Roster Information
First appearance: Exiles (1st series) #5
Membership: Archangel, Colossus, Daredevil, Deadpool, Firestar, Gambit, Hulk (Jen Walters), Hulk (Bruce Banner), Hyperion, Iron Man, Kane, Maverick, Mesmero, Ms. Marvel, Sabretooth, Spider, Storm, Vision, Wolverine
Leaders: Sabretooth, Gambit, Hyperion
BEFORE
- After Legion travelled through time and accidentally killed his father Charles Xavier, the alternate timeline known as the Age of Apocalypse was created. This timeline was later seemingly erased from existence. [Age of Apocalypse crossover]
- Blink, a resident of the Age of Apocalypse, was plucked from the timeline seconds before its apparent end and grouped with other individuals plucked from their own realities. These “Exiles” were tasked with the mission of saving damaged realities by an enigmatic entity known as the Timebroker. [Exiles (1st series) #1]
CHRONOLOGY
Versions of Garrison Kane, Deadpool, Wolverine, Maverick, Mesmero and Sabretooth were plucked from their various realities by an enigmatic being known as the Timebroker. While little is known about the history of the rest of the team, Saberetooth was plucked from the Age of Apocalypse moments before its apparent destruction. Together on a boat, seemingly in the middle of the ocean, the disparate personalities were advised by a mysterious woman known as the Timebroker that they had become unhinged from time. In order to go home, they needed to work together to repair damaged timelines. Sabretooth was issued with a Tallus, a gauntlet that would relay instructions from the Timebroker to the team on each reality.
Due to each member having ties to the Weapon X programs of their worlds, the group chose to name themselves Weapon X. Unbeknownst to Weapon X, the Timebroker had also recruited another team, known as the Exiles. Weapon X’s purpose was to handle the “dirtier” missions that the more heroic Exiles would not be capable of.
The details of Weapon X’s early missions are unclear. What is known though is that Wolverine, Maverick and Mesmero were all killed at some point early on. Unlike with the Exiles, these fallen members weren’t immediately replaced.
Weapon X were next tasked with apprehending the Hulk in Canada, and also recruiting some new members to their team. Unbeknownst to anyone in the team, the Exiles had also been sent to this world, tasked with saving Alpha Flight from being killed by the Hulk. Sabretooth and his team only knew that some newcomers were assisting the Hulk, and chose to observe. Creed’s plan was to wait and allow the Hulk, Alpha Flight and the Exiles beat each other into submission, though this 
took longer than expected. While Weapon X watched, the Exile Thunderbird ultimately managed to take down the Hulk. However, before they were able to intercept, Sabretooth was shocked to see his protégé from him home reality, Blink, amongst the Exiles. This brief moment of hesitation was enough to allow Alpha Flight to remove the Hulk from the scene, causing Weapon X to fail their mission. Despite this, the Tallus still teleported the trio to their next mission. [Exiles (1st series) #5-6]
Eventually, other members were added to the ranks of Weapon X, though Daredevil didn’t last long and he was replaced with a psychotic version of Peter Parker known as the Spider. During a mission to spark a war between Atlantis and Attilan, Kane lost his life and Vision took his place. Keeping with their wetworks manifesto, they also crippled Doctor Strange, blew up Avengers Mansion, murdered Tony Stark and slaughtered the Morlocks. On one world, the team were required to murder that world’s Gambit, which Sabretooth refused to do. This caused the team to remain on the world for months, until Creed eventually relented and allowed the murder to happen. [Exiles (1st series) #12]
The team, consisting of Sabretooth, Deadpool, Spider, Vision, the Hulk (Jen Walters) and a young Storm, next found themselves face to face with the Exiles for the first time. Understandably, Blink and Sabretooth were overjoyed to see each other alive. The two teams got to know each other before completing their mission: freeing the son of Franklin Richards and Rachel Summers from the Sentinels that had taken over the world.
Unfortunately, the second part of the mission was to kill young David Richards before he grew up to become a tyrant. Sabretooth and Blink chose not to reveal this information but, when Vision overheard Blink, the two teams turned on each other. Other than Creed, the rest of Weapon X were more than comfortable with murdering the child. Sabretooth snapped Deadpool’s neck 
before he could kill David, and he and the Exiles fled. Joined by their new member Iron Man, Weapon X caught up quickly and the two groups fought a second time. This time, Weapon X were soundly defeated by the Exiles and captured. Realizing something had to be done to complete the mission, Sabretooth volunteered to remain behind and raise David himself, while the other teams teleported away to their next missions. [Exiles (1st series) #12-13]
After Sabretooth remained behind, he was replaced by a version of Gambit, who, much like his predecessor, was less inclined to go for the easy kill than his team mates. Additionally, at some point Iron Man was incapacitated and left behind and he was replaced by gun toting assassin Archangel. [Exiles (1st series) #23]
Weapon X were later sent to aid President of Earth Tony Stark in defeating the last threat to his rule, the Inhumans. Stark had used duplicity and murder to seize control of the entire planet, but he wanted more. He wanted to expand his empire to the stars and considered the Inhuman’s key to this plan. However, the Inhumans were locked away in Attilan behind an impenetrable barrier. While skeptical at first, Stark soon came to believe the team were here to help him and tasked them with recovering the key to Attilan’s barrier.
