Shiva (Marvel Comics)

Shiva, a program that manifests itself as an armored robot, was designed to eliminate rogue survivors of the Weapon X program. The robots themselves, in addition to the program, were created by Larry Hama and Marc Silvestri, in Wolverine #50. The program learns, and sends out new 'clones' of the original robot, that can't be defeated the same way twice.

Fictional character biography

Wolverine begins badgering Professor X to read his mind, in a sequel to Barry Windsor-Smith's Weapon X Saga.^[1] Finally, he goes to Canada, with oft-teammate Jubilee. They explore the broken down Weapon X facility, and leave, finding nothing. Logan's entrance switches on a program, Shiva.^[2]

The Shiva program creates a robot, designed to take down surviving Weapon X members, and combats Wolverine. He defeats it, but a second one appears. Wolverine eventually defeats this one, and the program goes to the next target on a list: Sabretooth.^[3]

Sabretooth is at a wrestling show, when Shiva appears. Sabretooth defeats some more Shiva robots, and Shiva remains unheard of for a long time, presumably tracking down other Weapon X survivors.^[4]

Wolverine: Origins

When Wolverine regains his memories following House of M and tracks down keys to his past, he decides to return to his second classic uniform, the brown one. Government members trying to avoid Logan's wrath send a new Shiva robot after Logan, and he defeats this one using his newly claimed sword.^[5]

Powers and abilities

Shiva is a series of robots that learn from the mistake of a previous model; when one unit is destroyed, a new one is initiated that cannot be defeated the same way the previous one can. Being a robot, they are made of durable metal, and have great strength and survivability.

In other media

Shiva was featured as the main antagonist in the X-Men animated series episode "Weapon X, Lies and Videotape". Due to network censorship,^[6][7] the robot's name was changed to Talos.

References