Dark Avengers: Molecule Man...

[fajrdrako]

My explorations of the history of Daken, son of Wolverine, led me today to read the beautiful hardcover edition of Dark Avengers: Molecule Man by Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Deodato. Bendis is one of my favourite comic book writers; Deodato one of my favourite artists. I enjoyed this thoroughly.

But Daken's presence is token at best. He's one of the team. He's there. He gets a few reaction shots and maybe twenty words of dialgogue; and that's it. This isn't his story. It's about Norman Osborn and Victoria Hand and Owen Reese, the Molecule Man.

The Molecule Man has always been a lame villain, but in the hands of Bendis, he turns into something interesting, the fulcrum of a fascinating plot. Besides, I have a soft spot for him. He was in one of the first Marvel comics I ever read, Fantastic Four #20.

The story in brief: while the Dark Avengers are getting antsy under the pressure of their own personalities, people are disappearing from a midwestern town and Osborn is ordered to look into it. He sends the Sentry, who disappears when he goes to check things out; when the others follow, they are each entrapped in realities of the Molecule Man's making, where they have to face some aspect of themselves - including Osborn and his old demon and alter-ego, the Green Goblin. Victoria Hand, as Osborn's deputy, is left to handle things in the real world. She is out of her depth, and so surrenders to The Molecule Man. Then the Sentry comes and restores everything in a flash of blinding light: his powers are the same as Owen's, but greater.

Points:

1. For the last half of the story, Norman Osborn is naked. What's with that? There are much more beautiful men around, including Daken. I want equal time!
   
   
2. I'd forgotten that Victoria Hand was Lesbian. Good character, that. She has some great interchanges with Osborn. She can handle him, and he respects that.
   
   
3. Interesting background on Ares and his son. I'm not sure what they were doing in the first place in a mundane contemporary setting; it hardly matters.
   
   
4. There's some great dialogue about father issues. Ares has felled Man-Thing in the Louisiana Bayou while the other Dark Avengers watch:
   Bullseye: Ares, brother, that was fantastic.
   Ares: Brother?
   Bullseye: I swear, I could watch you do that all day. Where'd you even learn to do that?
   Ares: As a child, my father would throw us in the cave of the Gibbon. We had to fight our way out, or die.
   Bullseye: Cool. All my Dad used to do is flick lit cigarettes at me.
   Daken: Let's not get started on fathers.
   Bullseye: Your Dad's kind of badass, Daken.
   Daken: Stop talking.
   Bullseye: He is.
   
   
5. Moonstone (Karla Sofen) seduced the Kree warrior, last I saw. Here she's coming on to Bullseye. I thought she at some point slept with Daken - did I dream it? She gets around.
   
   
6. Daken wants to talk to Osborn, who has made himself scarce. Victoria Hand tries to fob him off. Daken knows a lie from the smell:
   
   
   
   Victoria takes offense, and Osborn appears, showing his understanding of Daken:
   
   
   
   
   A bored Daken is a dangerous thing.
   
   
7. I liked this panel of all the Dark Avengers, including Daken, on the far left. It's possibly the only really nice portrait of Daken in the book:
   
   
   
   
8. The Sentry is very scary.
   
   
9. So is the Molecule Man - this time. Yet he seems much more benign, and (worse thought) more sane than the Sentry.
   
   
10. We get scenes of Nick Fury, looking good in Deodato's hands.
    
    
11. The Molecule Man disposes of each of the Dark Avengers in a page. Here's the page about Daken's fate - seems Owen turns him into a mass of vegetables. What's with that? If there's symbolic significance, I missed it. I like Owen's comment about Logan, though.
    
    
12. So the Sentry rearranges reality, and Karla says, "Did you read about the Scarlet Witch? Do you know what happened to her? That was nothing." Woo. Chills.
    
    
13. Then we learn that not only does Osborn have his Green Goblin troubles - that we knew - but that Loki is stirring things up. If I hadn't already known about later plot developments, I would have been blown away by the revelation. As it is... still a powerful, wonderful bit of plotting.
    
    
14. It strikes me that Daken's low profile here is reflective of his character. Daken at his best is good at being quiet; good at being patient; good at watching and understanding a situation. He's perfectly capable of stirring up trouble and sometimes does; but is more likely to do it on a one-to-one basis rather than when there's a group around. He probably has his teammates fooled into thinking he's mostly the strong, silent type, when really he's a prime manipulator.
    
    When we get a different impression of Daken in Dark Wolverine, it's because so much of the story is from his point of view, and we get his narrative. Here, he's an enigma - all the more able to get under the skin of his targets.
    
    
15. At the back of the book is a set of character designs by Deodato, for Hawkeye/Bullseye, Ms Marvel/Moonstone, Spider-Man/Venom, and Wolverine/Daken - in each case, the first picture is of the costume they actually wear, similar or identical to that of the Avenger they are emulating. Beside that is a more artistic, more fanciful new costume that they might have worn. Was Deodato just playing around, or was there ever any consideration of these costumes for real? I like them.
    
    But Daken's (on the right here) is the best:
    
    
    
    It's ostentatious, dramatic, over the top, Kirbyesque, and I like it a lot better that the costume it seems they have ultimately given him:
    
    
    
    
16. Bendis remains a master of characterization.