Unfortunately, the key was held by the gamma irradiated Wonder Man, along with the Scarlett Witch and Doctor Strange. Storm’s witchcraft helped the team enter their target’s home undetected, but they were soon discovered regardless. Wonder Man proved to be a powerful foe, forcing Gambit to deploy a Negative Zone portal provided by Stark. Unfortunately, Hulk was also sucked into the portal and, while Spider could have saved Jen, he chose not to, for fear of being pulled in himself. Jen Walters was immediately replaced by Colossus.
With the key now in their possession, Weapon X lead the assault against Attilan. Unfortunately, while they succeeded in bringing down the barrier, the Inhumans chose to destroy themselves, 
rather than become Stark’s tools. Weapon X were teleported away, believing they had failed their mission. In actual fact, their mission had always been to precipitate these events, which would lead to the death of Tony Stark, murdered by the late Black Bolt’s wife, Susan Storm Richards. [Exiles (1st series) #23-25]
At some point after the completion of the Inhuman mission, Angel was sent home, having apparently repaired his home reality. He was replaced by a sadistic version of Ms. Marvel. On a later mission to stop Bruce Banner, Storm was killed. As Gambit had lost his wife Storm on his own world, this left him distraught as they passed to the next world and he initially refused to share their mission. Ultimately, Vision forced Gambit to share their mission; to kill the remaining ten mutants on Earth.
However, Storm’s replacement Hyperion, had a different idea. A violent sociopath and vastly powerful, Hyperion decided that, rather that follow orders, they should instead take over this world. Vision however disagreed, prompting Hyperion the blast him to pieces, though not kill him, lest a replacement be sent. After having casual sex with Ms. Marvel, Hyperion took her to destroy the Sentinel control station at the Pentagon, shutting down every Sentinel on the planet. They then went to the White House and threatened the President into submission. However, they were interrupted by Magneto and his Brotherhood, who invited them to join them on Asteroid M. Magneto revealed that he has released an asteroid to destroy all life on Earth, which would make Earthfall in a few hours.
Hyperion instead killed some of the Brotherhood and tried to force Magneto to stop the asteroid, ultimately killing him when he refused. The remaining Brotherhood came to Hyperion’s side and agreed to help him try to stop the asteroid. Meanwhile, the rest of Weapon X gathered the other remaining mutants on Earth; Storm, Vanisher and Kitty Pryde. Their plan being to keep these mutants alive to prevent the Timebroker from removing them from this world. Although everyone teleported to Asteroid M, Hyperion was unable to stop the asteroid from destroying the Earth.
Deciding it was better to move to another world and try again, Hyperion chose to follow through 
with the mission, kill the mutants and move on. With the aid of most of his team, he picked off most of the mutants one by one. Colossus, however, had grown attached to this world’s Kitty Pryde and tried to stop Hyperion, getting killed in the process. Due to his confused feeling about his wife, Gambit also refused to kill Storm, though she herself convinced him to kill her rather than let Hyperion do it. Two new members also arrived to take the place of Colossus and Vision, who had died on Earth; another Hulk, this time Bruce Banner, and Firestar. The mission a “success,” Weapon X was teleported away. [Exiles (1st series) #38-40]
While newcomers Firestar and Hulk were level headed, Hyperion, Ms. Marvel and Spider were rapidly spiraling into psychosis. Gambit spent the next couple of missions basically tricking Hyperion into completing missions in the hopes he would one day get home. However, Hyperion figured this out pretty quickly and burned Gambit’s arm off in an attempt to take the Tallus. The team splintered after this, with Hulk and Firestar turning on Hyperion and Gambit fleeing.
Gambit laid low in the abandoned Morlock tunnels while Hyperion, who defeated Hulk and Firestar easily, took control of Manhattan and killed every hero that came against him. He held Firestar and Hulk captive, rather than kill them and bring new replacements. For a month Gambit hid, while the Tallus, which had returned to his remaining wrist, told him only “Wait.” When the Exiles arrived, the Tallus revealed the mission to both Gambit and the Exile’s team leader Blink: two teams came, one team would leave. Of the twelve members of Weapon X and the Exiles present, only six could leave and the rest would have to die.
