Weapon X Files: Logan

[Alpha Flight]

Meanwhile, a minister of the Canadian government ordered James Hudson to go down to X-men Mansion and capture Logan. Having invested so much time and money in Logan's training, not to mention the attempts at curing his tendencies toward beserker rages, Department H was not about to let him just walk out on them, much less go to another country. Hudson demurred, realizing he was being asked to invade the United States as a secret operative and without the prime minister's knowledge. Ultimately, he had no choice but to obey. This was to be Hudson's first major mission wearing his new battlesuit as Canada's "Weapon Alpha." [Mariko]

At the Westchester Mansion, a number of members of the team were planning an outing in the woods upstate. When Logan announced his intentions to go huntung, Storm was appalled. Pnly having recently left Africa, Ororo was not yet the hardened warrior she is today. Knowing what she already did of Wolverine's rages, she easily assumed he was planning to take out his hostilities in killing animals. But Logan suprised both her and others with his response. "I said nothin' about killin'. It takes no skill t' kill. What takes skill is sneakin' up close enough to a skittis doe t' touch her." Logan stalked away, perhaps more deeply hurt than he let on: "You've all been misjudgin' me since the day I joined this turkey outfit!" Storm, perhaps, felt ashamed at this. Wolverine's brand of "hunting" indicated he had an appreciation of the beauty of nature that she shared. Perhaps this is when the bond of friendship that was to grow between the two originated. [James Hudson]

Wolverine's "hunt" would have proved successful had it not been for the sudden arrival of "Weapon Alpha," throwing the X-Men's peaceful holiday into chaos. Logan knew at once Hudson's scent and voice, and was probably more surprised by the threatening tone Husdon took. In actually, Hudson was riddled with doubts at the morality of trying of capture Logan; he was probably trying to work himself into an anger that he didn't truly feel.

Hudson ordered Logan to surrender, and Logan refused. The two former friends fought, but, perhaps in par through sheer chance it was Hudson, the novice super hero, who got the upper hand over Logan, the veteran fighter. Weapon Alpha knocked Logan out with one punch. [Moira]

But with Logan unconscious and helpless, his new colleagues, Storm and Collosus, charged fearlessly to the rescue. Logan, once he began to revive, was probably a little astonished at their fervor in defending him. As for Hudson, he had not expected to contend with the X-Men. Then, when Hudson accidentally felled Moira MacTaggert with an energy blast, Banshee flew at him in a rage. Outnumbered and numbed with guilt with guilt over injuring a bystander, Hudson fled the scene. It would be many months before he tried to capture "Weapon X" again (Uncanny X-men #109).

Whatever their qualms about their fiery-tempered teammate, the other X-Men were willing to stand up for him, and they presumably would in the future. If not for them, he would now be a captive of the canadian government, perhaps treated like a runaway animal, to be locked away in chains. And that was the very fate that would soon befall him. His worst nightmare, to return to the bestial state in which James and Heather Hudson first found him, was about to become a reality.

Soon afterwards, he is stalked by a hunter (Classic X-Men 25).

After a short battle between the X-Men and Warhawk (an agent of their future adversaries, the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club), "Jean Grey" told Xavier that she was rejoining the X-Men. No one knew as yet that theis "Jean" was in fact an alien being in human form; even Phoenix herself, having duplicated Jean's memories and personality, now believed itself to be Jean Grey. (Uncanny X-Men #110 ) [Hercules]

Shortly afterward, Logan was in the Old Lion's Rock Tavern, brooding about th romance between "Jean Grey" and Scott summers, when Hercules - the god of Greek and Roman mythology who had joined the Avengers - walked in. All the eligible young women flocked to Hercules's side, much to Logan's annoyance. Logan was in no mood to see someone else more successful with women than he. When Hercules asked him to make room for him at the bar, Logan lost his temper and a fight started. At first, Hercules was far stronger than Logan, but Logan put up quite a fight nonetheless. Hercules, impressed, offered him his hand in friendship. Loga was taken aback by this, but shook hands, and the two settled down for some drinks. (Marvel Treasury Edition 26) [Phoenix]

Logan had still not gotten over his feelings toward Jean, but now he had a new reason to concern about her. As Phoenix, she was far more powerful than Marvel Girl had been, although probably none of the X-Men, with the possible exception of Xavier, had any idea exactly how powerful Phoenix truly was.

