Weapon H

Weapon H
Weapon H. Art by Mike Deodato.
Publication information
Publisher	Marvel Comics
First appearance	Totally Awesome Hulk #22 (September 2017)
Created by	Greg Pak Mike Deodato
In-story information
Full name	Clayton Cortez
Species	Human mutate-cyborg
Place of origin	Earth, America
Team affiliations	Eaglestar Roxxon Energy Corporation Weapon X Project War Avengers
Notable aliases	H-Alpha Hulkverine
Abilities	Superhuman strength, durability, speed, and senses Retractable claws Healing factor Probability field generation Alternate transformation Combat experience

Weapon H (Clayton Cortez) is the name of a fictional character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics.

Publication history

The character, created by Greg Pak and Mike Deodato, first appeared in The Totally Awesome Hulk #21 (September 2017) during the "Weapons of Mutant Destruction" storyline. ^[1]

Weapon H later gained his own comic series that details what he has been up to since the end of the "Weapons of Mutant Destruction" storyline. ^[2]

Fictional character biography

Origin

Clayton Cortez was an ex-military mercenary working for Eaglestar who was hired to eliminate the villagers in Ujanka for interfering with Roxxon's pipeline work. Feeling remorse for his actions, Clayton killed his own men and spared the villagers. For his betrayal, he was kidnapped and sold to Aliana Alba of Weapon X. ^[3]

Weapons of Mutant Destruction

Clayton was infused with DNA harvested from Amadeus Cho and Old Man Logan, as well as being subjected to the adamantium-bonding process and being injected with nanites reverse-engineered from Lady Deathstrike's nanites. Much of his brain was left intact so that he could be better disciplined. ^[4] Clayton's hybrid form resembles a gray-skinned Hulk with retractable claws and adamantium protrusions on his back, shoulders, and legs. Eventually, Clayton was released as H-Alpha who along with his more primitive precursor H-Beta fought Amadeus and the current team known as Weapon X. H-Alpha proved superior, killing H-Beta before engaging the Hulk. Clayton regained much of his humanity, even though he tried to kill Alba, and soon fled the battle. ^{[5] [6]}

Now calling himself Weapon H, Clayton set out to find every Eaglestar facility that carried information about himself and his family. Alba caught up to him and injected nanites into his body so that he would not be able to resist her command. ^[7] He once again encountered the Weapon X team, but the new Wolverine managed to break him free. Clayton resumed his mission to destroy the Eaglestar facilities. ^[8]

Targeted by Roxxon

While resisting the change upon joining Roxxon's archaeological expedition to find a Wendigo, Clayton assumed his Weapon H form and saved Roxxon scientist Ella Stirling from an Ur-Wendigo as Roxxon takes an interest in Weapon H. This also attracted the attention of Doctor Strange, who planned to deal with Weapon H and the Ur-Wendigo. ^[9] Doctor Strange showed up to help fight the Ur-Wendigo, but his magic does not affect it. Using Strange's Axe of Angarruumus, Weapon H enters the Ur-Wendigo's body and kills it from within. ^[9]

Using the Brood that is in Roxxon's possession, Dario Agger had Dr. Baines unleash Brood-infected creatures to attack Weapon H. With the Brood slain and the Acanti knocked out, Weapon H demanded answers as to why Roxxon was pursuing him. Blake, a Brood-infected human, stated that Roxxon wanted Weapon H to work for them. After mentioning that those who are said to help people actually harm people, Weapon H has Blake forward a message to Roxxon to leave him alone. As Clayton is walking through Redwood National Forest, Agger instructs Baines to "initiate the spawn"—which awakens a spawn of Man-Thing. ^[10]

After doing some thinking, Clayton is attacked by the spawn of Man-Thing, causing him to turn into Weapon H. Dario Agger speaks through the Fly-Spies, stating that this spawn of Man-Thing had its abilities enhanced with the DNA of Groot. When Agger states that he will find out who he is and who the woman looking for him is, Weapon H sets off the Man-Thing's immolation touch, causing a fire. As Weapon H continues his fight with Man-Thing, a woman named Sonia runs into Stirling, who was also looking for Weapon H. After Weapon H subdues Man-Thing, he tells Stirling that nobody is supposed to find her, as it is confirmed that Sonia is Clayton's wife. After seeing Roxxon's Fly-Spies, Weapon H throws Sonia and Stirling into the water as he puts out the fires and defeat Man-Thing. ^[11]

