Wolverine #162-166 (2001): The Hunted

Wolverine is framed for the assassination of a Senator. He and Beast evade SHIELD while trying to figure out who the fake Wolverine is, seeking help from Maverick and other friends. They use holographic disguises and Beast’s is particularly apt…

…Nice dig at a real murderer.

Nick Fury is not put in charge of the manhunt–given his past with Wolverine. Sharon Carter’s leading it.

After Logan beheads one of his LMDs, Nick Fury hires a new character, called “Shiver Man”, to hunt Logan down and bring him directly to Fury instead of SHIELD.

Shiv fails, though, where Sharon succeeds. Hank and Logan find themselves in a super prison called The Cage, which has a power damper around the structure.

Meanwhile, Sabretooth gets adamantium bones.

While in prison, the two heroes have to face prison gangs and guys like Batroc, Wrecker, and Kangaroo.

I have to say, I could have read a dozen issues about this prison. But Sabretooth shows up to free Wolverine and Beast so we don’t get to stay in the Cage for very long.

Peepers tags along during the escape. He’s a minor character we haven’t seen in a long time and won’t see again for a long time.

Now we get very deep into Weapon X stuff. It turns out, Dr. Malcolm Colcord (a new character) has invented a healing factor serum that enabled Sabretooth to tolerate the adamantium process–but he needs Wolverine to finish his experiments.

Sabretooth takes Wolverine to Colcord (in a very S-and-M kind of way), and we get a sequence in the revived Weapon X program drawn by no less than Barry Windsor Smith, who designed what most of us think of when we think of the Weapon X version of Wolverine.

The big reveal is that Wolverine did in fact kill the Senator–but he was being mind-controlled by Colcord. We never get a good look at Colcord, but we do learn–in a flashback of Logan’s early history–that Colcord was slashed to ribbons by Logan while recruiting him for Weapon X.

In the end, Beast and Wolverine escape but Colcord is still free and in control of the Weapon X technology.

I’ve been pretty clear that the complex history of Wolverine makes him less–not more–interesting to me. But this is a very well done story.

Sadly, it leads into the new Weapon X series which is…Not as well done.