Weapon X, Vol. 2: The Hunt for Weapon H

Weapon X (2017) (Collected Editions)

by Greg Pak (Writer), Marc Borstelmann (Artist)

Origin of a monster! The newly reformed Weapon X program took DNA from the most savage genetic anomalies in the world to create a rage-fi lled behemoth of epic proportions. But before they meddled with nature, they started with man. Who volunteered to be experimented on, and what made them the perfect test subject? Learn the startling answers here! The most savage X-book on the stands continues as the Weapon X program's lethal agenda rolls on!

COLLECTING: WEAPON X 7-11

Genres: Comics, Marvel, X Men, Graphic Novels, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics, Comic Book

112 pages, Paperback

First published February 28, 2018

About the author

Greg Pak is an award-winning Korean American comic book writer and filmmaker currently writing "Lawful" for BOOM and "Sam Wilson: Captain America" (with Evan Narcisse) for Marvel. Pak wrote the "Princess Who Saved Herself" children's book and the “Code Monkey Save World” graphic novel based on the songs of Jonathan Coulton and co-wrote (with Fred Van Lente) the acclaimed “Make Comics Like the Pros” how-to book. Pak's other work includes "Planet Hulk," "Darth Vader," "Mech Cadet Yu," "Ronin Island," "Action Comics," and "Magneto Testament."

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

Weapon H is out there and Stryker, Alba and the team, Weapon X all want a piece of him, bar Wolverine who thinks they can talk to him! Lots of bad-ass action, claws and blood and almost zero character development! Still an OK almost 1990-ish punching and kicking style read, but this Weapon X series is just nowhere near as well written as the original despite it's nearly all A-list roster. 7 out of 12 for all the claws!

2019 read

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Basically Weapon H volume 0, but it works well. The Weapon X team is on the hunt for Weapon H or if you prefer the Hulkverine, and so is Reverend Stryker and Dr. Alba. Dr. Alba is basically the reincarnation of Josef Mengele. She's evil to the core, just wanting to experiment on everything and completely amoral. The art by Marc Barsel, Ibraim Roberson, and colorist Frank D'armata is good, typical of Marvel's current house style.

[Gianfranco Mancini · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this "Hulkverine" storyline was just going to be a big pile of crap, instead (after a weak middle volume) Dr Alba ended being a so awesome villain shadowing good old rev. Stryker and I had a good fun reding this trilogy.
Just turn off your brain and enjoy this badass claw-fest ride.



Far better than expected.

[Chris Lemmerman · Rating 2 out of 5]

[Read as single issues]
Spinning out of Weapons Of Mutant Destruction, a Hulk/Wolverine hybrid called Weapon H is on the run and only Old Man Logan and his Weapon X compatriots can track him down. Unfortunately, they can't find much fun along the way.

This storyline only lasts for five issues, but it feels like it takes forever to get anywhere. The characters run after the bad guy, the bad guy escapes, lather, rinse, and repeat. It's hardly compelling.

It wouldn't be quite so bad if Weapon H was more interesting as a foe/anti-hero, but he's basically all the bad things about Wolverine and the Hulk mixed together and let loose, with a dash of the Punisher alongside it. His Weapon H handlers, including Reverend Stryker, are much more interesting, and even that isn't saying much. Even the main characters feel a bit one-note. Sabretooth wants to kill people, Domino wants to steal things, while Lady Deathstrike and Warpath are basically not even there. I just...don't get this title at all.

The art is also all over the place. Robert Gill, Ibraim Roberson, and Marc Borstel are all thrown into the mix here, with no single issue drawn by one artist.

Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente together used to be a recipe for success, but this book is floating along and I don't understand why it just isn't landing properly.

[Tesutamento · Rating 2 out of 5]

Weapon H hikayesi Mutant İmha Silahları kitabında sonlansaymış keşke. Tüm odağın Weapon H'de olduğu, kendine Weapon X diyen ekibin ise hikaye odağı olarak çok geride kaldığı bir cilt oldu. Weapon H her ne kadar kişiliği ile ilginç bir karakter olsa da bütün kitabı taşıyamaz. İhtiyar Logan ve Sabretooth'un birbirine laf sokması da artık gına vermişken ekipten yeni bir şeyler bekliyorsunuz. Fakat hiçbir karakter üç cilttir olağandan farklı bir şey yapmadı ve bu beni sıktı. X-23 olaya dahil olunca yeni bir soluk gelecek gibi oldu fakat hemen söndü o da. Umarım sonraki ciltlerde bir değişim oluyordur.

[Shannon Appelcline · Rating 2 out of 5]

Here's the problem: this comic is pretty much "Weapon H, guest-starring the crazy crew of Weapon X". Unfortunately, that crazy crew gets very little focus and very little characterization, because Pak is much more interested in setting up his new character for his own series. And, when the actual Weapon X does get attention it's part of an endless fight.

