New Avengers (2005 series) #5

Why didn’t Wolverine know what Lykos would do when attacked? Pretty dumb of Logan to forget Sauron’s powers.

Sauron debuted in #60 of the original X-Men series. He's had a long involvement with the Savage Land and it's Mutates, who were genetic creations of Magneto unveiled in #62 of that series. Lykos was involved in the Weapon X program in the series of that name. This long-running government program of course gave Wolverine his adamantium skeleton. Lykos and the Mutates don't know they are part of a Skrull scheme, and will fight against the Skrulls during the Secret Invasion. Iron Man should be in the Extremis armour here, but because of delays in his own series it hadn't yet been shown how the new armour worked. The Mutates may have removed his external armour, but the undersuit should still be secreted in his body. He shouldn't need to call his armour to him, just issue commands electronically via his built-in system. Yelena Belova is a Russian trained to be the replacement Black Widow after Natasha Romanoff defected to the West. She had 2 mini-series of her own. Now she seems to be working for SHIELD. But the Skrulls are involved in that too.

Wolverine's informant was Steven Hudak/Scorcher, a low-level villain with a flame-throwing armour he invented in Untold Tales of Spider-Man. He has appeared a few times in current continuity as a henchman. After his last appearance in Secret War he vowed to go straight. Thus when the Mutates approached him to free Karl Lykos he declined and informed the X-Men. He will go back on his vow, and take on the henchman role again during Secret Invasion and Dark Reign. It is implied that the Mutates then hired Electro to free Lykos. It is also suggested that SHIELD allowed it in exchange for vibranium. Spider-Man gained organic webbing in Spectacular Spider-Man (2003) #20, billed as part of Avengers Disassembled, after being mutated by a villainess called The Queen.