Weapon X, Vol. 3: Modern Warfare

Weapon X (2017) (Collected Editions)

by Greg Pak (Writer), Yildiray Cinar (Illustrator), Roland Boschi (Illustrator)

Old Man Logan, Warpath, Domino, Lady Deathstrike and Sabretooth have uncovered a shocking crime! Mutant genocide is being committed in a small, third-world country - and now it's up to our savage squad to stop this massacre! But the militia they must take down isn't full of your ordinary run-of-the-mill soldiers. These guys are powered by the same red pills taken by the Super-Soldier known as Nuke! With the lives of an entire nation's mutants at stake, things get explosive as the team takes on a Nuke platoon! COLLECTING: WEAPON X 12-16

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

112 pages, Paperback

First published June 20, 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

[Jeff]

Here’s another X-Book for you kids!

This isn’t the ‘90’s and the mutant-themed books don’t quite have the same cache as they once did, so is this book x-ceptable? Well, you have to dump Old Man Logan somewhere, so why not create a team book around him. Throw in some Weapon X alumni, which sadly, doesn’t include Fantomax, but does include Sabretooth (for aged, crazed dramatic tension and stuff), Lady Deathstrike (for hot, evil, dramatic tension and stuff), Domino (for hot, lucky, dramatic tension and stuff) and Warpath (dunno).



They were clumped together by Greg Pak during the Weapons of Mutant Destruction crossover (to be reviewed soon. Probably.) because the new smart Hulk is kind of dull and needed to be surrounded with dramatic persona and tension and stuff.

The first story finds Weapon X traveling to a made up Central American country to rescue mutants that are being persecuted. They run into a Nuke squad.



One pill (red?) makes you larger one pill makes you small (blue?) or something.

Go ask Alice when she’s ten feet tall.

In the second story, it’s Wolverine’s 967th birthday,



And to celebrate a long standing birthday tradition…



…Sabretooth and the Old Man rumble.



Ooops, somebody forgot to bring the keg.

Bottom Line : Punch or snikt? That is the question. Plus, I’m hatin’ the amped-up I’m-only-in-it-for-the-money Domino persona. For Wolverine/Weapon X fans who like their Canuklehead books full of slashing and bashing.

[Chad]

Weapon X takes on a whole platoon of Nukes in order to save the mutants in Santo Marco. They've been sent by their President to wipe out anyone related to a mutant. Yildiray Cinar had a Marvel house style look to his art. Also included is a Happy Birthday, Wolverine story that picks up on a idea from Larry Hama's Wolverine run. Sabretooth ties to kill Logan every year on his birthday, typically killing Wolverine's loved ones as well. Roland Boschi's art is wildly inconsistent and just plain terrible. This book is over the top and mostly nonsense, but what did you really expect?

[Chris Lemmerman]

[Read as single issues]
Finally free of Weapon H and Reverend Stryker, Weapon X head off to try something new - namely rescuing a wartorn country from an entire platoon of Nuke-powered terrorists. Oh, and the real Nuke is there too. Yay?

This is much better than the first mega-arc, easily. The Nuke story finally lets the characters breathe and interact properly, and explores what really holds them together as a team (spoiler: not a lot!), and it's really fun to see the anti-heroes of the team let loose properly. Yildiray Cinar's art is polished and pretty, a suprisingly good fit for a story about these characters.

Also included is a two-parter Happy Birthday, Old Man Logan story that is basically an excuse for Rodney Buschemi to draw lots of mutant monsters while Wolverine and Sabretooth try to murder each other. Mindless fun, which is what I really want from this series.

Things are looking up, finally. Weapon H's dark shadow is lifting, and Weapon X can step into the light and tell some decent stories for a change.

[Baba]

After more stabby stabby kill kill guest starring Nuke (Weapon VII).. there's a two-parter on Old Man Logan's birthday... enter Creed and the 'tradition' of trying to kill Logan on this day - good to see some key continuity play and with such an event some meaningful characterisations of the pair - 7 out of 12.

[Frédéric]

Moronic is the first word that comes to mind to describe this book.

The Weapon X team plays the Expendables against a whole company of Nukes (as in "Give me a red") in some shithole dictatorship in South America.

Yep. That's all. That's the whole plot for 3 fuckin' issues of moronic fights against moronic opponents (Nuke ain't exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer, is he?) with moronic dialogues and situations (the Domino-Warpath dance of death, bleurgh....)