The Exiles and Gambit formed a plan to take Hyperion down. Meanwhile, Hyperion demanded President Osborn hand him control of the United States, and threatened to kill one hundred people per hour until he got what he wanted. Additionally, Spider’s spider-sense had warned him the Exiles had arrived, so Hyperion was unsurprised when the Exile Magik arrived to warn him about the Tallus’ mission. Magik only wanted to go home and betrayed her teammates due to her frustration that the Exiles refused to kill. Unfortunately for Magik, Hyperion killed her to test if she was telling the truth. As no new Exile appeared, he knew she was telling the truth. With that knowledge, he killed the Hulk and attempted to kill Firestar too, but she fought back, killing herself and Spider in the process.
The Exiles and Gambit attacked at this point, though Hyperion fought off most of the group with ease. Meanwhile, Morph and Ms. Marvel were buried in rubble during their fight, which killed Ms. Marvel. Hyperion mocked Blink when he faced her, but she used her teleportation powers to direct the superhuman’s power back against him, severing his spine. Gambit made the ultimate sacrifice, using his kinetic charging abilities on Magik’s word to destroy both Hyperion and himself. Weapon X was no more. [Exiles (1st series) #43-45]
However, things were not completely over for Weapon X. The “Timebroker” was in actual fact a collection of insect-like aliens who had inadvertently damaged time when they discovered a Panoptichron, or Crystal Palace, outside time and space. The aliens, known as Timebreakers, recruited Weapon X and the Exiles to fix the damage they caused.
Every fallen member of Weapon X (and the Exiles) were entombed within the walls of the Crystal Palace by the Timebreakers. Hyperion, however, was not quite dead and his vast healing powers 
allowed him to regrow his body from a few chunks. The superhuman broke free of the wall and took control of the crystal palace from the helpless Timebreakers, using the Panoptichron to torment the Exiles. Eventually the Exiles found their own way to the Crystal Palace and called on the aid of two heroic versions of Hyperion to oust the villain and trap him back on his own desolate world. [Exiles (1st series) #62-65]
Now in control of the Crystal Palace and its resources, the Exiles started freeing the surviving Weapon X members. Unfortunately, the first person they freed was Deadpool, who proceeded to take control while most of the Exiles were away on a mission. He also wished to seek revenge on Sabretooth, who had joined the Exiles, for breaking his neck. Deadpool killed the Exiles’ ally Doctor Strange, before forcing Exile Heather Hudson to free the Jen Walters Hulk. Unfortunately for Deadpool, Jen just wanted to go home, not take control, and killed Deadpool to resolve the conflict. The Exiles in turn sent Hulk back to her home reality. [Exiles (1st series) #67-68]
After a brief period of distraction, the Exiles eventually returned all the deceased and surviving members of Weapon X, and the Exiles, to their home worlds. Of all the Weapon X members, only Hyperion, Hulk, Angel, Daredevil, Iron Man and Sabretooth survived, the rest were laid to rest on their own worlds. [Exiles (1st series) #83]
AFTERWARDS
- Sabretooth stayed on with the Exiles for a time, before eventually returning to his home reality.
- A version of Hyperion, claiming to be a multidimensional conqueror, appeared on Earth-616, fought the Blue Marvel and later joined the Thunderbolts. Whether this is the same Hyperion as the one that was a member of Weapon X in unclear.
- No other surviving members of Weapon X have appeared since they were returned their home realities.
MEMBERS
Sabretooth (Victor Creed)
First Appearance: X-Men Alpha
All Weapon X Appearances: Exiles (1st series) #5-6, #12-13
Powers: Enhanced strength, speed, endurance, reflexes, durability, hyper keen senses, healing factor, and razor sharp claws
Deadpool (Wade Wilson)
First Appearance: Exiles (1st series) #5
All Weapon X Appearances: Exiles (1st series) #5-6, #12-13, #59-68
Powers: Augmented strength, speed, agility, endurance, and reflexes, regeneration factor, automatic weapons
Kane (Garrison Kane)
First Appearance: Exiles (1st series) #5
All Weapon X Appearances: Exiles (1st series) #5-6, #66, #68, #83
Powers: Bionic limbs give him superhuman strength
Maverick (David North)
First Appearance: Exiles (1st series) #62
All Weapon X Appearances: Exiles (1st series) #62, #66, #83
Powers: Absorb kinetic impact and harmlessly disperse it
Notes: Maverick only appeared on panel as a corpse.
Mesmero
First Appearance: Exiles (1st series) #62
All Weapon X Appearances: Exiles (1st series) #62-63, #83
Powers: Ultra-hypnosis
Notes: Mesmero only appeared on panel as a corpse.