One night (Classic X-Men 18), "Jean" left Xanvier's mansion without exxplanation and set up a tent in the nearby woods. She wanted to be left alone for a time to come to terms with her "new" powers. Worried about her, and courious about the extent of her powers, Logan followed her. He pretended to be an anonymous would-be assailant, carrying a knife and keeping his thoughts on an "animal" level. This way, her telepathic powers would not detect him as a human being, much less alert her as to his true identity. Jean, nevertheless, sensed the presence of a threat, dodged her attacker, and levetated his knofe out of his hand. Then she saw it was Logan, who explained to her what he was up to. He told her he understood her desire to be alone, but he thought it was wrong.

She replied that she had to practice restraining herself in using her power lest it endanger others. Logan countered that she should not let her fear of her own power seperate her from her friends. Clearly, Logan didn't want his friendship with Jean to wither away. And perhaps Logan was speaking from his own experience in giving advice. After all, Logan was a former loner, all too aware of his own capacity for madness and killing, who was rediscovering the pleasures of friendship through the X-Men.

But those friendships were about to be destroyed, and Logan was on the verge of becoming the insane animal again at the hands of a man he did now even know. [Mesmero]

Mesmero, a mutant with the power to place anyone under his memtal control, had battled the original X-Men long before, and now, after months of lying low, took his revenge (Uncanny X-Men #111). It didn't seem to matter to him that only two of his former adversaries, Cyclops and Marvel Girl, remained on the team. Probably he had never heard of Wolverine before. It didn't matter. Wolverine was an X-Man, and that was sufficient enough reason for Mesmero to mark him down on his list of targets. Striking first at Jean Grey, Mesmero quickly took over the minds of the rest of the X-Men.

At first puzzled as to what to do with them now that he had them at his disposal, Mesmero finally decided to deprive them of their very identities. Burying their true personalities beneath the new ones he gave them, Mesmero made them performers and workers in a sleazy, small time circus. For unknonw reasons, he awarded the cruelest fate to Logan, casting him as a nearly mindless wild man, chained, nearly naked, unable to speak, barely able to think, deprived of his very humanity and placed on display for the gawking crowds.

One of the original X-Men, Beast, tracked the missing team members down to the circus, only to be captured himself by Mesmero and his thunkies. Beast resembled an animal even more than Logan did. Thus, the sight of Beast fighting back against his captors penetrated to the essence of Logan's being. All his life, Logan had been guided above all by his primal need for freedom. He would not be held captive either by chains or the hypnotically-induced haze that clouded his mind. Pressing the limits of physical and mental strength, he snapped the bonds that held them both. [Cyclops]

Once free, he quickly regained his normal personality. Finding and donning his costume, he went first to find the X-Man he cared most about, Jean Grey, whom Mesmero had hypnotized into thinking she was the circilist aerialist, "Ms Destiny," the woman of mesmero's rather tawdry dreams. As for Scott, Mesmero had turned him into a hot-tempered circus roustabout nicknamed "Slim". Logan tried to talk Jean into snapping out of Mesmero's spell and, when Scott objected, was all too happy to have an excuse to let him have it.

Finally Logan decided to use a similar treatment on Jean, hoping to get her angry enough to break Mesmero's spell, the same way he did. But Logan got more than he nargained for, as, for the first time, he caught a chilling glimpse of Dark Phoenix.

But Jean quickly reverted to her normal personality, and it was apparent from her concern toward Logan tat her harsh attitude toward him on the space shuttle was a thing of the past. With Jean free of Mesmero's control, the rest of the X-Men were soon freed as well. Logan and the others were eager to settle their scores with Mesmero, but someone else had gotten to him first: Magneto, who wanted no competition in taking his own vengeance on the team.

Magneto abducted the X-Men to his secret underground base in Antarctica (Uncanny X-Men #112-114), where he proceeded to defeat them with a display of his extraordinary powers. he them imprisoned them in specially designed chairs that not only neutralized their superhuman powers, but reduced their remaining physical abilities to the level of those of infants. To complete their humiliation, he set an annoying "nanny" robot to attend to them as if they were children.

It was a trap that threatened to retuen Logan to his animalistic state he suffered theough in Mesmero's carnival. "Can't help myself," thought Logan, desperately. "Gettin' harder to stay rational - slippin' outta control, into berserker mode - scared - hate to admit it, but I am scared stiff ... If I fall down that pit, I'll never climb out again."

