, but the focus is more on Logan's ability to kill rather than any other military application.
- Sinister Shades: The Professor and, to a lesser extent Cornelius, both sport pairs.
- Strapped to an Operating Table: The project does not bother to anesthetize Logan during any of the multiple operations they force him to undergo. The Professor claims his healing factor will fight off any attempt, but they don't even try. He ends up waking several times and is clearly in agony.
- Uncertain Doom: Logan, having finally woken up from the brainwashing, attacks the Project X compound and breaks into the lab holding Hines, Cornelius, and the Professor. He is next seen escaping into the snow of the Canadian wilderness. The fate of his tormentors is not shown.
- Was Once a Man: Name dropped by Dr. Cornelius after getting a good look at what they have turned Logan into.
- We Need a Distraction: Combined with You Have Outlived Your Usefulness. The Professor tosses his employee Carol Hines into the base of the facility's nuclear reactor, in order to lure Logan underneath it and kill him with the nuclear waste. Subverted when it turns out it was all just a simulation, and he never injured Carol.
