{"id":29711,"date":"2024-04-23T08:00:50","date_gmt":"2024-04-23T08:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=29711"},"modified":"2024-04-22T16:37:58","modified_gmt":"2024-04-22T16:37:58","slug":"wolverine-weapon-x-gallery-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2024\/04\/23\/wolverine-weapon-x-gallery-edition\/","title":{"rendered":"Wolverine: Weapon X Gallery Edition"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\" \"\" \"\"
\nBy Barry Windsor-Smith<\/strong>, with Chris Claremont<\/strong>, Frank Tieri<\/strong>, Avalon\u2019s Raymund Lee<\/strong>, Jim Novak<\/strong>, Tom Orzechowski<\/strong> & various (MARVEL)
\nISBN: 978-1-3029-3395-1 (HB\/Digital edition) TPB<\/p>\n

Wolverine<\/strong><\/em> is all things to most people and in his long life has worn many hats: Comrade, Ally, Avenger, Teacher, Protector, Punisher. He first saw print in a tantalising teaser-glimpse at the end of The<\/strong> Incredible Hulk<\/strong> #180 (cover-dated October 1974 and Happy 50th<\/sup>, Eyy?<\/em>): prior to indulging in a full-on scrap with the Green Goliath – and accursed cannibal critter The Wendigo<\/em> – in the next issue. The Canadian super-agent was just one more throwaway foe for one of Marvel\u2019s mightiest stars, and vanished until All-New, All Different X-Men<\/strong> launched.<\/p>\n

The semi-feral Canadian mutant with fearsome claws and killer attitude rode – or perhaps fuelled – the meteoric rise of those rebooted outcast heroes. He inevitably won a miniseries try-out and his own series: two in fact, in fortnightly anthology Marvel Comics Presents<\/strong> and an eponymous monthly book (of which more later and elsewhere).<\/p>\n

In guest shots across the MU plus cartoons and movies he carved out a unique slice of super-star status and screen immortality. He hasn\u2019t looked back since, and over those years many untold tales of the aged agent (eventually revealed to have been born in the 19th<\/sup> century) explored his erased exploits in ever-increasing intensity and detail. Over decades, his many secret origins and a stream of revelatory disclosures regarding his extended, self-obscured life slowly seeped out. Cursed with recurring periodic bouts of amnesia, mind-wiped ad nauseum by sinister or even well-meaning friends and foes, the Chaotic Canucklehead packed a lot of adventurous living into decades of existence – but mostly didn\u2019t remember much of it. This permanently unploughed field conveniently resulted in a crop of dramatically mysterious, undisclosed back-histories, the absolute best of which is re-presented here.<\/p>\n

Spanning March to September of 1991 in 8-page instalments, Marvel Comics Presents <\/strong># 72-84 hosted a much-demanded semi-origin for the mystery mutant, revealing how he was internally enrobed with wonder-metal adamantium. The tale delivered a \u2018Prologue\u2019<\/em>, 12 highly visual revelatory chapters and a concluding \u2018Interlude & Escape\u2019<\/em>. In 1993, when the tale was collected into a graphic novel, Larry Hama wrote a prose \u2018Epilogue\u2019<\/em> to dot all the \u201cI\u201ds and cross all the \u201cT\u201ds, and that\u2019s included here, plus thematic continuations to the saga that shook the Marvel firmament. Those include an excerpt from Wolverine<\/strong> #166 and the contents of the Smith co-crafted X-Men<\/strong> #205.<\/p>\n

A visual tour de force with truly visceral imagery – almost medical torture porn – the story of how a burned-out spy walks into a bar and eventually regains his senses sometime later, changed beyond all recognition, is told in overlapping, interwoven flashbacks within flashbacks.<\/p>\n

The abduction, who did to what to \u201cLogan<\/em>\u201d under the illicit auspices of \u201cExperiment X\u201d – and why – is all here to experience in gorge-rising detail, but the easy answers you want won\u2019t be easy to see. The monstrous tale of forced transmutation, fight for survival and autonomy and the dichotomy of what separates Man from Animal reveals facts yet leaves truths to later stories. What you have here is how a victim of atrocity overcomes his tormentors and lives free by not dying\u2026 and it is truly spectacular.<\/p>\n

Written, illustrated, coloured and lettered by Barry Windsor-Smith, Weapon X <\/strong>is short and pretty to look upon, a masterpiece of visual storytelling that must be seen to be believed. It\u2019s also a superb shock-horror tribute to Frankenstein<\/strong>, exposing the true nature of the tortured soul underneath the imposed layers unknown enemies have smothered Logan in for so very long and the first step towards his ultimate emancipation.<\/p>\n

Following the Hama conclusion, an extract from Wolverine<\/strong> #166 (September 2001) sees Windsor-Smith return to his opus in a flashback sequence scripted by Frank Tieri: focusing on one of the nameless army grunts (and rare survivor) who faced the berserk escaping Experiment X. Accompanied by Windsor-Smith\u2019s cover for #167 and mirrored by his cover for Uncanny X-Men<\/strong> # 205 (May 1986), they precede his collaboration with Chris Claremont on \u2018Wounded Wolf\u2019<\/em>; another boldly visual triumph as Wolverine faces vengeance-crazed, adamantium augmented cyborg Lady Deathstrike<\/em> in a compelling fable of obsession guest-starring little Katie Power<\/em> from pre-teen titans Power Pack<\/strong>.
\n\"\" \"\"
\nAlthough there are many versions of this collection available, this Gallery Edition is a dream for fans of Windsor-Smith art, closing with 17 pages of original art and a selection of X-related covers, images and pin-ups by the author. These are culled from the back of Wolverine<\/strong> #4, Marvel Comics Presents <\/strong># 72-84, and assorted X-collections including Weapon X Hardcover<\/strong> (1993), Weapon X Trade Paperback<\/strong> (2001), Wolverine:<\/strong> Weapon X <\/strong>Marvel Premiere Classic Hardcover<\/strong>, \u00a0X-Men: Lifedeath Marvel Premiere Classic Hardcover<\/strong>, There are also house ads, promo posters, and variant covers for Uncanny X-Men<\/strong> #395, New X-Men<\/strong> #115,and Deadpool <\/strong>#57-60.<\/p>\n

Short, fierce, relentless and unmissable.
\n\u00a9 2022 MARVEL.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Barry Windsor-Smith, with Chris Claremont, Frank Tieri, Avalon\u2019s Raymund Lee, Jim Novak, Tom Orzechowski & various (MARVEL) ISBN: 978-1-3029-3395-1 (HB\/Digital edition) TPB Wolverine is all things to most people and in his long life has worn many hats: Comrade, Ally, Avenger, Teacher, Protector, Punisher. He first saw print in a tantalising teaser-glimpse at the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Wolverine: Weapon X Gallery Edition”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[191,66,79,105,225,107,169,106,70],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-29711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","category-horror-stories","category-marvel-superheroes","category-mature-reading","category-mystery","category-science-fiction","category-spy-stories","category-wolverine","category-x-men"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-7Jd","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29711"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29718,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29711\/revisions\/29718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}