Weapon X is a fictional clandestine government genetic research facility project appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. They are conducted by the Canadian Government's Department K, which turns willing and unwilling beings into living weapons. The project often captures mutants and does experiments on them to enhance their abilities or superpowers, turning them into weapons. They also mutate baseline humans. The Weapon X Project produced Wolverine, Leech, Deadpool, Sabretooth, and Weapon H.
Experiment X, or the brutal adamantium-skeletal bonding process, written by Barry Windsor-Smith in his classic story "Weapon X" (originally published in Marvel Comics Presents #72-84 in 1991), was eventually revealed as part of the "Weapon X Project." Grant Morrison's New X-Men in 2002 further revealed that Weapon X was the tenth of a series of such projects, collectively known as the Weapon Plus Program, and the X in "Weapon X" referred not to the letter X, but to the Roman numeral for the number 10. The first project, Weapon I, pertained to the Super Soldier Project that created Captain America.
Publication history
The Weapon X organization first appeared in The Incredible Hulk #181 and was created by Len Wein and John Romita Sr.
Fictional organization biography
Original installment
Wolverine, the original Weapon X
The code-name Weapon X was originally mentioned in the first appearance of Wolverine in The Incredible Hulk #180, in 1974, since which, it had been implied that he was connected to a shady and malevolent government program. In the 1991 Marvel Comics Presents story arc Weapon X, the project was designated Experiment X, and it was revealed that it was responsible for bonding the adamantium to Wolverine's skeleton, making him indestructible. It also subjected him to brainwashing in order to bring out his most basic murderous instincts and to transform him into the perfect assassin. The scientists christened their new killing machine "Weapon X".
Wolverine's solo series issues #48-50 (1992) revealed that Project X also created fabricated memories in the minds of several of its subjects.
Weapon X operated through Canada's Department K and was directed by Professor Andre Thorton. At his side were Dr. Abraham Cornelius, Dr. Carol Hines, and Dr. Dale Rice. John Sublime, the director of Weapon Plus, was always behind the scenes. Some of the work of Weapon X was based on the experiments detailed on the journals of Nazi scientist Nathan Essex, which were obtained by Weapon Plus after the end of World War II.
The project's original test subjects were the members of Team X, a covert ops CIA team (consisting of Wolverine/Logan, Sabretooth/Victor Creed, Maverick/Christoph Nord, Silver Fox, Mastodon, Major Arthur Barrington, Psi-Borg/Aldo Ferro, Wildcat/Noel Higgins and Kestrel/John Wraith). The telepath Psi-Borg was involved in the creation of the victims' memory implants, in exchange for being endowed with immortality. The test subjects were policed by an adaptive robot enforcer, called Shiva, should any of the agents go rogue.
What Wolverine and his fellow X-Men ignored for many years is that Weapon X was part of a larger program called Weapon Plus, a United States super-soldier program created in the 1940s with the purpose of creating super-soldiers and assassins not only to be employed in conventional wars, but also to be employed for the extermination of mutants. Weapon X was the first iteration in Weapon Plus that victimized mutants.
What the Weapon X scientists did not foresee is that the experimentation on Wolverine would cause him to go on a murderous rampage, which allowed the escape of the other test subjects, and caused the death of Dale Rice, among dozens of other members of Weapon X staff, both scientists and military.
