Wolverine: Weapons of Armageddon #1: Old Knives Cut the Deepest

Old wounds take the longest to heal, and no one has older wounds than Logan. When one of those wounds reopens in the form of a request from Teri O’Barnes, a mutant whose ability to sense and track other mutants directly lead to Logan being captured by the Weapon Plus program for the Weapon X project, the self-proclaimed “Best there is” is pulled into a mission that not only forces him to confront his past, but will have consequences for the future of the world as a whole.

When Armageddon was first announced, it’s reveal got somewhat lost among the slew of other events that were going on at the time. One World Under Doom, Ultimate Endgame, and Age of Revelation all fought for both shelf space and audience attention as more information was drip fed to us. While Zdarsky quickly struck down rumors that his Armageddon story was going to be the first-ever universal reboot for Marvel, Marvel themselves would still boast that this story would be “game-changing” and “universe-shattering”. Zdarsky continues to lay these seeds in the currently ongoing Captain America comic while this story serves more of a sequel to last year’s “Ultimate Incursion: Spider-Man”. In that story, Miles Morales would travel to Earth-6160 in order to save his baby sister BIllie. At the end of that story Miles successfully rescues his sister as well as a number of Origin Boxes. These boxes in the Ultimate Universe contain the power and abilities of various heroes and villains that the Maker viewed as a threat to his plans for universal conquest. Tony Stark of Earth-6160 managed to distribute a few of the boxes to create the Ultimates Network, while the rest remained under lock and key until now. While a few of the writers of the Ultimates books chose to ignore the event, it’s obvious that its events are instrumental for Armageddon as the boxes play a major part. 

That doesn’t come without issue however. One small moment in the story nearly took me out of the issue. It comes when Logan and Teri manage to sneak into the lab where Tyler Torrens, a young mutant that this reborn Weapon Plus organization has kidnapped, was being held. The pair come across a video diary where one of the scientists reveals that they found an Origin Box in New York City. That in of itself is fine, the problem comes in the form of an editor’s note that explains that the story behind that box’s finding won’t be told until “Reborn: Ultimate Impact”, which is the epilogue to Ultimate Endgame that won’t be released until May of this year. Marvel did this during Age of Revelation, and I question the reasoning behind it both there and here. Expecting readers to come back to a comic months later to get further context for this issue is head scratching at best. While irritating, this mostly amounts to a nitpick because the overall issue is a good one.

Chip Zdarsky uses his considerable skills as a storyteller to craft a very engrossing narrative that manages to remain grounded in spite of it’s fantastical premise. He has a solid grasp of not just Logan’s voice, but also the depth of his trauma at the hands of Weapon X. This is spotlighted in a short, but effective scene where Logan begins to explain to Teri just what was done to him, but stops short and trails off. This is a good moment of vulnerability from Logan that hasn’t been shown since Krakoa. Teri isn’t given that much to do here, but she is still a decent addition to Logan’s character lore outside of the X-Men. There is also an appearance from David Colton (whose history is being told in Zdarsky’s Captain America book). 

Luca Maresca’s art fits well with the story that Zdarsky is telling. It is very much in that Marvel house style, but there are a few stand out moments where Maresca is allowed to show more of their skills. Jesus Aburtov’s colors help to accentuate Maresca’s pencils and help further ground the atmosphere of Zdarsky’s script. Bonus points also have to be given to whoever decided to have Logan suit up in his vastly superior brown and gold costume as opposed to his normal blue and gold costume.