Logan sits in a bar, trying his best to ignore a brawl behind him—in which a large man is being beaten by a gang because he is a mutant. The huge man, calling himself Bob Frank and denying that he is a mutant, defeats the roomful of foes and leaves. Logan follows him, changing into his Wolverine outfit on the way, wondering if this Bob Frank could be the man who was once the villain Nuklo. He follows silently at a distance until he hears a loud violent thump. Racing ahead he comes upon Bob Frank being beaten by a huge robot. Wolverine attacks the robot but is unable to inflict much damage before the machine jets off into the sky, forcing Wolvie to drop off.
Not far away, Captain America has been called to investigate a huge hole found in a small town parking lot. Two men who went down for a look have failed to return so Cap descends to search for them. He finds them in a vault full of gas and takes them to the surface to recover. Returning to the underground complex, Cap runs a gauntlet of deadly traps before finding a deserted lab with evidence that something large has recently left the place. Cap then heads off to find the property’s former owner, Schumann. On a nearby highway, a trucker is brought to a halt by the loss of power in his rig. Investigating, he is taken prisoner by a high-tech villain called Overrider who has the giant robot climb into the back of the truck before restoring the power. Overrider’s object: to gain entry to the Adametco Company’s factory. Meanwhile, Wolverine has dropped Bob Frank off at a hospital and is trailing the robot when he discovers cargo from the truck (thrown away to make room for the robot) by the side of the road, pointing him to Adametco, the nation’s leading manufacturer of adamantium. At the company, the trucker/hostage gets Overrider past security and is knocked out for his trouble. The villain has the robot, Tess, wreak enough havoc to scare the workers into fulfilling his demand to coat Tess with adamantium. Soon, the unconscious trucker wakes up and radios for help, and the message is passed along to Captain America. Cap arrives at the factory just as Wolverine climbs over the fence; when Cap tries to question him, Wolverine attacks. The fight is brief, quickly interrupted by the robot Tess bursting through the wall and assaulting both of them. Seeing his robot fighting the two heroes and security guards causes Overrider to panic but he manages to regain control of Tess and command her to fly off after him. Later Cap discover the identity of Schumann: he was the head of the WW2 Project: Tess (Total Elimination of Super-Soldiers) which was to create an army of robots programmed to destroy the super-soldiers should they get out of hand. When Captain America turned out to be the only successful super-soldier, Project: Tess was terminated. Meanwhile, Wolverine’s search of Cerebro points to Richard Rennselaer, a former SHIELD agent and father of a young son suffering from nuclear psychosis, as the most likely suspect for the Overrider.
At that moment, Rennselaer is in Nebraska heading toward Offut Air Force Base; a gas station attendant spies Tess in the back of his van and contacts Cap. Overrider has Tess cause a ruckus at the air base as a diversion while he heads further inside the complex. Cap and Logan arrive and do battle with the huge robot until they finally manage to knock it down and decapitate it, using Cap’s shield as a hammer and Wolverine’s claws as a wedge. Heading inside, they confront Overrider/Rennselaer who is planning to launch America’s entire nuclear arsenal into the sea, motivated by his son’s neurosis. Cap hurls his shield, knocking the misguided idealist off his flying disc and orders Wolverine to catch him, which he plans to do—with his claws unsheathed. At the last minute, Logan withdraws and Rennselaer crashes to the floor. As the medics tend to the critically injured villain, an angry Cap, misunderstanding Wolverine’s sudden act of mercy, orders him to go away. Later Logan visits Bob Frank in the hospital.