Comic Review: Weapon X #1
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Frank Tieri's 'Weapon X' was a mutant black ops masterpiece.
I was a pretty big fan of the original Weapon X ongoing back in 2002, so learning the title was coming back as part of Marvel’s RessurXion was a pretty big rush. Learning Greg Pak was going to be the lead writer was even more exciting. And hell, anytime you throw Warpath into an X-book I’m all in.
…One of the first warning signs was that this series was featuring Old Man Logan, who Marvel is cramming into every X-book it can (a Wolverine for every season!). What does he have to do with the modern Weapon X program? How would the program even know he exists?
The second warning sign was hiring Greg Land. Now, I don’t want to shit all over him like certain corners of Reddit tends to, but for some reason or another, he can’t seem to draw the majority of his women without them looking like airbrushed porn stars. He’s a talented artist, so when this phenomenon occurs in a book he’s drawing it’s jarring and distracting…
…just like this. That’s X-23, not an Axel Braun Wolverine porn parody.
Anywho, the issue is out, and it’s just “okay” - for some reason it just didn’t feel like it was operating to its maximum potential. Could this just be me hoping for a return to form by the Weapon X book? Absolutely, but honestly, this just didn’t seem inspired.
Land did an alright job, I guess. The best character he portrayed was definitely OML, who was appeared weathered, weary, and OLD (unlike how he’s been drawn everywhere else recently…). Sabretooth looked generic, Lady Deathstrike looked like a submerged model, and all the bladey-robots looked just like a bladey-robots should. He’s just doing his Greg Land thing, which seems like an odd match for a book about a rogue weapons manufacturer and the savage mutants that it hunts.
Pak went with the first person Wolverine narrative, which at this point is like a parody of older Wolverine comics. The story itself, where there are suddenly robots which really legitimately pose a threat to regenerating mutants for real this time, is contrived. The subplot about Weapon X cloning – itself already a leaked storyline featuring Hulk DNA – is another ‘meh’ idea. The part about Wolverine tricking Sabretooth into helping him was pretty great, though.
"I told you not to pull grandpa's finger!"
All in all, the debut issue was a big disappointment: the story seems recycled, the narration is mediocre, the art is just serviceable, and now I’m terrified for how X-23 and Warpath are going to be portrayed. Things better pick up pretty damn fast for this book to survive.
