Weapon X (1st series) #3

Issue Date: 
May 1995
Story Title: 
The Commom Rights of Toads and Men
Staff: 

Larry Hama (writer), Adam Kubert (penciler), Dan Green and Mike Sellers (inkers), Joe Rosas and Digital Chameleon (colors), Pat Brosseau (letters), Bob Harras (editor, editor in chief)

Brief Description: 

Logan walks through a cold snow filled land back to a place called Wundagore Mountain where he had first joined Magneto's band of mutants the X-Men. Weapon X is surprised as he walks though to find two enhanced humans lying in wait for his return. Logan easily defeats the two traitorous humans named Dead-Eye and Mangle and he walks only a little farther to reach the mountain. Logan walks past the tomb where the Scarlet Witch's body lies and past the area where he was nearly burned to death by Apocalypse's henchmen. As Logan nears his destination, he smells an attacker's scent in the air. As he lunges towards his attacker, she easily jumps out of the way, causing him to only sink his claws into the stone tower in front of him. He recognizes his attacker as Carol Danvers, an old friend of his. They both stop only to talk for a second before she takes him to the mutant he has traveled here to find. While Logan meets his friend Carol, back in London the High Council discusses their next move against Apocalypse. The Trasks believe that Brian Braddock is not mentally well enough to lead their attack but he storms off in anger telling them that he will. Back at Wundagore the two friends have finally made it up the many stairs to the top of the tower where Gateway, the mutant Logan came after, sits studying abut the past with the computers that surround him. Carol explains that Gateway is trying to absorb all of the world's history before it is lost for good. Logan has no time to wait for Gateway to come out of the trance he has put himself into, so Logan destroys the terminal for his computers, causing an explosion, waking Gateway. Logan explains to Gateway their need for him to lead the Armada against Apocalypse, but Gateway turns down Logan's offer. Suddenly, Gateway is able to save them from the attack of a half Mangle - half Dead-Eye creature, now only one enhanced human by twirling his whirligig and disrupting the blasts path. Logan and Carol turn around to see who is attacking them and both friends easily take care of their attacker. As Gateway begins to send Logan away, using his whirligig's teleportation ability, they are attacked again by two more enhanced humans Vultura and Donald Pierce. Gateway is ordered by Logan to teleport the three of them onto the plane that Pierce is flying just in time to save them from being killed by the very same plane crashing into the tower they were just in. Logan easily takes care of Vultura, but after a short battle where Logan almost loses, Carol throws herself onto Pierce knocking the two of them out of the airplane. As the two fall, Carol pulls her hand grenade's pin and the two explode in mid-air. Logan silently mourns his friend Carol for her heroic actions. Gateway interrupts Logan's thoughts though as he finally agrees to go to Paris with Logan to see if he can be persuaded to join in the humans fight.

Full Summary: 

Through the eye of Mangle and Dead-Eye a shadowy figure is seen walking through a snow bank. Dead-Eye wakes Mangle up to tell him that he has picked up a target approaching them. Mangle thinks aloud that it better not be another deer because they'll have to drag it off the killing field. Dead-Eye confirms that it is a person and not just any person, it is an Alpha class mutant. Mangle runs the mug shot through his data banks and he finds out that the mutant is Weapon X himself. Mangle next orders Dead-Eye to "take him down". In response to Mangle's order, Dead-Eye blasts a plasma shot towards Logan taking him down. Out of the snow bank pops Dead-Eye seeing that he even blew Logan out of his boots, as Logan's boots lay on the ground with smoke coming from them. Dead-Eye runs over to Logan's barely living body, against Mangle's orders to stop. Unluckily for Dead-Eye Logan was just playing possum and he slices Dead-Eye in two with his claws.

Logan stands up with both parts of Dead-Eye on either side of him. He asks Mangle who is still standing in the hole he was hiding in why they are in the middle of nowhere. Mangle explains that Apocalypse knew that someone would come back to this area sooner or later and he knew it would probably be a renegade mutant. Logan, angered by Mangle's statement, asks Mangle if he is going to just stand there or is he going to walk over to him and die? In answer Mangle sends his bionic arms towards Logan snatching him off the ground and bringing Logan to him. Logan easily takes care of destroying Mangle's arms and then severs his head before walking away. Logan ponders while he finishes the fight, why anyone would want to trade in their humanity for a dip in an electrolyte bath, turning him into a mostly robot?