Sadly, this book does have flashes of greatness. It's got a strong cast of both heroes and villains, pretty good scripting, and nice art (other than the ugly cover used for #11 and the trade), but it's just all wasted.

I hope that with H finally gone off to his own short-lived book we'll get some of the actual Weapon X crew in the next volume.

[C. Varn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pak's strengths here are in the solid action plot and the combination of prior dynamics from classic X-men. Nothing particularly new is here, although the idea of a Weapon H is to up the stakes of Weapon X violence. Marc Borstelmann's art is solid, although it is fairly house-style for Marvel. It's something very predictable done very well.

[Dan · Rating 1 out of 5]

*yawn*

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

Action galore, with some above-average art...

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dumb and fun. Mostly dumb.

[Aisling · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[Dimitris Papastergiou · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun read, going along with Totally Awesome Hulk (worst title EVER but what can you do) teaming up to hunt a brand new weapon X! Someone would say whenever they try to "Create" a new hero/villain they just remake an already established one or mixing 2 of those together to make one, it's like they're out of ideas since the beginning of comic books, but I wouldn't say that. Someone would though. Oh well.. Anyway, Pak is making it fun even though I hate reading about yet another character made exactly like other characters that already exist, so that's a point.

Artwork's great too!

[Adan · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was better than the first one, but not by a lot. I got a lot more Warpath, which was nice, but it seems like they really want to make Weapon H a thing. Also, there’s no way Creed is still inverted. Dude tried to nuke a whole city, and Laura had to forcibly stop him. From setting off a nuke. In a populated city. What the heck, Pak?

[Ross Alon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly, when trying to think about this book, it has all the elements of a "bad" book. Stretched story ark (very stretched), villanes acting out of characters, villains turned heroes on a lame excuse. wolverine. But at the buttom line, the book is enjoyable, well written, and although it'll probably won't be remembered for long, it is done well.

For X-Fan.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This has been fun getting to know these characters. I know that there is a new series Weapon H, but I wonder if there will be anymore of these? I hope so, the interaction between the characters is very entertaining.

[Adam Stone · Rating 1 out of 5]

The setup for the Weapon X series, Weapons of Mutant Destruction, was a promising story about the new Weapon X program capturing mutants with healing factors and seemingly creating the next generation of weapons: a machine based team with powers and attributes culled from mutants.

Unfortunately, this volume puts that story in the background to focus on introducing Weapon X's newest antagonist: Weapon H, a ummm...Hulkverine.

Way back in the nineties, my friends and I were making fun of some of the worst mutants involved in X-Men: The Complete Age of Apocalypse Epic, Book 1, X-Men: Onslaught - The Complete Epic, Book 1, and the late 90s crew of Joseph Totally Not Magneto and Maggot the Worm Enthusiast. We tried to come up with the worst mutant ideas ever. Hulkverine was near the top of the list. So to see Marvel create a Hulkverine and try to make it a serious character? Yeeesh. It's pretty bad. The character design is unimpressive, the backstory is boring. This might be the worst Greg Pak book I've ever read.

The squabbling between Old Man Logan and Sabretooth just doesn't have the zing that the old Wolverine vs Sabretooth battles occasionally had (actually, most of them were bad, as well, but there were a few good ones). Tossing in X-23 didn't really add anything to the team, either. I much preferred having all of the Weapon X crew (and Daken) showing up in All-New Wolverine, Vol. 3: Enemy of the State II. That felt like a solid reason to collect all those characters and see how they interacted. This book is just a shrug. It's not dumb enough to be fun, and not smart enough to be interesting.

I think this book will hit for people who are hardcore Wolverine fans, who even enjoyed all the early 2000s Wolverine books, and maybe for people who like to read the same stories over and over again with slightly different characters but all the same plot points and no fear of any character depth.

[Juan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I felt this was totally a solid follow-up to the Weapons of Mutant Destruction story arc.

The story starts shortly after the destruction of the Weapon H incubator facility. It is worth mentioning that the reader will undoubtedly be confused at first glance of Weapon H because he is introduced under a normal human condition. This gets answered by the Weapon X team because we should all be under the impression that Weapon H would remain in a Hulk-size state indefinitely. Obviously, based on the title of the Volume, Weapon H is being hunted by the Weapon X team and by Stryker and his group. Its a rush to get to him first.