Storm, though, succeeded in using her talents at picking locks, which she had mastered even as a child, to free herself and then the others. Logan and the other X-Men then launched an all-out attack on Magneto. The end came when one of Phoenix's energy blasts damaged the controls that prevented lava from flowing into Magneto's headquarters. Everyone succeeded in escaping, but Phoenix and the Beast became seperated from the X-Men. The rest of the team, as a result, believed that Phoenix and the Beast had died.

The X-Men, except for Phoenix and Beast, made their way underground into the Savage Land (Uncanny X-Men #114), a tropical paradise existing amidst the icy Antarctic wanstes. Dinosaurs and other forms of prehistoric life abounded in this isolated jungle environment. Logan takes an immediate liking to the place and will return there on a number of adventures.

When an enormous pterodactyl seized hold of Banshee, Logan eagerly went to the rescue. He viscously ripped into the creature's hide with his claws, showing an unholy glee that for once he did not have to restrain his killer instincts.

But later, in a quiter period, logan found himself looking at a photograph of Jean Grey he carried with him, mourning her suppossed death. "Babe, you were the first person I ever realy cared for," he thought. "I had plans for us, Jeannie." Then he crumpled the photograph bitterly: "Now all I got is an ache inside that's killing me, like someone cut out my heart." [Sauron]

Soon afterward, Storm was attacked by Karl Lycos, a man with a compulsion to drain the life energy of other beings. when he absorbed enough energy from a superhuman mutant, as he did from Storm, he became transformed into the strange pterodactyl-like being that called himself Sauron.

Logan had already grown quite emotionally attached to Storm, and he flew into a rage upon seeing her ie unconscious at Sauron's feet. He leapt to attack the reptillian creature who instead used his hypnotic powers to make Logan perceive the other X-Men as dangerous monsters.

Logan nearly killed Cyclops, seeing him as a monster attacking his beloved Jean. but the realization that jean was dead - or so he thought - made Logan hesitate just long enough for cyclops to unleash an optic blast powerful enough to hurl Logan high in the air. [Ka-Zar]

After the effects of Sauron's hypnotis wore off logan, the X-Men encountered Cyclop's old ally, the jungle lord Ka-zar, who told them about the real threat to the Savage Land: and an old alliance between the sorceress Zaladane and the transformed human now known as Garokk the Petrified Man. Garokk's forces took Ka-zar, Cyclops, Banshee, and Colossus captive. [Zabu]

Logan was determined to rescue them. But first he amazes Nightcrawler and Storm by calming Ka-zar's companion, the sabretooth tiger Zabu, who was enraged at his master's capture. Astonished at the empathy between Logan and Zabu, nightcrawler asked, "Wolverine, were you really talking with that tiger?"

"Yup," he replied.

"Wolverine, there is truly more to you than meets the eye," Storm responded, impressed. But Storm was about to learn just how much Logan had in common with the tiger.

Logan led Strom and nightcrawler to a rear entrance to Garrok's city. Finding a sentry guarding the door, Logan noted, "We gotta take the man out - fast and silently" so as to not to attract attention from other guards. "Leave him to me," Logan told Storm and Nightcrawler, and before their horrified eyes, he sank his claws into the unsuspecting sentry. "He is like the great cats on the veldt," Storm reflected. "When he strikes, there is no mercy in him."

The three X-Men rescued their friends and Ka-Zar, and Garokk and Zaladane met their defeats.

Weeks later, the X-Men set sail from the Savage Land, and eventually landed in Japan. It is possibly the first time Logan returns to Japan since his break with Ogun many months ago. Logan produced another surprise for his teammates when he began reading to them from a Japanese newspaper. "You read Japanese?" Scott asked.

"Yup," Logan replied, in seeming exasperation to having to answer such an obvious question.

"I ... didn't know," Scott replied, apologetically.

"You never asked," Logan snapped. Much as Logan was developing a fondness for his teammates other than Scott, for some reason he wouldn't volunteer telling them anything about the past.

The X-Men go to the estate that was the home of Shiro Yoshida, alias Sunfire, who had joined the X-Men on their first mission against Krakoa. Wandering through the great house, Logan mulled over the past. "I was a punk kid first time I came to Japan. An' the last time I left I didn't figure on ever comin' back."

