WEAPON X

January is the time of the year when everyone shares their ‘best of’ lists. I’m not big on lists, and my reading/viewing habits are so random and disjointed that putting one together for any particular category would be almost impossible. If I were to make one for ‘Best Wolverine Stories’ however, Barry Windsor-Smith’s Weapon X would certainly be at number one. It’s much better than the overrated Origin, more gruesome and compelling than the admittedly good Old Man Logan, and more intelligent than anything ever produced within the pages of his own self-titled comic.

Originally serialized in the pages of the weekly Marvel Comics Presents, the story reveals for how Logan had his bones laced with adamantium. It’s a tale filled with blood and suspense. It was rare for readers of any Marvel book to see the main character put through such torture. Logan, in fact, has very little dialogue throughout the course of the story as he spends most it being operated on, mentally manipulated, or in a savage rage.

There are no expository captions in the story, nothing to tell you where the story takes place, how much time elapses between scenes, or to give readers insight into the characters. Rather than use that technique, which comic readers have come to rely on, Weapon X utilizes a perfect marriage of art and dialogue, sometimes through the use of traditional word balloons, but most often through color-coded dialogue captions that flow around the panels to give the closest thing possible to stereo-sound within the pages of a comic story. This is the perfect example of what comics could and should be like.

If for some reason you’ve never read this book, do yourself a favor and pick it up. If it’s already part of your collection, it’s probably time you took it off the shelf to read it again.
Weapon X collects material from issues 72-84 of Marvel Comics Presents, is published by Marvel Comics, with story and art by Barry Windsor-Smith.

 T-Shirt Joe

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