# Weapon Plus
**Weapon Plus** is a fictional covert super-soldier program in [Marvel Comics](https://www.edgepedia.org/marvel-comics), a secret governmental paramilitary organization that creates living weapons through experimentation, genetic engineering, and conditioning. The [Weapon X](https://www.edgepedia.org/weapon-x) program appeared first in *Marvel Comics Presents* #72 (1991), and the wider parent organization was revealed in [Grant Morrison](https://www.edgepedia.org/grant-morrison)'s *New X-Men* #128 (2002), retroactively connecting Captain America, Wolverine, Luke Cage, Fantomex, and other characters to a single numbered series of weapons projects.
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| First appearance | The Weapon X program in *Marvel Comics Presents* #72 (January 1991), by Barry Windsor-Smith[1](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon_X_%28Earth-616%29) |
| Full reveal | Weapon Plus introduced by Grant Morrison and Igor Kordey in *New X-Men* #128 (June 2002)[2](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon_Plus_%28Earth-616%29) |
| Naming system | Each project carries a Roman numeral; Weapon X is Weapon 10, not the letter X[3](https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/marvel-weapon-plus-wolverine-captain-america-venom-luke-cage/) |
| In-universe origin | Founded in 1945 by Professor Thorton (Truett Hudson) after he found Nathaniel Essex's hidden laboratory in a concentration camp[2](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon_Plus_%28Earth-616%29) |
| Weapon I | Project Rebirth, which produced Captain America, was retroactively designated Weapon I[3](https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/marvel-weapon-plus-wolverine-captain-america-venom-luke-cage/) |
| Purpose | Creating super-soldiers, most specifically for the hypothesized mutant-human war[4](https://www.everything-geek.com/weapon-plus-earth-616/) |
| Notable products | Captain America (Weapon I), Luke Cage (Weapon VI), Wolverine and Deadpool (Weapon X), Fantomex (Weapon XIII)[3](https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/marvel-weapon-plus-wolverine-captain-america-venom-luke-cage/) |
## Publication history
The name Weapon X entered Marvel continuity in 1991, when Barry Windsor-Smith's story "Weapon X," serialized in *Marvel Comics Presents* #72-84, depicted the adamantium bonding process inflicted on [Wolverine](https://www.edgepedia.org/wolverine)[1](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon_X_%28Earth-616%29). Larry Hama first used the name "Weapon X Project" in *Wolverine* #62 in October 1992[1](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon_X_%28Earth-616%29).
**The Morrison retcon.** During his *New X-Men* run, Grant Morrison and artist Igor Kordey revealed in 2002 that Weapon X was only the tenth installment of a larger series, collectively the Weapon Plus Project, and that the "X" was the Roman numeral for 10 rather than the letter X[1](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon_X_%28Earth-616%29). The reveal comes through the character [Fantomex](https://www.edgepedia.org/fantomex), a Weapon Plus product himself, who tells the X-Men the truth about the program[2](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon_Plus_%28Earth-616%29). Morrison's four-issue arc "Assault on Weapon Plus" (*New X-Men* #142-145), drawn by Chris Bachalo, expanded the concept, taking Wolverine, Cyclops, and Fantomex into the program's facilities, where Wolverine reads files confirming his designation as the tenth in a series of super-soldier weapons that includes [Captain America](https://www.edgepedia.org/captain-america) as Weapon I and [Luke Cage](https://www.edgepedia.org/luke-cage) as Weapon VI[5](https://graphicpolicy.com/2021/05/22/underrated-god-country-2/) • [6](https://comic-watch.com/news/examining-new-x-men-pt-2-we-remember-the-lies).
Later comics built on the framework. The 2019 one-shot *Wolverine & Captain America: Weapon Plus* #1, by writer Ethan Sacks and artist Diogenes Neves, filled in the identities of Weapons II through IX and tied Venom and Luke Cage's origins to the program[3](https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/marvel-weapon-plus-wolverine-captain-america-venom-luke-cage/).