But although Logan usually loved Japan, this night he felt quite differently. His recent experiences in the Savage Land, where he had used his claws without inhibitions, had made quite an inpression on him. "I shoulda' stayed in the Savage Land. I got no use for civilization. Too many rules. Too many flamin' people sayin' no! I want to cut loose every time I fight - but I gotta hold back."

Perhaps that was one reason he felt ill at ease in Japan, because he had long beeen attracted to the self-discipline of the samarai as a means of coping with his animalistic tendencies. Right now, though, he seemed only to want freedom. [Mariko]

But just then, he caught his first sight of the woman who would become the great love of his life: Sunfire's cousin, Mariko Yashida, sitting in the garden. (Uncanny X-Men #118). Mariko Yashida was a young Japanese woman who is the daughter of noted crimelord Shingen.

At first glance, she seemed utterly unlike Logan: she was refined, peaceful, even shy. Not surprisingly, when she saw Logan, she was both startled and frightened; he seemed like a demon lurking in the shadows.

But each of them was in fact quite different fom what such first imnpressions might make them seem. In years to come, Mariko would prove herself to be a strong-willed, independent-minded woman, bonded to Japanese traditions and yet, in other ways, quite comtemporary in her attitude. Logan quickly moved to calm Mariko's fears. He revealed to her a gentler side of himself that even his fellow X-Men had only glimpsed. "Don't be frightened, please," he told her in Japanese. "I mean you no harm. I thought the garden would be empty. I like gardens and their solitude. I'm sorry I scared you. I'll go."

"Oh, no!" she exclaimed. "Please ... stay. The fault is mine ... I am only a girl ... I haven't the courage of my samurai cousin, Shiro." Logan, entranced by her beauty, sat down beside her, and she introduced herself. "I am Mariko."

"I am Wolverine," he replied.

Mariko seemed puzzled. "That is a name?"

"No, not really." Logan uncharacteristically found himself admitting. "Not between friends." Yet only Jean, among the X-Men, knew his true name, which he found himself telling this woman he had known for no more than a minute. "My name is Lo-"

Logan is interupted by a sudden earthquake that proved to have been caused by the criminal, Moses Magnum, whom the X-Men soon met in battle. Afterwards, Logan resumed his conversation with Mariko at a party the X-Men held at the Tashida estate. Later, Sunfire bid the X-Men farewell at the airport from which they hoped to fly home on a private plane. Mariko waited nearby in his limosuine. To her surprise, she received an unexpected visitor, who presented her with a white chrysanthemum.

"A gift, little one," explained Logan. "From a friend. Something to remember me by."

"It is very beautiful, Wolverine-san," she said, holding the flower to her face, but looking into his eyes. "and so are you."

Grinning, he told her, "Mariko-Chan - my name is Logan." Then he lifted his hand in farewell. "Be seeing you." And minutes later he was aboard the airplane and had left Japan.

[--]

[Alpha Flight] While passing over Canada, the X-Men's plane encountered a freakish blizzard that forced them to land at the airport in Calgary. There, on the runway confronting the jet, stood a costumed James hudson. He now called himself Vindicator, and ordered Logan to surrender himself. This had been a trap set by Alpha Flight, Hudson's team of super-powered agents who worked for the Canadian government. One of the team's members, the mystic called Shaman, had used his sorcery to create the blizzard that had forced the X-Men to land. [Cyclops]

Inside the jet, as far as Cyclops was concerned, the X-Men would stick together to face this threat, but an angry Logan told Cyclops to stay out of it. The strongest member of Alpha Flight, Sasquatch, then attacked the jet, but the X-Men made their escape and headed into the terminal. ThereLogan explained to the others about Hudson and Alpha Flight; he reminisced about the faith Hudson had in him. "I was his gunie pig, his first big success. And his only failure. Hudson gambled on me while all the shrinks said I was uncontrollable - a psycho. In the end, I proved 'em right." Wolverine added, "Funny, I thought I resigned. My mistake."

Cyclops ordered the X-Men to make their way into Calgary seperately so as to better avoid the members of Alpha flight who were hunting them. Logan went to a section of town where the poor lived and began remembering the days when he had lived in Calgary twenty years before, working in partnership with Cracklin' Rosa.

"I was a wild child back then," Logan recalled now as he walked down the street, "and she was my kind o' woman. So where do I get off falin' for a ... a lady like Mariko Yoshida?" Perhaps feeling the gulf between the kinds of people he and Mariko were unbridgeable, Logan reflexively turned cynical. "Love," he thought. "Who needs it?" And then, casting the cynicism aside, he answered his own question: "Me."

