—Aliana Alba[source]But H-Alpha... well, he's more like the Wolverine... but with far more discipline and control. The science will have the final word, but he just may be the perfect candidate.
Clayton Cortez, known as Weapon H, has a tumultuous backstory marked by childhood trauma and a journey through military service and experimentation. Initially a US Marine and later a contractor for Eaglestar International, his life took a drastic turn when he was captured and subjected to experiments by Dr. Aliana Alba of Weapon X's Batch-H division. This division aimed to create powerful mutant-killing cyborgs, resulting in Clayton becoming Weapon H, a hybrid of Hulk and Wolverine.[7]
Weapon H's emergence coincided with clashes involving the Hulk, mutants, and the sinister schemes of organizations like Weapon X and Roxxon. His unique blend of abilities and consciousness led him to rebel against his creators, embarking on a mission to protect his family and confront the forces that sought to control him.[8] Throughout his adventures, Weapon H faced off against various threats, including the creation of Roxxon's Ur-Wendigo, encounters with the Brood-infested creatures engineered by Roxxon, and battles against Skrullduggers unleashed upon Earth. Despite facing manipulation and coercion from entities like Roxxon and the Leader, Weapon H ultimately sought freedom for himself and his loved ones.[9]
His journey intersected with other iconic heroes, such as the Hulk, Wolverine, Captain America, and Black Widow, as he navigated through conflicts like the War of the Realms[10] and the schemes of Carnage during the Absolute Carnage event.[11]
History
Origin[]
Clayton Cortez had a rough childhood as he had been beaten by his father and bullies while growing up.[12] He became a Marine and Eaglestar contractor whose team was hired to take out the villagers of Ujanka for sabotaging a Roxxon pipeline. Growing a conscience amidst the massacre, Clay killed his own men, resulting in his capture and subsequent sale to Dr. Alba, the head of Weapon X's Batch-H division, which focused on the creation of Hulk/Wolverine hybrid mutant-killing cyborgs.[7] H-Alpha was different from Weapon X's other subjects in many ways; firstly, he wasn't personally recruited by Director Stryker, so he wasn't a "true believer" of his cause;[13] secondly, Alba left more of his brain than in other subjects, with the intention to better train and discipline him.[13]
Weapon H[]
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Clayton being subjected to the Hulk/Wolverine-hybridizing experiments
When the Hulk and a group of mutants investigated Weapon X and raided their central command, H-Alpha had fifteen minutes left of incubation before he could be released.[14] The release of H-Beta bought Dr. Alba enough time to finish H-Alpha's process, and she eventually released him. H-Alpha joined the brawl between H-Beta and the Hulk. Due to his programming to act as an apex predator, H-Alpha beheaded H-Beta. He then turned on his creators, which Alba theorized was because H-Alpha had enough of his original brain to resent the atrocities they did to him. Hulk held him back, and they continued fighting. Once the Weapon X staff had fled the scene, H-Alpha abruptly stopped fighting, and escaped by jumping away.[3]
In order to protect the family he barely remembered he had, Weapon H went from Eaglestar facility to Eaglestar facility wiping out every data about him they had so people like Stryker wouldn't target them.[15] In one of such facilities, Clay ended up being injected with a nanite strain capable of resetting his command settings by Dr. Alba,[7][15] who then commanded him to attack Stryker and his cyborgs.[7] When Weapon H was commanded by Dr. Alba to kill the entire population of Phoenix to prove his perfection,[16] the same group of mutants who raided the Weapon X central command with the Hulk, whom Weapon H had previously encountered and easily defeated,[17] and Wolverine broke him free from Dr. Alba's control; prompting him to resume his mission of erasing any trace of his family to keep them safe.[15]
Roxxon[]
Trying to stay off the radar, Clayton tried to pass as a Spanish worker, but he eventually lost control and transformed. Clayton attempted to stay away from civilians by hiding in the forest, but he found himself compelled to aid an archaeological expedition while keeping his distance after they were dropped without their rations case. When the expedition turned out to be a cover for the Roxxon Corporation to obtain a Wendigo, Clayton intervened and stopped the newly-created Ur-Wendigo from killing Dr. Ella Sterling, exposing himself to Roxxon by doing so.[5] He tried to get Dr. Sterling to safety afterwards, but the Ur-Wendigo caught him mid-air and took a bite of him, growing larger than before. As he was about to be eaten whole by the Ur-Wendigo, Doctor Strange, who had been observing everything from the Sanctum Sanctorum, burst onto the scene and shoot some magic arrows at the monster, making it release Weapon H. Weapon H allowed himself to be eaten by the monster so he could use Doctor Strange's ax to kill it from within.[8]
