the mighty daken

drive-by readings

Daken - Dark Wolverine #1 (Marvel) "Empire Part 1" Daniel Way/Marjorie Liu Giuseppe Camuncoli Onofrio Catacchio Frank D'Armata Cory Petit Camuncoli/Marte Gracia (cover) Gabrielle Dell'Otto/Marko Djurdjevic (variant covers)

what we learned: nothing much. we know Daken hates his dad Wolverine with a passion second to none, although is he going to make a move and simply kill him, when he's been bested in their last chickenfight and his ass was saved with that business with FrankenCastle. so if its his time, its his time to do what?
oh shit moment: he's friggin' doing Bruno in Milan, but with claws. and who's the leader of the Red Right Hand? ("Nick Cave!" someone yells)
what's next: there better be a great payoff with Liu jumping off Black Widow and rejoining Way to chronicle more of our androgynous anti-hero/villain, now that Logan's in hell.


you really should be wary of "free wine tastings".

Lester & Daken, sitting in a tree

isn't that a better prank than Topeka?

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Dark Wolverine #84

why the hell do i bother to hope?!

of course, Osborn is NOT going to be killed by Daken. there's Siege! and who knows if Osborn is going to be killed at all!

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Dark Wolverine #83

and what the hell is this about???

and just like when Osborn took down the Skrull queen, denying our heroes the chance to get some payback, it looks like history's repeating itself.

the odds are this is just a reality-bending segment woven by those magical knitting bitches witches who like bringing down Ragnarok on our favorite Asgardians.

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Dark Wolverine #82

drive-by readings: Wolverine #77

Wolverine #77 (Marvel) Daniel Way Marjorie Liu Giuseppe Camuncoli Onofrio Cattachio Marte Gracia Cory Petit Leinil Francis Yu/Jason Keith (variant cover)

continuing Daken's not-so-subtle manipulation of his temporary teammates and other characters (currently the FF), resulting in burnt flesh, broken bones, damaging injuries mostly to him. to what end, i don't know. thankfully, they put in the Dark Reign flavor right within the regular Wolverine book, unlike Bullseye ... oh, that's right, Hawkeye doesn't have a regular book. back to Daken. he can pull off this shit, because he's practically indestructible. as he said, he's currying favor with people just in case the ones he hangs out with get marched off to the gallows soon enough. we can't wait for that day. also we can't wait for the day somebody really wipes off that grating smug smile off Daken's face, courtesy of Mr. Camuncoli.

side note: see, for all of Reed Richards' smarts, he can't even mooch data off Osborn's computer. loser.

side note 2: hey, Leinil, what the hell is Daken supposed to be doing on that cover? stepping off from some invisible helicopter? or walking on thin air from building to building?

drive-by readings: Dark Wolverine #75

Dark Wolverine #75 (Marvel) "The Prince, Part 1" Daniel Way Marjorie Liu Giuseppe Camuncoli Onofre Catacchio Marte Gracia Cory Petit Leinil Francis Yu/Laura Martin (cover) Marko Djurdjevic (variant cover)

the darkest part of this Wolverine knockoff getting the Dark Reign treatment has to be, without any doubt, the coming aboard of romance novelist Marjorie Liu to script Daken's adventures along with Wolverine: Origins scribe Daniel Way, the gleeful chronicler of Marvel's nastier characters. is this why we get a sex scene straight out of Zane's playbook? not that i read Zane, mind you. honest!

maybe we should keep this Dark Reign ball rolling for awhile, as we never had this kind of tension in an Avengers headquarters, probably since Hank Pym built a robot to "rescue" the Avengers from. or when Wonder Man started banging the Scarlet Witch, right under the nose of a reconfigured Vision. or when Clint started banging Jan. you get the idea. Daken + Bullseye (Hawkeye) + Venom + Ares + Norman Osborn = it boggles the mind that they haven't killed each other yet.

this is a terrific jumping on point for new readers, who should have at least a passing familiarity with Wolverine (who technically has been pushed aside in his own book for awhile). Daken is a deliciously nasty piece of work, who has his own agenda (don't they all) not exactly running parallel with Osborn's. but then again, what's his goal? it's not just to supplant Osborn, or kill his dad ... there has to be something else.

hey, Marvel - when you decide to kick these bad guys out of the house ... you better make it count. i want blood. i want teeth kicked in. i want skulls caved in. you hear me, Joe Quesada? and no copping out either. i don't want the Beyonder suddenly appearing and waving them all off out of existence. or Uatu tripping on his own two feet and crushing Venom with his big head. i want real heroes drawing blood! blood i say!