100 Greatest Superhero Stories Ever
By Steve Lam
Image Courtesy of Marvel Comics
#43. Marvel Comics Presents #72–#84: “Weapon X”
Medium
Comic Book
Release Dates
March 1991–September 1991
Credits
Writer: Barry Windsor-Smith
Artist: Barry Windsor-Smith
The Reason It’s Great
As an origin story, “Weapon X” shows a large part of Logan’s history and gives us a detailed account of his time at the program that gave him his famous adamantium composition. The story was recently briefly shown in X-Men: Apocalypse when the young X-Men let Wolverine out of his highly fortified cell.
The story arc starts with Logan being captured. The program prepares him for the adamantium bonding process—a grueling, torturous ordeal. The director of the Weapon X program, the Professor, erases his mind and turns him into a savage killing machine.
Logan’s willpower eventually allows him to break free of the programming and escape—but not before killing all the soldiers at the facility (as portrayed in X-Men: Apocalypse) and only leaving a few personnel alive.
“Weapon X” only has the story being told from Wolverine’s point-of-view at the beginning and at the end. The rest of the story is straightforward plotting with three members in Weapon X acting as the main characters—the Professor, Abraham Cornelius, and Carol Hines. Throughout the years, this story has been seen as a seminal part of Wolverine’s history, and seen as one of Marvel’s greatest narratives.