## Fictional history and structure
Within the [Marvel Universe](https://www.edgepedia.org/marvel-universe) ([Earth-616](https://www.edgepedia.org/earth-616)), Weapon Plus traces its origins to 1945, when Truett Hudson, a civilian advisor to the U.S. Army known as Professor Thorton, discovered a hidden laboratory once operated by Dr. Nathaniel Essex beneath a concentration camp[2](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon_Plus_%28Earth-616%29). With U.S. government funding, Thorton initiated Weapon Plus to build on the success of Project Rebirth, the program that had produced Captain America and which was retroactively designated Weapon I[2](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon_Plus_%28Earth-616%29). After Captain America's disappearance, Weapon Plus kept trying to create new super-soldiers, and after World War II it turned its focus toward countering the Soviet Union's Department X[3](https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/marvel-weapon-plus-wolverine-captain-america-venom-luke-cage/) • [2](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon_Plus_%28Earth-616%29). According to *Absolute Carnage: Weapon Plus* #1 (2019), the 1965 discovery of an alien dragon made of living darkness, codenamed "Grendel," frozen in a glacier caused Weapon Plus to realize that the true threat came not from Earth but from among the stars[7](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Absolute_Carnage%3A_Weapon_Plus_Vol_1_1).
**The numbered weapons.** The programs documented in the sources include:
- **Weapon I**, Project Rebirth, the biochemical enhancement of Steve Rogers into Captain America[3](https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/marvel-weapon-plus-wolverine-captain-america-venom-luke-cage/).
- **Weapon II**, which experimented on animals; the 2019 one-shot identified the cybernetically enhanced animal team [Brute Force](https://www.edgepedia.org/brute-force) as the true Weapon II[3](https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/marvel-weapon-plus-wolverine-captain-america-venom-luke-cage/).
- **Weapon III**, which produced the Skinless Man[2](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon_Plus_%28Earth-616%29).
- **Weapon IV**, whose lead scientist Ted Sallis transformed himself into the [Man-Thing](https://www.edgepedia.org/man-thing)[3](https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/marvel-weapon-plus-wolverine-captain-america-venom-luke-cage/).
- **Weapon V**, led by [Nick Fury](https://www.edgepedia.org/nick-fury), which studied symbiotes like Venom[3](https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/marvel-weapon-plus-wolverine-captain-america-venom-luke-cage/).
- **Weapon VI**, the experiment that transformed Luke Cage into Power Man[3](https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/marvel-weapon-plus-wolverine-captain-america-venom-luke-cage/).
- **Weapon VII**, under the name Project Homegrown, which developed the cyborg soldier Nuke[2](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon_Plus_%28Earth-616%29).
- **Weapon X**, the tenth installment, focused on using mutants, which produced Wolverine and spawned a broader mutant-weapons program[1](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon_X_%28Earth-616%29).
- **Weapons XII through XV**, created inside The World, including Fantomex (Weapon XIII) and the Stepford Cuckoos (Weapon XIV)[3](https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/marvel-weapon-plus-wolverine-captain-america-venom-luke-cage/).
## The World
Weapon Plus later began developing new weapons in the artificial reality known as the World[3](https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/marvel-weapon-plus-wolverine-captain-america-venom-luke-cage/). The World is a high-tech, self-contained research facility built by Weapon Plus somewhere in rural England, which produced several weapons with the assistance of A.I.M.[8](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/The_World_%28Weapon_Plus%29). Because of worries that programs might slip out of central control, Weapon Plus placed its most recent operations under complete supervision, drawing on [Bolivar Trask](https://www.edgepedia.org/bolivar-trask)'s Sentinel designs to help develop a new generation of living weapons[2](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon_Plus_%28Earth-616%29).
## Weapon X and its products
Weapon X, the tenth installment, was a collaboration between the United States government and Canadian scientists, run in Canada through Department K, and focused on using and creating mutants as living weapons[1](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon_X_%28Earth-616%29) • [9](https://www.sideshow.com/blog/the-history-of-the-weapon-plus-program). Its signature act was bonding the near-indestructible metal adamantium to Wolverine's skeleton, a process made survivable by isolating his healing factor and duplicating it in other experiments[9](https://www.sideshow.com/blog/the-history-of-the-weapon-plus-program).