In the Olympic National Park in Washington, a bunch of Brood-infested wolves ran past some hikers as they hunted down Clay. After flashing back to a moment seven years ago to his honeymoon with Sonia, Clay arrived in Bellevue as he tried not to turn into Weapon H. It was then revealed that the Brood-Wolves were engineered by Roxxon under Dario Agger's orders as he instructed them to have the Brood-Wolves attack people. Clay used his claws to save prisoners on work release in Roseburg, Oregon from the Brood-Wolves. After slaying them, Clay turned into Weapon H to fight an Acanti and the Brood Drones that arrived. When Dario saw his fighting moves on the screen, a scientist stated that Weapon H somehow knew Krav Maga, jujitsu, and the Breakworld Death Punch, which Weapon H used to knock out the Acanti. Then Brood-Sky Sharks were unleashed as Weapon H started slaying them. Dario Agger had the scientist look up the database of the military organization that taught the moves that Weapon H had used on the Brood-infested creatures. Afterwards, Weapon H ripped a Brood-Human out of the Acanti as the Brood-Human stated that Roxxon only wanted to hire him. While stating that people who hired him to protect people actually want to kill people, Weapon H had the Brood-Human carry a message to Roxxon: to leave him alone. Clay was later seen flashing back to a moment with Sonia when Dario had the scientist initiate the spawn of a Man-Thing in the same forest.[9]
The Man-Thing attacked Weapon H, while Agger began talking to him through his Fly-Spies, threatening Clay. Weapon H managed to use the Man-Thing's immolation touch to set the forest on fire. His wife arrived at the scene, and after subduing the monster Weapon H threw Dr. Stirling and Sonia into a nearby lake before extinguishing the fire with his clap. Unfortunately, he was suddenly captured by a Roxxon aircraft, with Agger praising Clay's sacrifice.[18] Agger bound Weapon H using an Elvish Binding Scroll, forcing Clay to collaborate with the company. Seeing that Weapon H wouldn't comply Agger had Dr. Baines to lobotomize him. However, Dr. Stirling intervened by shutting down the laboratory's power, allowing Weapon H to break free. As he escaped Cortez came across the Brood hybrid Blake and the Man-Thing in cages, begging him to set them free. He did so as they had been forced to follow Roxxon's orders. While fighting the security robots, Weapon H was reunited with Stirling and Sonia, only for Agger to appear to them again. He explained that he needed them as they had opened a portal to a dimension filled with monsters which also contained magic that could be used as unlimited power source.[19]
Clay and his allies decided to collaborate with the corporation this time to fight the monsters. He was informed by Dr. Baines that the dimension was known as Weirdworld and because of the damage caused to the laboratory the portal was fractured, allowing monsters like the Skrullduggers to arrive to their world and attack humans. Everyone got out of the facility before it exploded. The Skrullduggers soon emerged and Weapon H and his allies prepared to fight them, but found that they could shapeshift. When some Skrullduggers shapeshifted into children, Weapon H was prevented from attacking them by Captain America who mistook the monsters for actual kids. However, the Skrullduggers dropped the facade and began attacking nearby citizens. Clay and Captain America decided to fight the monsters together.[20] As they fought, the group was informed that the Skrullduggers originated from a planet governed by the Skrull Empire, leading to Agger ordering them to kill them as they were an invasive species with no protection, but Captain America was against this, instead opting to contact Alpha Flight to deal with the aliens. After defeating the Skrullduggers, the heroes prepared one live specimen for a Alpha Flight xenobiologist to study only for it to be killed by Agger. Cortez became furious at Agger, but was convinced by Captain America to join Roxxon as an inside man.[12]
