X-Men ’97 Season 2: Every Weapon X Name on the DVDs Explained

X-Men ’97 Season 2 Episode 5, titled Weapon X, Lies, and DVDs, sends Logan back to the lab that built him. He pulls together Sabretooth, Lady Deathstrike, Maverick, and Garrison Kane, along with Morph, and sells them a raid on Dr. Cornelius’s compound as a mission to shut down illegal experiments.

What they walk into is a slaughterhouse full of alien species and many undiscovered secrets from the Weapon X program. However, it wasn’t the Brood, Omega Red, or infected Logan who surprised us and got us excited the most in the episode. We see a stack of DVDs, revealing Dr. Cornelius’s test subjects. The names in there were familiar to fans of Marvel Comics.

Which Weapon X Subjects Were Referenced in the DVDs?

The DVDs still from X-Men ’97 Season 2 Episode 5 | Credits: Disney+

While Logan and Maverick head for the vehicle bay, Morph, Sabretooth, and Lady Deathstrike go looking for the generator room. Morph finds a rack of discs instead, which were all of Cornelius’s case files. Only the disc marked XVIII gets played, and the doctor’s own recording explains the Brood experiment on it. The rest are never opened. But the labels are readable, and they are loaded. Here’s who every name belongs to.

• Wolverine: Logan himself was the program’s most famous success. X-Men ’97 Season 1 ended with Magneto ripping the adamantium out of him, so the whole reason he was there was to subject himself to the same experiment in the adamantium chamber.
• Weapon XVIII: It is the only disc that the Team X plays. It reveals Cornelius’s experiment on the alien species, known as the Brood. There’s also his shocking revelation that they were becoming untamable.
• Winter Soldier: Bucky Barnes gets quietly placed in the X-Men ’97 universe through the discs. It was the Weapon X program that gave him the powers of a Supersoldier. It also suggests that Weapon X was working alongside Hydra.
• Fantomex: Named Charlie Cluster-7, he was an escaped experiment from the program. He has an external nervous system, called E.V.A., and has reality-skewing powers. He’s a Grant Morrison creation, which matters given the show is drifting toward that era.
• Silver Fox: She is Logan’s lost love and Team X teammate, with a healing factor of her own. She appeared in the original cartoon’s Weapon X, Lies, and Videotape episode.
• Garrison Kane: He’s a part-cyborg and was on Wolverine’s crew here, but didn’t survive the first act.
• Sabretooth: Logan’s infamous rival and fellow Weapon X test subject is literally present when they discover the names on the DVDs.
• Agent Zero: It is Maverick’s later codename. He was supposedly raiding the bay with Logan when the others discovered the DVDs.
• Ajax: Also known as Francis Freeman, he was built by a Weapon X offshoot called the Workshop and was unable to feel pain. He is Deadpool’s archenemy and appeared in the 2016 live-action movie, played by Ed Skrein.
• Ant: It isn’t clear who or what Ant is referred to. The closest X-Men reference is Ant-Hill, an underground bunker built by Bolivar Trask to store mutant-hunting Sentinels. But we aren’t sure why Cornelius has a potential file on this bunker.
• Aurora: She was a member of the Canadian superhero team, Alpha Flight, and the twin sister of Northstar. She was briefly an X-Men member. She struggled with dissociative identity disorder and participated in Weapon X to try to gain control over her personalities.
• Mastodon: A Team X original alongside Logan, Sabretooth, and Silver Fox, who was kept young by the program’s age suppressant.
• Psi-Borg: Also known as Aldo Ferro, he is a telepath who burned the false memories into Logan’s head. Weapon X promised him anti-aging treatment and then double-crossed him.
• Weapon VI: While the Captain America doppelganger (Nuke) is known as Weapon VII, Weapon VI is traditionally tied to Project Power in the comics.
• Worm: He was a Weapon X reject who was sent to the Hospice. A part cyborg, he was Deadpool’s friend who Ajax lobotomized to punish him.
• Sluggo: He was a ’90s mercenary tied to the program’s later phase, who worked alongside Kane and Deadpool. He had superhuman strength, heavy durability, and an absurd amount of hardware.
• Kestrel: Also known as John Wraith, he was played by Will.I.Am in X-Men Origins: Wolverine. He was a teleporter and Team X member.
• Marrow: She is a Morlock whose mutation pushes bone through her skin. She later joined a revived Weapon X and turned on it.
• Kimura: She was X-23’s handler and lifelong tormentor, with skin that shrugs off adamantium. She is the main antagonist of X-23 in the comics.
• X-23: She is Logan’s clone and daughter from the comics. She is easily one of the biggest names on the shelf, and the one that deserves its own conversation.

One Weapon X Name Could Serve as a Major X-Men ’97 Storyline Setup

X-23 is perhaps the most exciting tease in the list, as it lays out the possibility of her appearance later in the series. In the comics, an offshoot of Weapon X tried to clone Logan. After 22 failures, the 23rd embryo took, and geneticist Dr. Sarah Kinney carried it to term.

The girl, whom she named Laura, had her mutant gene triggered, and adamantium bonded to her claws at seven, and was raised to kill. She eventually found her way to Logan and the X-Men. By listing her and her main antagonist, Kimura, the show might just give us an X-23 storyline.

With X-Factor already rounding up young mutants this season, Laura would slot in neatly. It will likely push Logan’s story from where he came from toward what he leaves behind. The new season remains the best X-Men adaptation ever, a compliment shared by Callie Hanna of FW in our review of X-Men ’97 Season 2.

Which of these character references excited you the most? Let us know in the comments below!

All five episodes of X-Men ’97 Season 2 are now available for streaming on Disney+.