The program produced characters across Marvel's catalog. Besides Wolverine, its graduates include Deadpool, whose artificial healing factor was based on the one possessed by Wolverine, and Sabretooth[1](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon_X_%28Earth-616%29) • [10](https://www.marveldirectory.com/groupsandteams/weaponxprogram.htm). X-23 (Laura Kinney), the 23rd attempt at a perfect clone of Wolverine, was also a Weapon X product[11](https://www.marvel.com/comics/guides/506/weapon-xFifthentry).
## Critical treatment
Commentary on the Morrison concept has been mixed in emphasis. Geoff Klock, a scholar of contemporary superhero comics, examines "Assault on Weapon Plus" in his article "X-Men, Emerson, Gnosticism" as a Gnostic post-human allegory that suggests our inevitable evolution into the post-human will yield something darker than a cyber-utopia or a collective robot heaven[12](https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol4/iss3/3/). [Marc Singer](https://www.edgepedia.org/marc-singer), author of *Grant Morrison: Combining the Worlds of Contemporary Comics* (2012), notes that Fantomex's mention of early Weapon Plus experimenting on animals effectively places Morrison's own cybernetic-animal story *We3* in the program's genealogy[13](https://invisibles.katab.asia/other/Grant_Morrison_Combining_the_Worlds_of_Contemporary_Comics_by_Marc_Singer.pdf). Other commentators questioned the retcon at the time, arguing that the established Weapon X material and its government ties were already rich and that converting "X" to the numeral 10 discarded as much as it added[14](https://captaincomics.ning.com/profiles/blogs/a-new-look-at-new-x-men-part-iii).
## References
1. [Weapon X (Earth-616), Marvel Database](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon_X_%28Earth-616%29)
2. [Weapon Plus (Earth-616), Marvel Database](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Weapon_Plus_%28Earth-616%29)
3. [Marvel Ties Venom, Luke Cage's Origins to Wolverine, Captain America, ComicBook.com (July 10, 2019)](https://comicbook.com/marvel/news/marvel-weapon-plus-wolverine-captain-america-venom-luke-cage/)
4. [Weapon Plus (Earth-616), Everything Geek](https://www.everything-geek.com/weapon-plus-earth-616/)
5. [Underrated: X-Men: Assault On Weapon Plus, Graphic Policy (May 22, 2021)](https://graphicpolicy.com/2021/05/22/underrated-god-country-2/)
6. [Examining New X-Men Pt. 2: We Remember the Lies, Comic Watch](https://comic-watch.com/news/examining-new-x-men-pt-2-we-remember-the-lies)
7. [Absolute Carnage: Weapon Plus Vol 1 1, Marvel Database](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Absolute_Carnage%3A_Weapon_Plus_Vol_1_1)
8. [The World (Weapon Plus), Marvel Database](https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/The_World_%28Weapon_Plus%29)
9. [The History of The Weapon Plus Program, Sideshow Collectibles (September 19, 2019)](https://www.sideshow.com/blog/the-history-of-the-weapon-plus-program)
10. [Weapon X Program, Marvel Directory](https://www.marveldirectory.com/groupsandteams/weaponxprogram.htm)
11. [Weapon X, Marvel Comic Reading List, Marvel.com](https://www.marvel.com/comics/guides/506/weapon-xFifthentry)
12. [Klock, Geoff. "X-Men, Emerson, Gnosticism," Reconstruction 4.3 (2004)](https://digitalcommons.odu.edu/reconstruction/vol4/iss3/3/)
13. [Singer, Marc. Grant Morrison: Combining the Worlds of Contemporary Comics, University Press of Mississippi, 2012](https://invisibles.katab.asia/other/Grant_Morrison_Combining_the_Worlds_of_Contemporary_Comics_by_Marc_Singer.pdf)
14. [A New Look at New X-Men, Part III, Captain Comics](https://captaincomics.ning.com/profiles/blogs/a-new-look-at-new-x-men-part-iii)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Literature and written works › Creative written works and worlds › Comics and sequential art › Comics characters and fictional worlds › Marvel teams and groups*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Sep 19, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Sep 19, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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