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Uh, I know you’re parodying the exaggerated outrage of some fans over continuity issues, but the whole “chi” things falls flat, because most fans know of that as the name of Iron Fist’s power source. “Huh?” they’ll say, “Wolverine can use the Iron Fist?”

Better luck next time.

Uh, Sijo, just because “most fans” may not get it immediately doesn’t mean either that the original reference was pointless or that the subsequent parodied outrage wasn’t funny to those of us who did, in fact, understand.

Better luck with the criticism next time.

holy crap

those panel scans are bigger than most images I’ve made wallpapers from.

Maybe Vindicator was lied to. Or was lying. We canucks are a shifty people.

When it comes to Wolverine, the simplest explanation is always the better one.

Do I recall correctly – Was that Vindicator a younger clone of the dead original?

Well, there you go, then: The Clone was given false information! The Clones are ALWAYS given false information.

Or not.

I think Cronin might well have covered it a while back- but don’t you think it’s interesting that some more government weapons were 1-3 in We3, also by a certain Mr. Morrison? Is that a secret Marvel/Vertigo crossover?

interesting? No…

“Chi” is Chinese for life force or energy / universal energy, it’s talked about allot in meditation, martial arts, exercise. I always thought the “X” was for 10. As for the shifty Kanucks, I’ve always said we have to tighten our borders , leave them open just enough for our comics to get back from the printer, ohh.. and Moosehead. that’s all we need the comics and the Moosehead wait Elisa Cuthbert she’s Canadian right? OK The comics, Moosehead & Elisa Cuthbert, that’s all we need.

Chi (rhymes with “eye”) is also the Greek letter from which we take the letter X.

Why are you pissing on Seagle?

(and that everyone’s been saying “weapon ten” all these years and not “weapon ex” is just stupid)

I always thought they ripped off V for Vendetta, with “V” standing for 5. (The man from room V)

Weapon Chi is a really stupid name, unless you are Shang Chi’s brother, Weapon.

Does Weapon X have a brother named Malcolm?

“(and that everyone’s been saying “weapon ten” all these years and not “weapon ex” is just stupid)”

It would be, if that was suggested by Morrison at any time. But it wasn’t. He was revealing the ‘X’ to mean ten, not sound like it.

Bachalo always gets a free pass in my book.

The “chi” in question here is the 22nd letter of the Greek alphabet, which is written “X”, and not the eastern concept of vital breath/spirit, which for purposes of disambiguation we should spell “Qi” or “Ch’i”.

While there is no logic behind referring to the Chinese word “Qi” as “X”, referring to the Greek letter chi as “x” happens often because of their common uppercase symbol. For instance, “x” is used in the nicknames of many fraternities and sororities with chi in their formal names.

So the Alpha Flight version of the story makes sense. It’s just that Sijo and Alvin misread it.

It makes sense…it’s just not really a fulfilling explanation. It’s no different than saying “We started calling him Mr. A because we originally named him Mr. Alpha.” It simply pushes the question back one level to “why did you call him ‘alpha’?” Or, in this case, why was Canada’s superhero program called “the Chi protocols”? Rather than speculating as to what the answer might be, I would like to ask if someone with the Alpha Flight #8 could check it for an explanation of why the Chi protocols were so named. I do not own the comic myself.

The Morrison version, on the other hand, is a more satisfying account, since “X” does stand for 10 in the Roman numeral system, and Wolverine, according to this version, was the tenth generation of the project. Although, I recall the entire program that produced Wolverine to often have been referred to as “Project X”, in which case the X as 10 thing ceases to make sense? (Why would they change the project name for every new prototype?)

I have to say, I’m not that bothered by it. Conflicting myths about Wolverine’s origins are to be encouraged, I think, since having an uncertain past is one of the abiding, core elements of the character. And I say that as someone who thinks that Morrison is an overrated hack who often does to established characters and series what Project X or the chi protocols or whatever did to Wolverine – erase all their memories, inject weird s*** into their bones, and set them loose to wreak havoc. Once in a while a Joss Whedon or Charles Xavier (or whomever) can show up and make something good out of them -maybe even better than before the tampering, but it’s pretty inadvisable. Especially when they are just novelties for the sake of novelty.

Hey, I’m not pissing on Seagle! If anything, I’m pissing more on Clark, because that’s some lousy art. Alpha Flight isn’t Seagle’s high point, but it’s not the worst thing ever.

And sadly, Guardian (that’s not Vindicator, not anymore) does not explain why they’re called the “Chi Protocols,” at least not in issue #8. But I haven’t read issue #9 yet! Don’t spoil it for me! I’m on the edge of my seat!

I think Weapon Chi makes more sense, because there’s also a Weapon Alpha and a Weapon Omega. The explanation “we just started calling him ‘X’ after a while” is a little lacking, but it makes more sense (to me) than the Weapon Plus Project starting in the US – Captain America is Weapon I, after all – and then at some point becoming a Canadian project. I’m not saying that it could never happen, I’m just saying I find it very unlikely.

I miss the Byrne’s Alpha Flight.

Why, oh, why did they ever take him off that title?!?

“Why, oh, why did they ever take him off that title?!?”

“They” took him off? I always thought it was just another case of him flitting away from an unfinished project (like he did PARTWAY THROUGH AN ISSUE on FF).
I never really looked into the story much, so I’d have no problem with learning otherwise, unless being “taken off the title” means someone pissed him off and he flounced off in a huff. But whatever.

Have we all forgotten the Untold Tales of Spider-Man where Logan was referred to as “Agent Ten” by Richard and Mary Parker?

Byrne was never taken off AF. He was bored silly with the series and left of his own accord to do Hulk.

Holy SHIT is that a piss-poor excuse for a maple leaf on Guardian’s costume. I think I’m offended.

