United States government; formerly Weapon X (multinational)
Extent of programming unrevealed
Weight 2000 lbs.
Shiva is an artificial intelligence inhabiting a robot body. When a Shiva unit is dismantled, Shiva's consciousness shunts to a new unit, of which an unrevealed but finite number exist. Each Shiva learns from its predecessor's errors, so it can never be defeated the same way twice. Each Shiva unit has superhuman strength (able to lift at least 40 tons), as well as superhuman speed, durability and reflexes. It can teleport, discharge plasma burst or razor-sharp blades from its hands, project an electromagnetic force field, and emit electronic pulses to overwhelm former Weapon X members with genuine or implanted memories.
Decades ago, the Weapon X Project, tenth incarnation of the Weapon Plus Program, created the Shiva Scenario, a computer program using giant robots to kill Weapon X sleeper agents or renegade operatives if necessary. In recent years, former Weapon X operative Wolverine, a victims of Weapon X's memory alterations, investigated a Weapon X facility an inadvertently activated the Shiva scenario; days later, under the direction of Weapon X head scientist Truet Hudson, also known as "Professor Thornton," a Shiva unit battled Wolverine. He destroyed it, then fought and destroyed a second Shiva unit. Later, Weapon X alumnus Silver Fox killed Hudson, and several Shiva's activated and searched for additional Weapon X targets. Weeks later, two such targets, Sabertooth and John Wraith, each destroyed a Shiva, then joined forces with Wolverine and others to confront Psi-Borg (Aldo Ferro), telepathic creator of their memory implants and holder of many weapon X secrets. During this conflict, a fifth Shiva attacked Psi-Borg and was also destroyed. Years later, when Wolverine regained his full memories, he invaded the White House to confront a high-level government official with unspecified ties to his manipulators, but a Shiva unit, acquired and activated by unidentified parties, arrived in a missile and slew the official. Using the Muramasa Sword, wolverine destroyed the Shiva minutes later, but others presumably remain at large.