As I mentioned in the preceding story, I seriously love Domino. She's cute and hysterical in terms of poking fun at the rest of the team. Something I love about this team is that they all have their own humorous moments, most often making Sabretooth the butt of all jokes. So this volume has a special guest in the form of Laura Kinney but she hardly plays a significant factor in terms of adding to the Weapon X team. One would think if Logan really wanted to call on some backup, he really could have called upon numerous people. Now that I think about it though, I guess there would be some resistance in teaming up with mostly bad guy-like Lady Deathstrike and Sabretooth. I mean, Amadeus Cho sorta had a point in terms of labeling the group as a bunch of murderers. At first, I considered the addition of X-23 as just an easy excuse to group together every adamantium character on the same team. Anyways, I'm looking forward to some more Weapon H. So far I'm interested. He has an interesting back story that gets revealed in this Volume.

[47Time · Rating 4 out of 5]

With the latest of Alba's cyborgs, dubbed Weapon H, on the loose, both Stryker and Logan want to capture it for their respective side. Stryker wants his weapon, while Logan aims to save the man Weapon H was before the procedure. Then there is milf doctor Alba who is positively giddy because of her mostly successful experiment - 'mostly' because Weapon H chooses to not kill any of his enemies. She wants to get Weapon H under control and turn him into a killer, but for her own purposes, separate from Stryker's.

Logan's team gets to Weapon H first, but Hulkverine is too strong and surprisingly smart for them. It's thanks to his former military training which doctor Alba chose to keep intact. She reaches out to the confused Weapon H who accepts her help. He unleashes on Stryker, who turns out to be a cyborg himself, but doesn't kill him.

Stryker then offers to provide Logan information about the man Weapon H used to be. Even before his transformation, Weapon H refused an order to kill innocents. Alba is now trying to motivate him into doing exactly that using nanites. Logan's team find the antidote which resets Weapon H's programming and restores his memories.

Weapon H goes into hiding, promising to not be a threat to anyone ever again unless provoked. Alba is imprisoned by dr. Rao and suspects that her expertise will be used by the mutants. Stryker returns to preaching. Didn't Logan's team kill anybody this time around? Huh. And they wonder why they never get rid of their enemies.

[Scott Lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I still like the potential of this team if the right stories can be developed to make it believable. I'm not sure what those would be, but that's why Pak and the pros get paid the big bucks, right?

The story's all right. It's a direct follow up on the idea of volume one for a revamped Weapon X program run by Striker of '80s God Loves, Man Kills fame which has developed some cool new killing machines that are targeting all of the X-Men characters (except Deadpool, for which I, at least, am grateful, apparently Fantomex) associated with the Weapon X program. Our Weapon X team--Old Man Logan, Sabretooth, Warpath, Lady Deathstrike, and Domino are joined by Laura (the All-New Wolverine)--is trying to stop Weapon H (why H? Because of the hulk thing?), previously with Amadeus Cho, but apparently they don't want/need his help anymore. They can't win a straight fight, but they find a way to stop the killing.

The best moments are the interactions between these characters, each of whom has reason to distrust if not outright hate the others, but the shared skillsets and overlapping mentalities lend to interesting stuff. Unfortunately, it seemed obvious at least to me that the whole thing was a big commercial for Weapon H to be the newest, bigger, badder Weapon X product. And sure enough how does the book end? With a ad for Weapon H #1. Sometimes I hate being right.

[Alex E · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the weapons of mutant destruction story, we saw the creation of a new "Hulkverine" - that is the most deadly version of the weapon X experiments that actually survived. And I thought it was weird as that volume kinda ends with Weapon H jumping away and everyone being like, ok so.... cool, we won. But there was still a rampaging Hulk/wolverine hybrid out there.

In this one, Greg Pak continues his story by having the new Weapon X team track him down. Which is great because that was big plot thread left dangling out there. The same team plus X-23 do the tracking, while at the same time the remnants of the Weapon X program look for him as well. I think Pak did a good job of making the story feel natural as the pacing and story beats unfolded very logically.

Ultimately, the Weapon X team reach Weapon H and somehow manage to get through to him. It seems he may be going his own way for a while, so we will probably see him down the line at some point. But this was definitely a fun story perfect for the Weapon X team. The dynamic of the team is actually really fun, so I am eager to read more of this book. Highly recommended for fans of Wolverine and his usual supporting cast.

[Adam Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Weapon H, a hybrid of the best of Hulk and the best of Wolverine, is on the run (see events of W.M.D.) and the "Weapon X" team (Logan, Sabretooth, Domino, Lady Deathstrike, Warpath, and joining for a team up briefly Wolverine (Laura)) is after him. Dr. Alba and William Stryker, the real power and science behind the Weapon X program, are trying to track him as well.
The first encounter, meant to be one of peace and discussion, ends up with 80% of X in the hospital, and they are the ones with healing factor! H seems to be demonstrating restraint and tactical consideration, which means he isn't mindless. All converges on a battle near a cabin in the wilderness... H defeats most of the X Program, shows restraint in not doing mindless killing, is able to relate to the X team, yet still runs off on his own at the end (apparently getting his own comic) to see answers about his past.
It will be very interesting to see where that title goes. AND what's next for the Weapon X team now that they aren't chasing H. Good comic, lots of action, quick story, great art. Recommend.