“He was bored silly with the series and left of his own accord to do Hulk.”

…where he stayed for years and his exciting new status quo is immortalized to this day as – oh, wait.

Byrne now says he didn’t like doing Alpha Flight, thought it was stupid.

This may be why he tried to destroy all the characters before he left…

Still: big robot fight in downtown Vancouver.

Morrison really is a terrorist!

I am a Grant Morrison impersonator.

or “Chi” was just an alternative Western pronunciation of ‘shyr’/'shi’ which is the Chinese word of “ten”?

Steven Seagle is losing sleep over this. he looked so thin and pale at the New York Comic Con.

I like this version of Alpha Flight… Seagle made it a good series, sad it endly so soon.

Yeah, i liked the Seagle Alpha Flight quite a bit. It wasn’t an amazing series for the ages but it was enjoyable quarter bin pick up for me. I’m kind of sad most of the characters they added in the series ended up as depowered mutants, although I guess that is how you end up when you are forgotten characters from a low selling book and like 99% of mutants are depowered. It was certainty more respectful to the characters than killing them all off for a one-time X-men villain and a later D-list initiative era mini (Omega Flight).

You didn’t credit my contribution to Cronin’s original post. You’ll be hearing from my lawyers. Partially because they are bored. Their retainer is a box of Hot Pockets.

@Jason: I think it’s been said that the Weapon Plus project got a tad fractured, with the people in charge of #10 splitting off. Hence Project X and X-23 instead of Weapon XXXIII.
@Anonymous: My understanding is that Weapon Plus was an international effort. They were highly sponsored by the US so made Weapon 0 and Weapon I Captain America. Weapon X was made through Canadian contacts, and Weapons XII through XV were made in a British installation called The World. Looking at solicits for Wolverine: Origins, I think Daken is Weapon XI.
The answer to the continuity gaffe is that the Weapon Plus program is deep cover, so when Department H went looking they created a cover called Weapon Chi to throw them off the scent. The real world answer is that that series of Alpha Flight is a footnote at best, and the explanation is so obscure as to be utterly retarded. Also, Alpha Flight wasn’t called Weapon Alpha, and Wolverine was around before the team was assembled. Morrison’s explanation makes much more sense.

Guardian (James Hudson) was called Weapon Alpha and Guardian (Michael Pointer) was called Weapon Omega.

I don’t know at what point Logan became Weapon X, so I can’t argue whether he was around before Weapon Alpha. But if he was, and I seem to recall him already having an adamantium skeleton during WWII, then it would make even more sense for them to be separate programs; it doesn’t seem feasible for them to go through ten iterations of the program in 5 years.

and I seem to recall him already having an adamantium skeleton during WWII

No, he got the adamantium well after World War II. Most likely (originally) around the same time (perhaps a little bit after) the Vietnam War.

Who knows when it happened in the current timeline, which presumably has slid everything further a bit (due to Marvel’s sliding scale of continuity).

Grant Morrison likely didn’t read that Alpha Flight issue, and even if he had I doubt he’d have much cared. He never stuck to the minutiae of cross-company continuity if it stood in the way of a cool scene. (He made Sebastian Shaw a telepath, among other things).

Still, this “Weapon chi” thing makes more sense than the weapon ten joke. Department H was big on greek letters for its projects, and Logan being the product of the same US program that came up with Captain America always struck me as very implausible.

“Holy SHIT is that a piss-poor excuse for a maple leaf on Guardian’s costume. I think I’m offended.”

That was supposed to be a maple leaf? I actually read a few issues of that Alpha Flight run and was kind of a little let down when Erik Larson set the clock back on the team and killed the Guardian clone off, but I honestly did not for a second realize that was suppose to be the classic Guardian suit in the above image. Wow.

Ha.

Have a good day.
John Cage

(He made Sebastian Shaw a telepath, among other things).

No, he made a mistake, he thought Shaw was a telepath, and wrote a line mentioning it.
The editor failed to pick up on it.

Logan being the product of the same US program that came up with Captain America always struck me as very implausible.

More implausible than the military having two separate programs using untested techniques and human experimentation to make the ultimate soldier?

I think both Seagle and Morrison got it wrong.

…or at least half-right!

It’s obvious that the X in Project/Weapon X stands for the Greek numeral 600. Besides… it’s common knowledge that Weapon 600 is part of the wacky but kewl Canadian Governmeant Military Weapons Classification System.

Weapon 1 is a Rock. Weapon 2… a stick. Weapon 10 a sling-shot.

And Weapon 600: …is a Wolverine!

Look it up! It’s in Wikipedia! (Although, for some reason, I always thought they meant “the animal” and not the Superhero. Oh well… Go fig!)

You mean all these years I’ve been mis-pronouncing “Shang Kai” as “Shang Chee”? You just blew my mind!

“More implausible than the military having two separate programs using untested techniques and human experimentation to make the ultimate soldier?”

I’d buy that. Especially when talking about the American military. The rivarly between the different military divisions (army, navy, etc) is somewhat legendary.

As is the American government’s tendency to not know what it is doing. The left and right hands do not communicate well.

Theno

Don’t know if anyone will look here again, but read my copy of Alpha Flight 8 and in the issue context you aren’t supposed to believe that is true really. It is part of a general briefing by evil Department H to get Alpha Flight to go grab Wolverine from the US and apparently re-possess his adamantium, which Department H claimed was legally Canadian government property. The rest of the briefing is full of straight up lies about Wolverine’s connection to Canada and his origin (even at the time) such as that Shaman of all people gave Wolverine a totem that gives him his healing ability. The briefing ends with a doctored video of Wolverine killing Madison Jefferies (Box). So, no retcon needed, it was framed in the story for the readers as just more Department H lies. So yeah, never trust shadowy secret Candian agencies.