In every installment of Abandoned Love we will be examining comic book stories, plots and ideas that were abandoned by a later writer without actively retconnng away the previous story. Feel free to e-mail me at brianc@cbr.com if you have any suggestions for future editions of this feature.

I can't believe I've never actually featured this one yet in this feature (I've mentioned it in other features, but not this one)! Today we look at how Apocalypse was behind Wolverine getting his Adamantium in Weapon X...until he wasn't.

The first sign that Chris Claremont intended for Apocalypse to behind Wolverine's Adamantium came during "Inferno," when Wolverine met Archangel, who now had metal wings given to him by Apocalypse...

Then, in the 1990 Graphic Novel, "The Jungle Adventure," by Walter Simonson and Mike Mignola, the implication was getting pretty severe...

A year later, Barry Windsor-Smith came up with his idea on what Weapon X actually was in the story "Weapon X," but he didn't want to screw over his friend and colleague, Chris Claremont, so he asked Claremont who Claremont intended to be behind Wolverine getting the claws. Claremont told him Apocalypse, so Windsor-Smith came up with this clever way to keep his story his own while still leave room for Claremont to do his own thing later on with Apocalypse. He had the people "in charge" of Weapon X also dealing with a secret OTHER person behind the scenes who would be Apocalypse...

Later, Apocalypse then actually GAVE Wolverine his Adamantium skeleton after Wolverine lost it during "Fatal Attactions," which is why I think they should eventually do a retcon and say that it WAS Apocalypse who gave him the Adamantium in the first place.

Anyhow, later Jeph Loeb revealed in "Wolverine" #54 (by Loeb and Simone Bianchi) that it was Romulus who was behind Weapon X...

There was more to that, but we'll get to that some time in the future in another column, but suffice it to say that there are enough retcons involved that you could easily work Apocalypse back in there if you so chose, but for NOW, at least, Apocalypse is officially abandoned. He was never actually said in the comics to officially be the guy, which is why it is here and not Abandoned an' Forsaked.

Okay, that's it for this installment! Feel free to write in with your suggestions for abandoned comic book plotlines to brianc@cbr.com!