[Vishualee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hulkverine can assess his opponent and inflict damages based on the level of threat. He doesn't hurt civilians even under mind control. This is not your average Hulk or Wolverine. This is the unstoppable Hulkverine.

Not much is talked about his origin, except he has a wife and two kids. He served as a mercenary, but turned on his colleagues when they went on a killing spree.

Illustration wise, he looks like the metal villain from the 90s Terminator film- Slick short black hair, built body, unstoppable. Actually first few pages showed Weapon X robots that looked like Terminators.

There were funny moments in the book. Logan and Victor never get along. Domino never gets hurt, but had to babysit the team. Laura "All New Wolverine" lends her claws to the team to put some sense into Hulkverine's mind. I liked the whole adventure. I was hoping they would bring in the Hulk instead of Laura. That would be epic to see the collosal giants fight one another.

[Crazed8J8 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this run. This is book 3 so far in the run, and things really come to a head in this collection. As the team faces off against Weapon H, after tracking him, they add X-23/Wolverine into the mix...battle ensues. Luckily, Logan is able to tap into the 'humanity' of Hulkverine, and we see the character that he will become. Great writing, and the artwork is top-notch! I really have enjoyed this run so far (except for Sabretooth, he is whiny and just seems out of sorts). I like Domino's comic relief, but wish she was a little tougher at times. I love Warpath, they are really showcasing his abilities in these books. Lady Dee is just kind of in the background, though, which is fine. Logan is clearly the leader and front-runner of the book...

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Now we have Weapon H, which is a character that has the powers of Wolverine and the Hulk combined, including the claws. The Weapon X team can't let someone with that much power remain a loose cannon, so this volume shows them hunting him down (as the title implies.) Pretty cool character and not a bad storyline. The art isn't Greg Land, and the quality of the series has gone down since the first volume, which is something I was afraid of. Still, a pretty good action oriented series that still remains pretty straightforward.

[B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Blah. This whole thing feels pretty out of control. Just things keep happening. Does this scientist woman really have all this power? Well, maybe not.

is the Hulkverine unstoppable?

Well, maybe not.

Are any of the Weapon X characters marginally more useful than ONE Wolverine? (Now that Cho is gone.) Well, maybe not.

I don't even know what happened at the end or why they have suffered Sabretooth for so long. And there's a whole thing where Sabretooth appears to want to use a nuclear device to stop a hulk???? Uh huh.

[Nathanael · Rating 3 out of 5]

Better than the last volume, still kind of average. Alba is kind of a fun villain, in her over-the-top evil, and Weapon H was a lot better of a character than I expected from something called the Hulkverine. I’m just not really feeling this team or at least the way they’re written. The story is thin and spread over too many issues, but even then it doesn’t feel like the extra time gave the characters any room to exist aside from fight scenes. Aside from Logan’s and Creed’s constant pissing match, nobody really interacts in any meaningful way and that’s a real disappointment.

[José · Rating 1 out of 5]

20/100.

¿Esto se llama 'Weapon X' o 'Weapon H'? Porque 'Weapon H' ha estado todo el volumen y casi no hemos visto a los demás: el equipo encuentra a 'Weapon H', se escapa y otra vez a repetirlo. Durante los cinco números. Es que es cansino. No sé ni cómo lo he acabado. El guion de Greg Pak y de Fred Van Lente me ha parecido malo; el dibujo de Marc Borstel e Ibraim Roberson es normalucho. De todas formas, ni el arte de Sorrentino salvaría este guion.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75 stars. This series continues to be just action packed fun. With Logan being my favorite character and The fact that I like X-23, I enjoy all there counterparts like Lady Dee and Sabertooth. So it’s cool reading this book with all of them in it. I also like the little bit of back story for Weapon H that was thrown in here which makes me more pumped to read his run next. Throw in the nice artwork and so far we have an entertaining run so far.

[Sean · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Weapon H hijinks continue and its not good. Five issues and nothing of note really happens and the status quo is the same. Dr. Alba seem like a caricature of an evil scientist. Sabretooth's action seem cartoony and stupid and he's not dumb, just aggressive. There is no character development whatsoever. This team could almost have been replaced by any other characters. The art was fine but the story, or lack thereof, was the issue here. Overall, a bland slugfest that didn't impress.

[C · Rating 3 out of 5]

Continuing the great x-read of 2017/18...

So I just wrote my review of weapons of mutant destruction and now I realize that I basically wrote about both volumes in that review.

So... cheating a bit, but yeah, just read that review for both as it is all one story. (I will say that Cho Hulk was missed in this second volume...)