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. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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, the robot's name was changed to Talos.
References