I even thought for a moment I was back in the moronic 90's in a Rob Liefeld comic book for chrissakes!  (Yes, I'm at least that old).

Last 2 issues are Sabretooth wishing a happy birthday to Logan by trying to gut him out.
Sigh.

What can I say?

Moronic.

[Steve]

Holy crap, this was bad. Like, bad-enough-to-consider-never-reading-this-title-ever-again bad.

The only reason I'm giving this two stars is because of the Wolverine/Sabretooth story at the end.

[Tesutamento]

Yıldıray Çınar'ın çizdiği kısımlar hem hikaye hem de görsel anlamda ne kadar güzeldiyse kendisinin çizmediği kısımlar bir o kadar kötüydü. İlk üç bölüm şaheser olmasa da bir hikaye anlatma gayesi vardı. Son iki bölümde artık Greg Pak anlatacak bir şey bulamamış da Wolverine vs Sabretooth "kozunu" oynamış. Milyonuncu kez dövüşen bu ikilinin kimseyi heyecanlandıracağını da sanmıyorum.

[Dimitris Papastergiou]

I hate the guy, whatshisname with the flag in his face?! That guy. I hate that guy. I JUST read about him earlier today and I don't even remember his name, that's how forgettable he is. Boring as hell, whenever I See him in Wolvie's comics or wherever, it's unreadable and cringy as hell. But this one was fun to read with nice artwork along the way.

[Francisco Eustáquio]

I felt a bit disappointed. The story was uninspired. The art was poor. Domino was off character, Lady Deathstyke was just wallpaper.

[Marco]

I don't know know why I keep reading this.

[Lex Cillian]

I'm not entirely sure what to say about it. It was meh. That is all.

[Ross Alon]

Sort of a turning point in the series, It could have actually ended here and I would've been fine with it. Sadly we have two more volume, they probably couldn't ruin the really nice strike.

[Andy]

Oh wow did I not like this volume.

This storyline was not my cup of tea. Brain dead action with no character moments is just not something I like to spend my time on. I like how there is a domino/warpath thing that might happen but nothing got a chance to be explored in this thing due to all the pill mess and killing. Domino might be the only character I genuinely like on the team since she has a likable personality. The art is also not the best. Sabertooth has not been or me for a while now and the character does nothing at all to make me like him. This whole volume was a disappointment, the only thing I liked was the Sabertooth and old man Logan short storyline.

Hope the writer can make a comeback on the next one.

[C. Varn]

Greg Pak's Weapon X has a very particular mercenary take on the Weapon X team--a team that comes out of later X-Force and Wolverine villains. The ham-fisted political analogies aside, the Nuke storyline is simple beyond that and allows the characters to breathe. Lady Deathstrike gets short-changed in the writing. Yildiray Cinar's art works well here. However, the inclusion of the old-man Logan arc with Sabretooth attacking him on his birthday, Rodney Buschemi's art here is inconsistent and frankly, the art and arc are a little confusing, but it's mostly mindless fun.

[Christian Zamora-Dahmen]

it could get worse— and it did!
If only they went with Neena’s bank robbery idea. It could have been fun.

[Aisling]

2.5

[47Time]

This series got much better without the Dushy Hulk weighing it down. I dare say it's the best volume so far. Not perfect by a long shot, but pretty good. And funny to boot.

When you don't have anything original, you recycle. That seems to be the case with Nuke or Weapon VII. He is now in Santo Marco where an army of US-flag face-tattooed soldiers is causing havoc. A red pill makes them super strong like the original Nuke who is being held captive.

Sabertooth separates himself from the group and finds Nuke who is more than happy to attack the Nuke army. Logan's attack on the pill factory has Nuke join the mindless army instead. With Logan's guys overwhelmed, they resort to using the pills. Things quickly quiet down after Logan destroys the pills - while standing next to the bomb, no less. The revolution is in full swing when Nuke kills the local dictator and makes his getaway.

Sabertooth never forgets about Logan's birthday. Like always, he tries to kill 'the little runt.' Logan worries that fighting Sabertooth is going to get him in the same destructive frame of mind as when he killed the X-Men in his own universe/timeline. Thankfully, when 12 o'clock strikes Sabertooth simply stops the fight right when Logan was getting ready to 'finish it' once and for all. It was quite funny.

[Adam Stone]

There are two main storyarcs in this collection.