Collaborating with Roxxon

As Weapon H is affected by an Elvish Binding Scroll, Dario Agger introduces himself to him and attempts to lobotomize him. After Ella Stirling shuts down the power to the laboratory, Agger flees leaving the scientist at the mercy of Weapon H. As Weapon H fights the security guards, he finds Blake and Man-Thing in cages and frees them. When security robots appear, Weapon H is assisted by Blake and Man-Thing as Sonia and Stirling show up. After Weapon H regresses back to Clayton and explains that he had to keep his distance in the event that Roxxon targets her and their kids, Agger arrives wanting the group to hear him out as he explains that Roxxon is wanting to obtain extraterrestrial resources leading him to show the group a portal to Weirdworld, which contains enough magic to power Earth for a million years. However, the monsters on the other side of the portal want to kill every human. Sonia advises Clayton to deal with the threat as he transforms into Weapon H. ^[12]

Baines reveals to the group that the damage to the facility has fractured the portal enough for creatures such as the Skrullduggers to get through. As Weapon H and Captain America continue their fight with the Skrullduggers, Weapon H thinks back to his childhood where he was beaten by his father, fought some bullies, and was beaten up by prisoners. As Man-Thing secures the defeated Skrullduggers, Captain America states to Weapon H that he was trailing illegal shipments to Roxxon. After the two defeat the Skrullduggers, they arrange to have Alpha Flight capture one for study. ^{[13] [14]}

Journey to Weirdworld

Weapon H hears from Korg that the Roxxon soldiers on Weirdworld are safe in a bunker. In addition, he learns that Dario Agger has brought in Titania and ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. operative Angel to assist him. After a talk with Sonia, Clayton is allowed to contact his kids and mother-in-law, this being secretly arranged by Captain America. As Weapon H leads the mission to Weirdworld, they are attacked by a tribe of humanoids who blame them for breaking the Earth and allowing the Skrullduggers to take their queen. ^[15]

Their captors are revealed to be the Inaku, who come from the planet of the same name and have settled on Weirdworld. While Man-Thing, Korg, and Titania stay with the Inaku, Weapon H takes Angel and Blake on a stealth mission to find the Roxxon outpost. After being contacted by Dario Agger, Weapon H tells Angel and Blake that Agger "showed his hand" by wanting them to kill the Skrullduggers. Sonia states that there are three engineers and six Roxxon guards taking refuge, with one of them being Carrie Espinoza. After a power failure at Roxxon, Agger's latest contact to Weapon H alerts the Skrullduggers outside the outpost. After killing some of the Skrullduggers, Weapon H, Angel, and Blake make their way into the Roxxon outpost to rescue its workers and discover that they are harnessing Morgan le Fay's magic. ^[16]

Weapon H was against the imprisonment of Morgan le Fay despite Espinoza's claim that she is the most dangerous sorceress who ever lived. When Weapon H starts to go on the attack, Angel states that she had no knowledge of what Roxxon was doing with Morgan le Fay—who advises Weapon H not to listen to Angel's lies. After revealing parts of her backstory, Morgan le Fay states that she found a way to tame the Skrullduggers until Roxxon invaded, took her captive, and caused the Skrullduggers to run wild. As Angel tries to prevent Weapon H and Blake from falling into Morgan's control, Morgan mesmerizes them, claiming that she can cure Blake, and reveals Weapon H's true and full identity of Clayton Cortez. Espinoza then has a soldier named Granville open the door, enabling the Skrullduggers to get in. After Weapon H blocks the entrance against the Skrullduggers, Morgan le Fay exposes that Angel is Black Widow's clone using an Image Inducer, and claims that Captain America sent the clone to spy on Weapon H. Morgan still has Weapon H under her control and regains control of the Skrullduggers. After destroying the facility, Morgan leads a mind-controlled Weapon H and the Skrullduggers in an attempt at taking over the world. ^[17]

Now under Morgan le Fay's control, Weapon H leads the attack on the Inaku village. As Morgan le Fay is a queen to the Inaku, they assist Weapon H in attacking Korg and Titania. As Weapon H faces off against Korg, Angel works to get Sonia to get through to Weapon H. Dario Agger takes control of the transmission, stating that he has a map to an escape route for them to use, only to lead them into a box canyon. After knocking out Agger, Sonia takes a speeder and heads to Weirdworld to get to Weapon H. After breaking free from Morgan le Fay's mind-control, Weapon H briefly leaves Weirdworld and returns to have Agger disarm the gun so that he could save the world and his own skin. ^[18]

