The Body Horror of Weapon X

 Hey guys I'm back talking about X-Men and horror again. In the future I think I'll devote some time to exploring all avenues of horror in X-Men from supernatual stuff like the demon bear to more traditonal gore or slasher type horror. For now though we're gonna focus on more body horror, but this time across the genreal X-Men mythos, we'll cover a fan favorite who I believe is most connected to body horror in some way. This time I won't be writing the whole post in italics, I don't know why I did that on the last post!

Lets cover everyones favorite mutant, the savage Wolverine. Where do we begin with this guy, everything about his time as weapon X is so disturbing and overtly body horror. He's kidnapped and expirmented on against his will. They treat him like an animal while they forcibly bond adamanteum to his skeletal structure. It's so terrifying, to see them carry out these expirments on him that will permantly alter his body, and would kill any normal person. This is where he gets his distinctive metal claws, foreign objects that portrude violently from his fists, due to a large amount of adamantium pooling into his wrists. Each step of this disfiguring of his body was meticously planned out.

They try to control logan, to use him as the perfect weapon. They strip the man of his identity, his name, calling him Expirment X. This is a representation of how Logan's humanity is being taken, he's being transformed, physically and mentally, that's where the body horror comes from. The panel above when Logan's pain is personified by his mind calling out on the video screen is heartbreaking, his raw flesh exposed as hundreds of spikes portrude from his body, and all he can say is "I...hurting". That panel is perfect representation of body horror, it's how logan feels, like a transformed monster constantly in pain with nobody to help.

It's not just turning him into a weapon that strips Logan of his humanity. In part it's also his mutation, the feral instincts it gives Wolverine, his excellent sense of smell, the absurd rate at which he has to heal gives way to his body focusing on his most primal instincts to survive. He turns into a wild animal, no longer consiously in control of his body, forced to nothing but survive. It's an underatted part of the body horror of this story arc. The fact that the scientist keep refering to him as a raging animal is to justify how they treat him.

Another disturbing way we see Logan lose autonimy in this story is through the disgusting ways he gets treated, mostly by the head scientist Professor Thorton. He does needlessly cruel things to Logan to simply feel a sense of control over him. In his eyes he's Logan's master, and therefore Logan is his possession to do with as he please. He does not see him as a fellow man, it's why he uses Logan as a prop to fit whatever he fancies. He pours hot cofee on Logan simply because he can, he leaves Logan in a pile of wolves he forced him to slaughter because he "likes the idea". This shows how Logan is no longer human at this point, fully transformed into a weapon which matches how he then gets his new weapon X "outfit"

Alright guys I know it's been a pretty grimm post so far but lets get into some juicy revenge. Wolverine uses his new found body to massacre everybody who was involved in tormenting his body. It feels so satisfying to read his adventure for revenge, driven by animalistic hatred. Especially when he chops off his tormenter's hand, Professor Thorton. It goes from a body horror story, to a gory slasher film, it's genuinly stunning. And it just as quickly goes back to a body horror story when you realize this is the acutalization of Thorton's dream, Weapon X, a mass murdering machine with no thoughts behind his head except killing. That last image above, of Weapon X towering over Thorton, it reminds me of Frakenstein's monster, a being of his creation returned to punish him.

The culmination of everything is this scene where Logan confirms he's a man not the monster they transformed him into. It's really powerful, he rejects what they tried to make him, coming out still whole. It does get muddled a bit because of the fact that this whole massacare was a psychosis experiment on Logan, and the arc ends more ambigousily with Logan presumibly actually killing the real Professor Thorton. Still the panels above represent the overall message of this arc, and why Logan had to go through all this pain to reach this conclusion. It's a beautiful story that uses body horror masterfully, to showcase that no matter how hard you try to tear a man down, to his basic insticts, the will to still be human, to think, will always persevere.