He also thinks the two had gall for setting the trap right at the gates of Wundagore Mountain. Logan looks out on the now abandoned place he used to call home. As he walks to wherever his destination is, he passes the tombstone of Wanda Maximoff-Lehnsherr's and thinks of the good memories he has of this place and also the bad things he remembers also. He remembers how that the X-Men and Apocalypse have had many hard fought battles in the past. He also wonders how Apocalypse thought that the X-Men would believe that the Kelly pact he had signed was even the truth. As he nears the bottom of some stairs, he sees a white silhouette of a form resembling himself and he remembers how that he got burned because of his suspicions about the Kelly pact. He thinks of an author named Billy Burroughs that said, "...Paranoia is simply knowin' the truth."

As Logan thinks to himself, his eyes' and nose's attention is diverted to his left and he releases his claws he strikes toward his would be assailant. Carol Danvers flips out of the Logan's strike moments before he recognizes her from her trademark scent of gun oil, C-4, and Chanel number five. Logan thinks to himself how Carol Danvers was at one time an air force intelligence spook and a space agency security honcho before she began working with the Human Defense League. Carol breaks Logan's thoughts as she asks where his other half, Jean Grey, was? "She couldn't make it." Logan exclaims, as he pulls his claws from the wall he rammed them into earlier. Logan asks Carol if she is still watching "Gee-Dubs" back and she replies that she is. She holsters her gun and explains that the High Council does not want Apocalypse trying to get to him. Logan, surprised that he is still here, asks Carol if he is really still here and in reply she says, yes. Carol turns to a high tower and tells Logan that he is up there and she hopes he feels like climbing.

In London, a boy shows on his viewfinder, to the Human High Council, the massacre of his town's people and his own family in America by Apocalypse's Infinites. He tells them that while he looked through the viewfinder the massacre did not seem real but that now it seems too real for him to take. Mariko thanks the boy for his testimony and Bolivar replies that if Logan does not succeed in his attempt to find his target, the scene from the viewfinder will be the future of every human in the world. Moira, in Logan's defense, says that she believes Logan will succeed, because he knows of the importance of his mission. Emma stands near them and she tells them that she sacrificed a lot to escape Apocalypse and no matter if Logan succeeds are not, she will fight on. Behind her, Brian Braddock mumbles, wondering if she will try to claw his eyes out? Bolivar and Moira notice that Braddock has been very uptight lately and they ask him if he does not want to go on the strike, due to his mental state? Braddock, angered by their lack of trust in him, storms out onto the lead airship, angrily talking of how he does not have a lot of faith in Logan completing his assignment, so God help him. Mariko, with her fingers to her lips, whispers to herself that if Logan fails, God help all of humanity.

Carol walks Logan to the top of the tower. As they walk, she tells Logan that "he" has been held up in the tower for six months now. She tells him that he will not eat for days and that she has never seen him sleep. As the two friends walk into the room where Logan's target sits, she tells him that his name is Gateway and he is the "sage of the great western desert". Gateway sits in front of hundreds of televisions and around ten computers absorbing the entire world's past information. From a Star Trek episode to a Spanish author's thoughts, Gateway is trying to, as Carol says, absorb everything before it goes away. Logan walks over to Gateway and tells him that it is time to go and save the world, so he needs to turn the computers off. Gateway is in a cationic state, trying to focus only on absorbing everything that his information devices can give him. Logan yells at Gateway, telling him to come out of his state because the way he is acting is not going down with "the ol' canuckle-head". Carol tries to stop Logan by telling him that nothing will get his attention because Gateway never answers. Logan, angered by Gateways brush, off sends his claws through Gateway's computer, blasting Gateway off of his butt and on to his back. Waking up, Gateway greets Logan and asks for a hand in standing up. Glad to help him up, Logan walks over to him and touches his hand. In that second of contact, Gateway absorbs all the information of the last few weeks of Logan's journeys from him and quickly analyzes them and files the information he has gained in his own mind. Logan, who leaves Gateway still sitting on the floor, asks Gateway where he had learned that trick from? Gateway tells him that he had learned it earlier from reading a Tibetan manuscript. "As for piloting the lead airship in a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Apocalypse, I have to pass on that." Gateway informs Logan. Gateway talks as he pulls a chain with a ball on the end of it out of his shirt pocket, he tells Logan that the attack is to much bad karma and it is also not his job. The least he could do, as he holds his chain in his hand, is teleport Logan back to London. Gateway begins to twirl his Whirligig just in time to save the three of them from a laser blast fired by an unknown assailant.