Logan's internal debate went no further, for he was ambushed and seized by Sasquatch. Before Logan could react, Sasquatch had slammed him against a wall with his superhuman strength. Pointedly addressing him by his rank in the Canadian Armed forces, Sasquatch thrust Logan hard against another wall, knocking him unconscious. [Nightcrawler]

Alpha flight had also captured Nightcrawler, and the team held both of them captive at the Calgary fair-ground. The other X-Men went there after their friends, and soon a battle broke out between the two teams. Logan freed himself from his bonds and found himself in battle with Vindicator himself, while wishing that the other X-Men were not involved in the fight. "Quit being stubborn, Wolverine," Vindicator told Logan. "Say the word and this battle is over."

Logan had come to care a great deal for the X-Men, and he found himself wracked with guilt seeing them risk their own safety to defend him. He also found himself moved by this demonstration of the depth of their friendship for him. So, finally, he did as Hudson has said and called the fight to a halt. Ironically, it was Logan who had kept Cyclops from punching out Alpha Flight member Northstar.

"Yeah - well, life's funny like that, throwin' you curves when you least expect 'em" Logan said. "It's me they want. If I'd had a chance, if things hadn't gotten outta hand so fast - if I hadn't started - (here Logan paused, reflecting on the way he was continually falling prey to his violent instincts) "- enjoying the roughhouse, I would'a called it quits long ago. an' saved everyone a lot of grief."

Cyclops and Logan had bitterly quarreled again and again, but now Scott told him, "You're an X-Man, Wolverine. Your fights are ours."

"I appreciate that, boss - more 'n you know. But I ain't gonna see my friends chewed up on my account." He turned to Husdon and said, "You want me Mac. I'm yours."

Garson, a man from Department H, the Canadian agency supervising Alpha Flight, had far less sympathy for Logan than his old friend Hudson. He forced him into what he called a cage in the back of a truck.

"Wolverine is not an animal," Colossus said as the truck drove away. "That man did not have to treat him so."

Nightcrawler reflected, "They are not as lucky as we, Colossus. They see only the 'surface' Wolverine. They know nothing of his true self."

Canadian Air Forces fighters escorted the X-Men's jet to the United States border, but as soon as the fighters were gone, Cyclops went into the cockpit and told thier pilot, Annie, to change course. "We're going to rescue Wolverine whether he wants us to or not."

However, Logan was already in the cockpit with Annie - despite that Logan's cage had supposedly been designed so that he could not possibly break out.

But the main problem was still unresolved. Logan was still wanted by the Canadian government, and Alpha Flight woiuld presumably go after him again, sooner or later. The Canadian Prime Minister, unbeknownst to Logan or the X-Men, had since rescinded the order to capture Logan. "If he wants to go so badly," he told Husdon, "let him."

The change in Logan was demonstrated soon afterward by an incident in the X-Men's Danger Room, where the team members tested their powers. As an exercise, Colossus was using his superhuman strength to hold back wassl pushed by a hydralic press. But, although the press was far from overwhelming the limits of his strength, Colossus claimed he was unable to hold the walls back much longer. Wolverine realized that the problem was that Colossus was deeply depressed. Without Cyclops noticing, he sabotaged the press's controls. Then Logan went and stood between the walls with Colossus himself - to give Colossus some incentive. Then, speaking from own experience, Logan told the young Russian, "I got an idea what's buggin' you, pal. Most of us were loners 'fore we became X-Men. The teams kinda' given us the family we never had. But you got family, friends, roots. No law against bein' homesick. What's stupid is lettin' it tear up your guts."

Refusing to let his friend die, Colossus rose above his melancholy and thrust the walls back.

"You were part right, my friend," Colossus gratefully told him. "Everything I try lately seems to go wrong, so I thought - perhaps it is better to try nothing.. to give up."

"You can do that when you're dead, pal" Logan observed.

[Mariko]

Shortly afterward, Logan learned that Mariko was staying at the Japanese consulate in Manhattan, and she had him over for dinner one evening. Walking away from the consulate afterward, Logan realized, "The more I see Mariko, the more I want to see her. She's like no other woman I've ever known. Cripes, she reaches parts of my skull I never knew existed. Thing is, what comes next? Livin' day by day was fine fer broads like Cracklin' Rosa - or maybe even Jean Grey. But not Mariko Yashida."