1.) The Wolverines go to San Marco to save the country's mutant population from the government who had hired a bunch of American soldiers to paint US flags on their face and take supersoldier pills that make them insane murderers. Only it turns out that the insane murderers were supposed to go to the country to kill its leaders. Lots of violence ensues. This is a shallow but perfectly decent story for this team of characters. A three-star book with decent but not eye-popping art. I would totally recommend it to fans of Wolverine or X-Force.

But...

2.) It's Wolverine's birthday, which means the five millionth battle between Wolverine and Sabretooth. If you randomly cut and pasted every previous battle into forty pages, you'd probbaly end up with something more interesting than this slop that Greg Pak has embarrassingly strung across two narratively and entertainingly bereft issues of comics . It's a zero-star book, because he put zero effort into the story.

It's certainly worth reading the first 3/5ths in a library but then it's in your best interest to put the book down, preferably where someone else won't accidentally be exposed to it.

[Craig Lotter]

Two part book, first story revolves around the Weapon X team being called back to the island nation of Santo Marco to protect a village of mutants, only to find the corrupt administration of the country has put together their own little pill-driven Nuke army. The second story is the usual Sabretooth pays Logan a birthday fight visit. Writers Pak and Van Lente deliver a very action heavy book, but the problem with constant slashing, punching, and shooting is that it quickly loses all impact, meaning it often just feels like the characters going through the motions without any sort of progress or setback. There are a few moments where we get a hint of some of the team members starting to build links with one another, but yeah, for the most part this is a competent book about violent people doing violent things pretty much all the time. (Also, can't say I am enjoying this iteration of Domino in the slightest). Cinar delivers great art for the first half of the book, before Boschi steps in and switches it up. He has his moments in the action sequences, but his quieter moments often leave the characters looking slightly not quite right. It's an okay book, but it would probably have been fine for me to give it a skip as well.

[Guilherme Smee]

Se eu não fosse um verme das publicações x, eu já teria desistido de ler Arma X desde o primeiro volume. Mas a verdade é que eu não sou e preciso acompanhar tudo que tem um x no título. O arco do Bazuca, em que todo mundo vira bazuca na república de bananas de São Marco, inclusive o Arma X, é menos ruim do que eu pensava. mas ser menos ruim não quer dizer que não seja ruim, certo, pipow? Ali eles tentam desenvolver um forçado romance entre Dominó e Apache, ai, ai, ai. Bom, depois tem um outro arco incluído neste encadernado, isso porque a Panini resolveu publicar somente mais este encadernado e um próximo e não dividí-los em 3 como foi feito lá nos States. Neste outro arco, que marca o aniversário do Velho Logan, mais uma vez o Dentes-de-Sabre tenta, de alguma forma, desgraçar a sua vida ou matar ele. Como Creed fez quando estuprou e matou ou vice-versa, o grande amor de Wolverine, a indígena Raposa Prateada. Lutinha, lutinha e lutinha e nada de mais a ser acrescentado neste segundo arco de duas partes desse encadernado. Aliás, esse título é um dos mais sem sentido e dispensáveis da história dos X-Men. Só acompanha quem é verme mesmo.

[Adam Fisher]

Starting to become bored with their daily routines, the team receives a distress call from a small country where mutants are being killed by a group of soldiers. These aren't just any soldiers though... they are seriously beefed up and have the American Flag tattooed on their face. They are taking the same pills as Nuke (see Captain America Vol 3)!
First taking on the Nuke squad, then freeing Nuke himself to fight alongside them, then taking the pills to give them the advantage too, they win the day and help free the country, destroying most of the pills in the process. (A few of them ended up in the hands of Deathstrike and Sabretooth...)
An additional story involves Sabretooth reminding Logan that it's his birthday, which means the two of them battle it out to see who is the best. The story and fighting is excellent, but the art is horrible on those issues...
Teaser: Next up... Omega Red!

This title is fun, but I wish there was a bit more story to it and not completely reliant on the fighting to carry the title. Recommend.

[Alex E]

The weapon X team has to deal with yet another weapon from the program... Nuke.

So, if you've read Marvel comics for a while, you probably have read about Nuke - the doped up supervillain who needs drugs to keep up his strength, speed, and overall dominance. So Greg Pak does kind of smart thing by giving us an army of these suped up soldiers for the team to go up against. And it works well for the book. We get exactly what we expect and all with some good ol friendly banter and maybe just a bit of sexual tension thrown in for fun.

