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Logan's ability to heal himself has made him a loner. Living
longer than he can remember; his personal isolation precludes
personal relationships. A once valued member of Canada's Special
Forces, he has now turned to drink to blot out his past. But
Logan's past is about to be eradicated in a way he could not
have envisioned. Deep underground, in a place only known as
The Hive, wheels are put in motion to capture Logan and through
a violent and disturbing process turn him into the ultimate
living weapon: Weapon X...
Weapon
X was originally published in comic book form in April
1994. Drawn and written by Barry Windsor-Smith it attempted
to fill in the back story of Wolverine, one of the most popular
members of the X-Men. Even in its original form it was a bloody
and disquieting affair which pushed the boundaries of good
taste. Marc Cerasini's book is an expansion of the original
comic.
I did have a crisis of conscious about this book; originally
I was going to write a very damming review, its imagery is
powerful and grotesque. The characters are almost universally
unpleasant people who all seem to have a vacuum where their
morals should be. Cerasini attempts to explain how The Professor,
Cornelius and Hines are able to indulge in such monstrous
violations of Logan's body in order to create Weapon X by
giving them their own back stories. The back stories are universally
unpleasant; a child who witnesses his mother's raped and murdered
body with her breasts cut off, a survivor of rape and pregnancy
by her own father and a man who appears to have killed his
own family. It was this endless stream of unpleasant scenes,
including the wanton carnage by Logan, that gave me nightmares
the night I finished the book.
So,
there I was ranting away to my other half about the novel
when she rightly pointed out that, given that I read so much
and am affected by so little, that the writing must have been
very powerful. Of course after I calmed down I had to agree
with her. Any book that can have such a powerful affect is
by default well written.
Much of the plot that deals with the events in The Hive already
existed in the comic and much of the dialogue has been lifted
straight from the original source. However, what Cerasini
has done is fashion a modern day Frankenstein and created
a truly scary book. I guess that I'm so jaded with so called
horror novels and films that are not the least bit scary,
that it came as a bit of a shock to be so affected with what
you would have assumed was a straight forward comic book adaptation.
In a way the Hive succeeds with Weapon X, but the ending
of the book may force you to re-evaluate the character of
Wolverine, his actions at the end are not justified in the
name of revenge. Reduced to little more than a psychopathic
killing machine, Logan becomes a character that everyone should
avoid.
So,
a brilliantly written book that I'm not sure I could recommend
to anyone under fifteen, the descriptions are just too violent.
However, if you want to read a great horror novel then this
may be the one for you.
 
Charles
Packer
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