After getting Dario Agger to disarm the bomb, Weapon H watches as he transforms into Minotaur after taking an attack from Morgan le Fay. As Minotaur fights Morgan le Fay, Weapon H evacuates everyone through the portal. After everyone is evacuated, Weapon H is attacked by Minotaur who states that he ruined everything. As Morgan le Fay's army starts to charge them, Weapon H leaves through the portal stating to Minotaur: "I did your job. Got your people back safe. You wanna stay over here like an idiot and fight to control a world you got no right to? You're on your own". Minotaur barely makes it as Weapon H and Sonia make sure that he pays them the terms of their contract. Agger does provide Clay and Sonia with money to their accounts and new identities. Clay vows that if Agger does anything to his family, he will tear down everything he has. ^[19]

Hulkverines

In the "Hulkverines" miniseries, Clayton and his family are shown watching the news of Hulk's fight with the Avengers at a restaurant. Later, he encounters and battles Hulk as it is revealed that the Leader infected Clayton with a gamma virus. Using his tracking skills, Clayton chases after Leader until he runs into Wolverine. ^[20] The Leader's Humanoids kidnap Wolverine and Bruce Banner, but Weapon H defeats Leader and forces him to flee. ^[21]

War of the Realms

During the "War of the Realms" storyline, Weapon H is among the heroes who are gathered by Captain Marvel to form the War Avengers and combat Malekith and the Frost Giants. ^[22]

Absolute Carnage: Weapon Plus

As Cletus Kasady began his escapade to awaken the primordial deity Knull from his slumber, Clayton and his family took refuge in Drumheller, Alberta. Thinking of moving out after spending a couple months there in seclusion when the Eaglestar contemporaries came knocking at his door.

Urquhart came to Clay revealing he and his outfit are now proud outliers of the Weapon V program; boasting genetically altered Klyntar exoskins since they're trading up in the PMC world. They have also come under assault of the recently empowered apostle of the Symbiote God; Carnage himself, as a consequence of their upgrade however. Having the need of assistance from their fellow enhancile to weather the coming storm. Clay would get the rundown about how Weapon V came to be after the failed S.H.I.E.L.D sanctioned Sym-Soldier program flunked during the Vietnam War from the fifth Plus initiative's R&D head Andrew Breen. ^[23]

Moments later, Dark Carnage makes his attack on the Sym-Soldiers but is met in force by Weapon H. Their battle shakes the warehouse to the core until Breen offers Clayton amnesty. Clayton obliges his offering and leaves in search of his wife's mother, vowing to protect Janice.

Savage Avengers

On a late night in New York city, having moved himself and his to a more populated area to get away from the constant conflict in his life. Clayton ends up hulking out on a mugger after he attempted to jump him while leaving a local grocery. Due to the misunderstanding he ended up coming in conflict with Black Knight. The two renounced their tumult in pursuit of finding and shutting off the source of said chaos. Eventually coming to a hidden underground chasm where the stolen Alchemax technology had been procured by cultists of Set. But were waylaid by the sudden appearance of other more vicious heroic protectorates the likes of Daredevil (Elektra), Agent Anti-Venom as well as Cloak and Dagger at the sight at Conan battling Deathlok. Sensing a fellow hero in need of help, the six anti-heroes rallied to fight against the reanimated cyber-assassin while shutting off the rage inducing apparatus. Even with the barbarians help, their union was initially overmatched by his would-be assailant. Clay himself being temporarily depowered by a Gamma Siphon which sapped him of his great strength. An ad hock strike at a weakness developed by these unlikely allies caused the Deathlok's temporal drive to malfunction. Sending Conan and his odd contemporaries hurtling through the time stream into distant history. After the temporal conflagration had stabilized, Whitman and Clay landed somewhen in the Hyborian Age of Conan's original birth. ^[24]

Right in the middle of a celebratory feast held in a fallen brigands honor. The duo would fight their way through a horde of enraged plunderers and vandals while beating a hasty exit towards an open window, while desperately trying to restart his gamma powers. Weapon H discovered a new facility of which that transformed him into a red hybridized version of both a Red Hulk and the Red Harpy gamma transformations, enabling him to fly himself and Black Knight to safety. Eventually, they would reunite with their time displaced number, right as the Deathlok they fought had caught back up with its original target. With some intervention from dagger however, they'd managed to stave off their pursuer while escaping via riverboat. Elektra boasting of a plan to deal with him indefinably along the way. ^[25]

