Bloomsbury Academic Previews Its Latest ‘Marvel Age Of Comics’ Paperback — ‘Wolverine: Weapon X’
by Olly MacNamee
Having thoroughly enjoyed two of the previous Bloomsbury Academic novellas (The Mighty Avengers Vs. The 1970s and Marvel Age of Comics — Daredevil: Born Again), looking at classic Marvel comic book storylines, the newest book looks equally as interesting. Wolverine: Weapon X by Jim Rugg takes a deep dive into Barry Windsor-Smith‘s contemporary classic, essentially an extended essay by a fan and a comic book creator. And we have a set of double-page spreads to share with you to round off the day and the week.
Originally published in 1991 in Marvel Comics Presents #72–84 and then collected in hardback, Weapon X was the first mature-reader title associated with the X-Men. And probably a sign of the changes to comic book content brought about by the success of such mature-reader titles as Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns.
Here’s what Rugg said of Windsor-Smith’s Weapon X:
“Weapon X is the most violent comic story that Marvel ever published. Comic books are full of assassins, ninjas, barbarians, and vigilantes but they rarely focus on the traumatic receipts of the violence. And that is what separates Weapon X. It is the ultimate inversion of the male super hero fantasy. Helplessness.”
Wolverine: Weapon X is out now from Bloomsbury Academics.