Weapon H was met with Korg who informed him that the Roxxon soldiers left in Weirdworld were safe in a bunker. Clay agreed to go to Weirdworld in exchange for Roxxon leaving him and his family alone, restore Blake to his human form and compensate him by giving him ten million dollars. He was joined by Man-Thing, Korg, Blake, Titania and Angel, the latter two brought in by Agger to help with the mission, and after contacting his family, went to Weirdworld. Upon arriving, they were attacked by the Inaku as they blamed them for the Skrullduggers abducting their queen.[21] The group were confronted by the Inaku's Protector Hara who believed that Roxxon was responsible for the deaths of their fellow Inaku. Weapon H fought back, destroying Hara's orb, allowing Titania to knock Hara out. However, this caused the dome protecting the Inaku from the Skrullduggers to be destroyed. As Korg and Titania remained with the Inaku to protect them from the Skrullduggers, Weapon H with Blake and Angel went to search for the Roxxon outpost, and while on their way Clay was contacted by Agger who ordered him to kill the Skrullduggers and was informed by Sonia about the Roxxon employees being trapped in the bunker by the aliens. The trio fought their way through the Skrullduggers and into the outpost where they found out that Roxxon had kidnapped Morgan Le Fay to use her as a power source.[22]
Weapon H protested the imprisonment of Le Fay, despite Dr. Carrie Espinoza and Angel's warnings. Le Fay told them that she had managed to take control of the Skrullduggers but after being captured it caused the Skrullduggers to go loose. As she slowly took control of both Weapon H and Blake, revealing his full name as Clayton Cortez and promising Blake to turn him back into a human, Dr. Espinoza opened the door to let the Skrullduggers in, forcing Cortez to block them. Le Fay then revealed that Angel was in fact Black Widow and accused her of being sent by Captain America to spy on Cortez. She managed to retake control of the Skrullduggers and along with Weapon H escaped, planning to use them to take over the world.[1] Back to the Inaku's village, where the Inaku join their queen in attacking Korg and Titania. Black Widow attempted to break the mind control by having Sonia talk through Cortez, but the transmission was hijacked by Agger telling them he had a map to get them out it led to a box canyon. Sonia knocked Agger out and took a speeder to go to Cortez. After breaking free of Le Fay's control Cortez went to Agger in order to prevent him from using a bomb to solve the problem.[23]
Agger then decided to fight Le Fay on his own and transformed into the Minotaur. As the two fought, Weapon H made sure for everyone to leave Weirdworld. After making sure everyone safely evacuated, Cortez attempted to leave himself, but was attacked by a furious Agger due to his plans being ruined. Cortez told him that he accomplished his mission and it was up to Agger if he wanted to remain. In the end, the two left Weirdworld just as the portal closed. Agger was forced to keep his promises, gave Cortez and his wife the money and new identities in order to live in peace, but before going Cortez warned Agger to never hurt his family again.[24]
Hulkverines[]
After watching the news about the Hulk fighting the Avengers in a restaurant, Cortez and his family made their way back to their home. Upon arriving, Cortez began sneezing and and having a bad feeling told Sonia to take the kids on a ride. Following their departure, Cortez went out to be confronted by Bruce Banner. Banner told him that his work had been stolen and use to create him, but Cortez stated that he had been an unwilling participant. However, as Cortez sneezed again he began beating Bruce until nighttime arrived at which point both of them transformed into Hulks. The Hulk attempted to drain Weapon H's powers but instead also began sneezing. Weapon H managed to defeat the Hulk, leaving the Leader--who had secretly infected Cortez with a gamma-altering virus--to reveal himself and demanded him to kill the Hulk. He threatened Cortez to hurt his family, but then set off some bombs to get away. Weapon H attempted to track him down only to be confronted by Wolverine.[25]
Just like the Hulk, Wolverine accused Weapon H of taking his DNA, but Cortez left the fight and went after the Leader only to see him teleporting away before fighting agents from the U.S. Hulk Operations. Hulk then arrived to beat Weapon H, but was ended up fighting the agents instead, allowing Wolverine to take Cortez to a nearby gas station. After some talking, the two caught up with the Hulk near Lake Erie's shores where the green behemoth again attacked Cortez. The fight came to an end when the sun rose up, forcing the Hulk to regress to his human form. The three then swam to an underwater hideout where Cortez's family was residing. As the two heroes met the family the hideout was attacked by the Leader's Humanoids.[26]
