Thus far, I'm not sensing all that much interest in the upcoming Weapon X ongoing series.  But the publicity campaign begins in earnest here, as Marvel release the first in a series of trailer one-shots.

Whether this device is really going to work is open to question.  After all, it's basically the same scheme that was used by DC to trail Power Company, and even Kurt Busiek is now accepting that it was a misjudgment - rather than an opportunity to meet the characters, it was perceived as an attempt to fleece the audience.  It's difficult to imagine that Weapon X's readers are likely to feel differently, especially considering that for the most part, these one-shots aren't even by the creative team of the regular series.

Weapon X is a Frank Tieri concept which has cropped up in his runs on Wolverine and Deadpool - stories which have now been collected in a trade paperback, if you really feel the urge to plug this much-needed gap in your collection.  The idea is that they're a team of supervillains recruited as a government strike force and under the control of a sadistic and disturbed Director who's still bitter about Wolverine scarring his face back when he was a guard.

The one-shots follow various Weapon X characters as they attempt to recruit new members.  First off the bat is Sauron, although in a bizarrely overhauled fashion.  For whatever reason, the Director has been experimenting on Sauron and has turned him into a moron.  Sauron is duly sent off on "can't win" missions as the Director torments him for no discernible reason.

Taken in isolation, this story does have its moments.  There are some genuinely funny moments as Sauron attempts to achieve the impossible, and Karl Kerschl's artwork is very pleasant on the eye.  He produces a quite attractive version of the Sauron design - although his Emma Frost appears to be thirteen.  The mutant that Sauron succeeds in recruiting is quite a likeable character, although he rounds off the story with a seriously melodramatic closing scene.

It's alright, but it does nothing to encourage me to read the ongoing series.  I hated the "evil sadists irrationally torment their mutant strike force" angle when Mark Millar did it in Ultimate X-Men, and nothing I have seen from Frank Tieri gives me any reason to suspect that I will like his version of the idea any better.  If this team were doing the regular series, I might be perking up around now - but they aren't, and much of what I liked about this issue is precisely the sort of thing I tend to despair of in Tieri's work.

Rating: B

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