Conan's group uses the Temple of the Beast to lure Deathlok into a trap. During the fight, Weapon H siphons Deathlok's gamma battery to briefly assume a Red Hulk form. Their fight is crashed by Thulsa Doom and his minions. After Deathlok emits energy and retreats, Weapon H and the rest of Conan's group have found that Thulsa Doom and his followers have made off with Conan. ^[26]

Weapon H and the others later find where Thulsa Doom took Conan with help from the Cimmerian zombies. During the battle with Thulsa Doom's cult, Weapon H assumes a Leader-like form. Weapon H witnessed Thulsa Doom cutting Conan's neck and using his blood to summon Set. ^[27]

Powers and abilities

The Weapon X Project's experiments have given Clayton Cortez a Hulk/Wolverine-like appearance with the powers of Hulk, Wolverine, Domino, Lady Deathstrike, Sabretooth, and Warpath upon their genetic templates being injected into him. These abilities include immense strength, durability, and speed, as well as retractable bone claws, regeneration, enhanced senses, and probability field generation (allowing him to influence "luck").

He possesses a couple of other unique qualities stemming from Sterntech-derived nanorobotics used in his adamantium bonding process. Without this nanotech, Cortez/Weapon H could not transform without his skeleton ripping out of the body. ^[5] With it, he can manipulate the Adamantium-laced bone structure's pliability, for instance, being able to elongate them protruding along those limbs into needle-pointed spurs capable of shredding his enemies. ^[28] Unlike Wolverine, Weapon H can also discharge his three-pointed claws as projectile-like stilettos (and aim them at a target with pinpoint precision). This is something even his own creator didn't know about. ^[21]

After having his gamma power drained and being left trapped in the past age by Deathlok, Cortez found out that he could modulate the Gamma Core powering this Sterntech-based transformation and transform into alternate forms of gamma mutates. ^{[25] [26] [27]}

Prior to his transformations, the Eaglestar Corporation had trained Clayton as a skilled marksman and expert unarmed combatant.

Collected editions

Title	Material collected	Publication date	ISBN
Weapons Of Mutant Destruction	Weapons of Mutant Destruction: Alpha #1, Weapon X (vol. 3) #5-6, Totally Awesome Hulk #20-22	November 2017	978-1302910853
Weapon X Vol. 2: The Search for Weapon H	Weapon X (vol. 3) #7-11	March 2018	978-1302907358
Weapon H Vol. 1: AWOL	Weapon H #1–6	November 2018	978-1302912284
Weapon H Vol. 2: War for Weirdworld	Weapon H #7-12	April 2019	978-1302912291
Hulkverines	Hulkverines #1-3, Totally Awesome Hulk #22	June 2019	978-1302918354

References

1. Goodman, D. (July 4, 2017). "First look at Weapon H from Weapons of Mutant Destruction". bamsmackpow.com. Archived from the original on October 5, 2018. Retrieved April 19, 2019.
2. Adams, Tim (November 21, 2017). "Marvel Releases Weapon H Series Details, Cover Art". Marvel Comics . Comic Book Resources. Retrieved July 19, 2018.
3. Weapon X Vol. 3 #9. Marvel Comics.
4. The Totally Awesome Hulk #21
5. Weapon X Vol. 3 #6. Marvel Comics.
6. The Totally Awesome Hulk #22
7. Weapon X Vol. 3 #11. Marvel Comics.
8. Weapon X Vol. 3 #7–8. Marvel Comics
9. Weapon H #1. Marvel Comics.
10. Weapon H #3. Marvel Comics.
11. Weapon H #4. Marvel Comics.
12. Weapon H #5. Marvel Comics.
13. Weapon H #6. Marvel Comics.
14. Weapon H #7. Marvel Comics.
15. Weapon H #8. Marvel Comics.
16. Weapon H #9. Marvel Comics.
17. Weapon H #10. Marvel Comics.
18. Weapon H #11. Marvel Comics.
19. Weapon H #12. Marvel Comics.
20. Hulkverines #1. Marvel Comics.
21. Hulkverines #3. Marvel Comics.
22. War of the Realms Strikeforce: Captain Marvel and the War Avengers #1. Marvel Comics.
23. Absolute Carnage: Weapon Plus #1. Marvel Comics.
24. Savage Avengers Vol 2 #1. Marvel Comics.
25. Savage Avengers Vol 2 #2. Marvel Comics.
26. Savage Avengers Vol. 2 #3. Marvel Comics.
27. Savage Avengers Vol. 2 #4. Marvel Comics.
28. Weapon H #2. Marvel Comics.