Weapon H fought the giant robots in order to protect his family, but both Banner and Logan were abducted. Cortez then joined Captain America and Black Widow in Shadow Base Auto-Op WMD Facility BX97 which was being attacked by the Hulk and Wolverine who had been mutated to resemble each other and Weapon H and were under the control of the Leader through the Sternbots. Fighting the two, Weapon H lured both the Hulk and Wolverine to the Leader and Dr. Alba's location where he proceeded to destroy the teleporter. Alba retracted the Sternbots from both the Hulk and Wolverine in order to use them to take control of Weapon H, but fortunately for him this didn't work. However, the Leader managed to repair his teleporter and got himself and Alba away from there. With the threat neutralized, Cortez, Hulk and Wolverine returned to their lives.[27]
War of the Realms and Absolute Carnage[]
Weapon H, under the request of Captain America, was recruited by Captain Marvel into her War Avengers strikeforce alongside Deadpool, Venom, Sif, Winter Soldier, and Captain Britain. He helped in taking down the Frost Giants in the Sonoran Desert, before attempting to fight Malekith himself in Europe, but to no avail, resulting in him stealing the symbiote.[10] After the War Avengers regrouped, they assisted Captain Britain in the final fight against the Frost Giants.[28]
Clayton and his family, having taken refuge in a safehouse in a forested area of Drumheller, Alberta, sought to move out, but were met by Cortez's former contemporaries of Eaglestar, led by Robert Urquhart. He immediately attempted to kill them, but Urquhart had taken his mother-in-law, Janice Sung, hostage and explained to Cortez that he and his team had joined Weapon V and donned modified cloned symbiote suits. However, this caused them to be targeted by Carnage, who sought to collect the symbiote codex of everyone who had bonded to a symbiote, and blackmailed Cortez to protect them in exchange for the life of Sung. Preparing a trap at an abandoned warehouse, Urquhart and his team turned off the cloned psychic brains in order to allow Carnage to track them down. Carnage soon arrived, but was confronted by Weapon H who began fighting him, while the symbiote-augmented team tried to weaken Carnage to no avail. The fight came to an eventual end after Weapon V researcher Dr. Andrew Breen let Sung go and allowed Cortez to leave in exchange for Carnage to get to Urquhart and his team. Cortez agreed and left the team at Carnage's mercy, reuniting with his mother-in-law, promising her that he would protect her.[11]Attributes
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Powers
Mutant / Gamma Mutate Cyborg: H-Alpha was subjected to experiments that grafted him the DNA of both Logan, the Hulk, and a host of other powered individuals. His skeleton was additionally bonded to Adamantium.[13] H-Alpha also possesses the ability to change to and from his human form in spite of having his skeleton laced with Adamantium. It has been theorized nanotechnology reverse-engineered from Lady Deathstrike could make this possible. According to Dr. Alba, Weapon H could kill every living being on Earth.[2]
- Superhuman Strength: Due to the fact that part of his DNA is part Hulk, Weapon H possesses the capacity for essentially near limitless physical strength, he showed this when he fought Amadeus in his original Hulk form.[3]
- Superhuman Leaping: As the Weapon H is able to use his highly developed leg muscles to leap great distances.[3] He even managed to cover a distance of 547 miles - 880 km in a single leap.[4] Even when not in Hulk form, Cortez can still jump higher than a normal human; during the Fight with Wolverine, Cortez managed to jump several feet from grout level to the branch of a tall tree.[26]
- Superhuman Strength Utilizations: Like the Hulk, Weapon H can inhale great quantities of air for several effects. For example, he managed to put out a massive fire that engulfed Redwood National Park and knocked down on Man-Thing.[18]
- Superhuman Speed[8]
- Invulnerability: Like Weapon H, Cortez gains massive physical resistance to physical damage due to increased density of skin and muscle and bone mass, and in combination with its adamantium skeleton and healing factor; to the point that it is extremely difficult, if not impossible to kill or injure him. The Weapon H skin is impervious to conventional blades, Adamantium and Vibranium being strictly the few known metals that can effectively pierce and penetrate his skin. Weapon H is bullet-proof,[3][4][16][15] flame retardant,[18][11] can resist massive exposures at point-blank range[16][11] and falls from great heights.[16][11] This invulnerability extends to the optic system since bullets.[4] Even when not in Hulk form, Clayton is much more durable than a normal human due to the adamantium skeleton. Although he may be in human form, bullets can injure him if they hit his skeleton,[4] and he has withstood blows from an enraged Hulk.[26]