With a team comprised of members like Sabertooth and Mystique, you know that the book is going to be a certain type of book. Which is definitely not a bad thing. But there isn't much to it as far as additional layers to the story. It seems Pak is trying to stir up some stuff between the members themselves, which is always fun for a team book, so let's see where the book goes from here.

[James]

2.75 stars. So far this was the weakest book of this series. Warpath gets a call from a friend saying they are being attacked. Someone has sent a platoon of Nuke soldiers to kill the mutants in the area. Our weapon X team races down there and the fight begins. There was an extreme amount of brakka brakkas, machine guns shooting for days. During the fight Sabertooth frees the original Nuke which leads to even more brakka brakkas. Toward the end of the book it changes gears to the whole Sabertooth tries to kill Logan on his birthday which leads to a long drawn out fight. This volume was kind of boring and the bad art in the last to issues didn’t help.

[Crazed8J8]

This collection felt like filler stories. The first few books dealt with Nuke and some Nuke-duplicates (Nuklicates?), but we did get to see a brief hook-up between Domino and Warpath (which is kinda weird because I always saw her as the mom on X-Force, so the pairing was a little awkward). That said, more of the same from the last collection, Domino as comic relief is only okay, Logan the leader, Sabretooth the loose cannon, Lady Dee in the background, and Warpath we get to learn more about...
The second half is the book is all out War between Logan and Sabretooth (because it's Logan's birthday tradition). Fun story, but the artwork throughout is sub par!
The first volumes were much better!

[Sean]

Greg Pak and Fred Van Lente (two writers I think of when I think of fun books) tell another incredibly bad X-title. Here we get the return of Nuke and its not even a little interesting. The team heads to South America to help lead a revolution for reasons...and then things get worse. We are treated to a random relationship for no reason as well. Then a rehashed Logan/Victor fight. I was honestly shocked by the unoriginality. The art in the first half was fine but very bad the last arc. After the mostly forgettable Weapon H stories, I don't know what the purpose of this book is. Overall, not a good look at some of the X-Men's coolest characters.

[Quentin Wallace]

A lot of readers didn't like this one, but I didn't think it was too bad. The first storyline dealt with the return of Nuke, the drug powered soldier that first showed up in Daredevil. There's a whole army of Nukes for the Weapon X crew to deal with, in fact.

The second storyline was focused on Wolverine and Sabretooth as Sabretooth once again tries to kill him on his birthday. There's also a huge group of monsters that show up, which is pretty cool.

The art took a bit of a drop off here, but overall I enjoyed this volume.

[Villain E]

Now that they're acting like a team, Weapon X looks like the post M-Day X-Force, ready to take out threats to mutants with extreme force. (But, then, why does Deathstrike hang around?) They deal with a squad of folks acting like Nuke, with the flags on their faces and using the red, white and blue pills. Then Greg Pak remembers that Sabretooth attacks Logan on his birthday every year, but, in a flashback, forgets that Old Man Logan never popped his claws after killing the X-Men.

A fast read. A lot of action. Decent art.

[C]

Continuing the great x-read of 2017/18...
2.5 stars
It's a better volume than the first couple in some ways.
If you want a book with a whole lot of claws and blood, a whole lot of bullets and brains splattering about, then this one is for you. The action is pretty well done for what it's worth.

The story, though, leaves a bit to be desired.

And the ending issue with the annual Sabes/Wolvie fight was just pretty bad all around.

[Roman Jones]

The best part of this volume is the “Happy Birthday, Old Man Logan” two-parter in issues 15 & 16. Really enjoyed the exploration of the dynamic between Wolverine and Sabertooth, with the twist being this is not the same Wolverine that Victor is used to. The Weapon X series overall is enjoyable junk food; classic turn-your-brain-off and enjoy the fighting fare. But occasionally, Pak weaves in deeper themes to give the story more weight. Favorite volume of Weapon X so far.

[Adan]

Ugh. Just ugh. Nuke is a terrible character, and the Logan birthday thing is just ridiculous. And there’s absolutely no way Creed is still inverted. And why is Domino so cavalier about other people’s lives? She talks so much about robbing a bank instead of helping innocent people. It’s gross, and is very out-of-character. Like, not everybody is Deadpool (and even Deadpool cares about innocents).