Logan turns to see where the blast came from, and he is surprised that he was sneaked attacked by a now grafted together Mangle and Dead-Eye. Dead-Eye is the top part of the torso while Mangle is the legs. As Dead-Eye climbs the stairs he fires of round after round of laser blasts at his intended targets, narrowly missing each time. Carol yells at Logan to grab a loose cable that is around Mangle's feet while Carol pulls a grenade from her side preparing to place it into the middle of the two grafted robotic humans. Logan does as he is told and Carol uses the opportunity to place the grenade inside her target while pushing him down the stairs. She counts down until the grenade explodes, killing its target. Logan turns his attention back to Gateway and asks him if he does not like being considered the clutch hitter at the bottom of the ninth. Gateway, looking very angry at even the thought of him being a mere "cog" as he puts it, tells Logan "NO". Gateway begins to talk about how he is the great repository of knowledge and how the world cannot afford to lose his knowledge by acting like a mindless savage. Gateway looks to the sky talking about how he has even the knowledge of all the different types of birds in the world.

He is startled to realize what he thought was a bird flying over head is actually a meta-human named Vultura who is radioing her leader about Dead-Eye being able to lead them to Logan. The person she is radioing is Donald Pierce, who is flying a bomber airplane above the tower that his three targets are in. Vultura tells Pierce that he can make his bombing run on them at anytime. Pierce begins his descent, while on the ground Carol begins to fire at the plane with her two automatic weapons. Logan, standing near Gateway, grabs him by the shirt and tells him to begin swinging his whirligig. Gateway, confused about Logan's actions, asks him where he wants to go. Logan replies to him that he will tell him as they go. The plane ends it's descent and crashes into the tower that Logan and his friends are in, though the plane remains unharmed and begins to fly away.

The three friends, appearing behind Pierce in the airplane, startle him because he thought he had destroyed them just seconds ago. Logan, angry by finding Pierce still alive, asks him how he could have survived the explosion the two of them were in earlier? Pierce ducks the claws sent through the back of his chair by Logan and replies that he did burn, but the life inside of him is strong enough to survive. Pierce jumps from the chair knocking Logan down and he tells him that "enhancement" has advantages. With blood pouring from his nose and mouth, Logan tells Pierce that it also sounds like his brain was fried in the explosion.

Outside the airplane Vultura flys to catch up with Pierce, and as she sees the plane jerking uncontrollably she radios Pierce and asks him if he has lost control of the plane? Inside the plane, Logan slices at Pierce. As he narrowly dodges the attack, he pleads for Vultura's help because their enemy is in the plane with him. Logan walks towards Pierce, telling him that he has lost it in talking to himself. Logan is unaware that Pierce is still in radio contact with Vultura. He finds out soon enough though, as Vultura crashes through one of the widows of the plane, with her attended target as Logan. Logan easily ducks the attack and slices her through her stomach as she flys out the other window of the plane. Pierce surprises Logan by telling him that she only served as a distraction for him to have time to attack him. Pierce prepares to slice through Logan with his razor sharp fingers but Carol jumps in just in enough time to save him. As she screams "NOOOOOO!" she hurls her body at Pierce causing both of them to fall out of the plane and towards the ground below.

As the two fall, Pierce tells Carol Danvers that he will see her dead before they hit the ground. With Pierce's hands around her throat she pulls the pin from the grenade on her side and she begins to count to four Mississippi.

Logan stands in the airplane looking down at the two as he sees a big explosion. Gateway asks from behind Logan what the noise was and Logan replies that it "was the clutch hitter coming through with a grand slam." Gateway, who is now flying the plane, sits in the captains chair and asks Logan where the Armada is that they are going to. Logan replies Paris and asks if Gateway has decided to join in the fight against Apocalypse. Gateway tells Logan, as the plane flies onward, that he is going not to guarantee he will join, but will give the council a chance to try and persuade him.

Characters Involved: 

Weapon X
Carol Danvers
Gateway
Brian Braddock, Emma Frost, Bolivar Trask, Moira MacTaggert-Trask, Mariko Yashida (all Human High Council)
Dead Eye, Mangle, Donald Pierce, Vultura (all Reavers)

In a video :
Dead American Humans
Infinites

Story Notes: 

The quote of "Paranoia simply means having all the facts" is indeed attributed to William S. Burroughs.

Carol refers to Gateway as the Sage of the Great Western Desert. The Great Western Desert is composed of three separate arid regions, the Gibson, Great Sandy and Great Victoria. More commonly, however, the Great Western Desert is known simply as the Outback.

Pierce and Logan both nearly burned to death last issue.

The Scarlet Witch's death and Logan's joining of the X-Men can be seen in X-Men Chronicles #1.

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