Wolverine
First Appearance: Exiles (1st series) #62
All Weapon X Appearances: Exiles (1st series) #62-63, #66, #83
Powers: Enhanced strength, speed, agility, endurance, reflexes, hyper-keen senses, healing factor, retractable claws
Notes: Wolverine only appeared on panel as a corpse.
Daredevil (Matthew Murdock)
First Appearance: Exiles (1st series) #62
All Weapon X Appearances: Exiles (1st series) #62, #66, #83
Powers: Superhuman senses, carries a billy club
Hulk (Jen Walters)
First Appearance: Exiles (1st series) #12
All Weapon X Appearances: Exiles (1st series) #12-13, #23-24, #62, #63, #66, #68
Powers: Gamma-irradiated body gives her superhuman strength, endurance, reflexes, durability, and regenerative powers
Spider (Peter Parker)
First Appearance: Exiles (1st series) #12
All Weapon X Appearances: Exiles (1st series) #12-13, #23-25, #38-40, #43-45, #83
Powers: Radioactive spider bite gives him superhuman strength, speed, agility, endurance, reflexes, balance, coordination, and equilibrium, control over inter-atomic bonding to stick to solid objects, and a spider sense that warns him of danger, symbiotic costume can alter its appearance at will and produce strands of itself as webbing
Storm (Ororo Munroe)
First Appearance: Exiles (1st series) #12
All Weapon X Appearances: Exiles (1st series) #12-13, #23-25, #38, #62, #66, #83
Powers: Sense and influence meteorological energy patterns, creating rain, wind, hail, lightning, snow, sleet, fog and temperature changes
Vision
First Appearance: Exiles (1st series) #12
All Weapon X Appearances: Exiles (1st series) #12-13, #23-25, #38, #62, #65, #83
Powers: Enhanced strength, endurance, and reflexes, absorbs sunlight to redirect as thermoscopic blasts from his eyes, scanners can detect energy signatures and biological readings, interfaces with computer systems, manipulates his density to become diamond hard or intangible
Iron Man (Anthony Stark)
First Appearance: Exiles (1st series) #13
All Weapon X Appearances: Exiles (1st series) #13, #62-65
Powers: Exoskeletal strength and reflexes, sensory scanners, repulsor blasts, uni beam, magnetic force field, capture nets, and boot jets
Gambit (Remy LeBeau)
First Appearance: Exiles (1st series) #23
All Weapon X Appearances: Exiles (1st series) #23-25, #38-40, #43-45, #63, #66, #83
Powers: Convert an object's stored potential energy into explosive kinetic energy upon contact, hypnotic charm causing others to trust whatever he says, quarterstaff
Archangel (Warren Worthington III)
First Appearance: Exiles (1st series) #23
All Weapon X Appearances: Exiles (1st series) #23-25, #66, #83
Powers: Peak human strength, speed, agility, endurance, reflexes, eyesight, and hearing, hollow bone structure, zero body fat in his body, feathered wings allowing flight, automatic weapons
Colossus (Piotr Rasputin)
First Appearance: Exiles (1st series) #24
All Weapon X Appearances: Exiles (1st series) #24-25, #38-40, #62
Powers: Enhanced strength, transforms into super strong, organic steel body
Ms. Marvel (Carol Danvers)
First Appearance: Exiles (1st series) #38
All Weapon X Appearances: Exiles (1st series) #38-40, 43-45, #63, #66, #83
Powers: Superhuman strength, endurance, reflexes, durability, flight, cosmic force blasts
Hyperion
First Appearance: Exiles (1st series) #38
All Weapon X Appearances: Exiles (1st series) #38-40, #43-45, #62-65
Powers: Metabolizes solar energy into his cells for superhuman strength, speed, endurance, reflexes, eyesight, and hearing, nigh-invulnerability, regeneration, x-ray vision, thermoscopic eye beams, high-velocity breath, flight
Firestar (Angelica Jones)
First Appearance: Exiles (1st series) #40
All Weapon X Appearances: Exiles (1st series) #40, #43-45
Powers: Tap into electromagnetic fields and convert them into microwave radiation emissions, which she can use to emit light, fiery energy bolts, scramble E.M. frequencies, and propel herself through the air.
Note: Unlike her other teammates, Firestar was not depicted as being returned to her home reality in Exiles (1st series) #83. This is likely because her body was incinerated.
Hulk (Bruce Banner)
First Appearance: Exiles (1st series) #40
All Weapon X Appearances: Exiles (1st series) #40, #43-45, #63, #66
Powers: Gamma irradiated form gives him immeasurable strength, endurance, and resistance to all forms of physical injury