- Retractable Bone Claws[3]
- Regenerative Healing Factor[3]
- Enhanced Senses[2]
- Probability Field Generation[4]
- Alternate Transformation: Somehow Clayton is able to change the gamma energy frequency in his body to turn himself into several variations of Hulk forms, such as Red Hulk-Harpy hybrid, full Red Hulk, or imitate the Leader's physical form. though it's only temporary. He can also combine the physical attributes of all his alternate forms and become a gamma-mutated being that is a mixed form of all them.[29] Those alternate forms also give him additional abilities and attributes, include:
- Flight[30]
- Claws and Talons[30]
- Energy Absorption[31]
- Intelligence Enhancement[32]
- Psionics[32]
Abilities
- Expert Combatant: As a former trained special operator for the Marine Corps,[20] as well as the Navy SEALs, and later a mercenary,[16] Clayton is very skilled in hand-to-hand combat. He was able to defeat several armed mercenaries with only his bare-hands.[4] At some point in his past he was trained in the use of human and alien martial arts, as a scientist pointed out that Clayton was using Krav Maga, Jujitsu, and the Breakworld Death Punch to defeat the Roxxon Sky Whale F-10.[9]
- Expert Marksman: As a former soldier, Clayton is also an expert on firearms and a fairly reliable shooter.[7]
- Multilingual: Apart from English, Clayton is also quite fluent in Spanish, and perhaps some other languages as well.[5]
Weaknesses
Memory Loss: Clayton suffered some sort of amnesia and couldn't remember much about his past, except vague flashbacks of his time in the Eaglestar Corporation, as well as his first name. This is possibly a side effect of the experiments that were conducted on him by the Weapon X program.[2] Currently all his lost memories have gradually recovered.[24]
Uncontrollable Rage: Just like Banner and Amadeus, possessing the power of the Hulk has given Clayton his own inner beast whom he has to constantly restrain, meaning he must always control his emotions if he doesn't want to lose control while in his Hulk form.[5]
Transformation Burnout: Over exerting the gamma signature transformation capability caused Cortez to cripple his ability to transform back to his original human state.[29] (Possibly formerly)Paraphernalia
Equipment
Weapons
Notes
- H-Alpha's hulked-out form was designed by Mike Deodato Jr.[33]
See Also
- 36 appearance(s) of Clayton Cortez (Earth-616)
- 1 appearance(s) in handbook(s) of Clayton Cortez (Earth-616)
- 3 minor appearance(s) of Clayton Cortez (Earth-616)
- 3 mention(s) of Clayton Cortez (Earth-616)
- 1 mention(s) in handbook(s) of Clayton Cortez (Earth-616)
- 100 image(s) of Clayton Cortez (Earth-616)
- 4 quotation(s) by or about Clayton Cortez (Earth-616)
- 1 victim(s) killed by Clayton Cortez (Earth-616)
- 1 item(s) used/owned by Clayton Cortez (Earth-616)
Links and References
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Weapon H #10
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 Weapon X (Vol. 3) #7
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 Totally Awesome Hulk #22
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 Weapon X (Vol. 3) #8
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Weapon H #1
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Savage Avengers (Vol. 2) #8
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 Weapon X (Vol. 3) #9
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Weapon H #2
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Weapon H #3
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 War of the Realms #3
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 11.3 11.4 Absolute Carnage: Weapon Plus #1
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Weapon H #7
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 13.2 Totally Awesome Hulk #21
- ↑ Weapon X (Vol. 3) #6
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 15.3 Weapon X (Vol. 3) #11
- ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 16.3 16.4 Weapon X (Vol. 3) #10
- ↑ Weapon X (Vol. 2) #7–8
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 Weapon H #4
- ↑ Weapon H #5
- ↑ 20.0 20.1 Weapon H #6
- ↑ Weapon H #8
- ↑ Weapon H #9
- ↑ Weapon H #11
- ↑ 24.0 24.1 Weapon H #12
- ↑ Hulkverines #1
- ↑ 26.0 26.1 26.2 Hulkverines #2
- ↑ 27.0 27.1 Hulkverines #3
- ↑ War of the Realms Strikeforce: The War Avengers #1
- ↑ 29.0 29.1 Savage Avengers (Vol. 2) #5
- ↑ 30.0 30.1 Savage Avengers (Vol. 2) #2
- ↑ Savage Avengers (Vol. 2) #3
- ↑ 32.0 32.1 Savage Avengers (Vol. 2) #4
- ↑ Lovett, Jamie (14 July 2017) First Full Look At Marvel's Wolverine Hulk Hybrid Weapon H Revealed ComicBook.com. Retrieved on 22 August 2017.
- ↑ Weapon H #1; Trading Card Variant
- ↑ File:Weapon H Vol 1 1 Trading Card Variant.jpg
