Continuing my quest to read all the Daken stories...

[fajrdrako]

I woke up this morning with that chest cold that everyone I knew had last week. Lucky me. After hanging curtains in my bedroom, I went back to bed and read all those Daken comics I bought yesterday. I'm still missing his appearances in Amazing Spider-Man and Deadpool, but factoring in the material I got from the library (like X-Men: Original Sin), I've read just about all the comics in which Daken so much as waves a claw.

And sometimes barely that, since the list I was working from mentions every time Daken is seen in a random flashback panel, or standing passively with the Dark Avengers for those PR shots of which Norman Osborn was so fond. I got Captain America #48 because Daken was at the funeral, an infinitesimal figure glimpsed from afar. Sometimes after reading a comic I'd have to go back and hunt for the panel in which Daken was hidden.

This exercise gave me a chance to read a bunch of comics I'd missed over the past two years, and try out some new authors. Bit of a treat. There were issues of Dark Reign and Siege storylines that I hadn't read yet, a sort of retroactive fill-in-the-gaps thing. My best 'find' was Greg Pak on The Incredible Hulk.

Somewhere about a year ago something changed with the characterization of Daken. He went from being a rather sulky emo boy with neither humour nor personality, to being the smart-mouthed schemer I know and love today. I haven't quite been able to pin down when it happened: I was attributing it to Marjorie Liu, but it looks more as if the turning point was Giuseppe Camuncoli coming along as artist. I'm not sure how that makes sense: Camuncoli is a master of facial expression, and I love the way he draws Daken, but artists don't usually script dialogue. Perhaps Way's writing is simply getting better with time.

More detailed comments:

1. Lots of bad artists have drawn Daken, and a few good ones. I hate the way Steve Dillon drew him, but then, I don't like Dillon's art much anyway. It suited Preacher.
   
   But on the whole, I don't like his art on Wolverine Origins at all, except for one of the first glimpses of Daken:
   
   
   
   Then it's downhill from there.
   
   
2. At that stage, through most of Wolverine Origins, it isn't just Daken who lacks humour. The story of Wolverine is cold and bleak and depressing, and no wonder I wasn't buying the comic.
   
   
3. For a very long time, we get to see Daken from Logan's point of view - where there's a lot of delightful fatherly angst - or from the point of view of people who really don't know who he is. Perhaps the writers themselves weren't sure - at this point he was the vicious wayward son with flashes of vulnerability as time went on, but not much else. I think of this as 'first stage Daken' - we see the intelligence in what he does, but he's really only in the story as a foil for Wolverine, a McGuffin, and a weapon for Romulus to use.
   
   
4. This might have worked better if Romulus himself had been anything more than an excuse for fight scenes. He looks good, but what a dull villain he turned out to be. He's more interesting in the glimpses we see of him through Daken's eyes, than anything we see of him directly. Did Daken really love him? It seems so.
   
   
5. In that scene which introduces Daken, we learn he was seen (by his girl du jour) kissing a man, and he later "had my way with him" - which we know to mean, by the visuals, he killed him.
   
   
   
   Seems to me it's a very long time till we get anything more about Daken's sexuality. None of the flirtatiousness we later see in the Dark Avengers - well, that would come with the sense of humour. Was it Brian Michael Bendis who lightened him up a little? For a while there, Daken was nothing more than a one-note killing machine, and not a very interesting one, either. No wonder a lot of fans didn't like him.
   
   
6. We also see none of the snappy come-backs or the skill Daken has in manipulating people. We see fighting skill and duplicity, but not much of his later cleverness.
   
   
7. I liked the story in Dark X-Men: The Beginning where Norman Osborn takes Daken to the opera to introduce him to culture. As usual, Osborn is off-base, and by the end of the story we realize that Daken not only knows more about Sophocles, Stravinsky, and opera in general than Osborn ever will, he's not pretentious about it. And looks better in a tux.
   
   
8. I also liked it that Osborn lured Mystique into the Dark Avengers by using Daken's name. This goes with the hints we've seen that Mystique will be in the upcoming Daken: Dark Wolverine storyline. Great! I like Mystique. But why does she have a special grudge against Wolverine here? Is there something I missed?
   
   
9. There are a lot of stories in which Daken seems to be both present and absent. In the Dark X-Men storyline, for instance, they are fighting Nate Grey (X-Man). Daken is there. At one point he takes a swing at X-Man, which is deflected. And that's it. Did he leave the room for a smoke? Hang around watching the others fight? We don't even know. This pattern seems to often appear: he's with the team, whether Dark X-Men or Dark Avengers, but not particularly effective or noticeable. I am convinced that he was only putting in a token appearance for form's sake, and wasn't terribly interested in furthering Osborn's agenda. This interpretation that is borne out by the way the Dark Avengers storyline continues: Daken seems to have mostly been there to bug his father. He certainly had Osborn's measure from the beginning.
   
   As for Nate Grey - as far as I'm concerned, he's only ever been interesting in
   3jane's incredibly sexy fanfic. Pity he isn't like that in the comics.
   
   
10. Daken's relationship - whatever it is! - with Venom makes me curious about Venom as a character: I've mostly ignored him before. Now he seems such good dual-personality fun. As is pointed out along the way, there are an awful lot of dual personalities running around here, including the Void/Sentry combo and Osborn/Green Goblin - much more than the usual secret identity business.
    
    
11. I think my favourite Daken story is still Dark Wolverine #83, the one where he meets the Norns.
    
    
12. For all that Daken was less than incidental in the story, I loved reading Dark X-Men #3 and now I want to read the rest of the story. Paul Cornell is a terrific writer. Hooked me right in. Using Mystique was a good move.
    
    
13. The Punisher/Franken-Castle story is silly, but it was oddly satisfying to see Daken cut off Punisher's head. In all the other Punisher stories I've read, I pity the poor mobsters, monsters and malignants who go up against him, because you know they don't stand a chance - regardless of their numbers or weaponry. But Daken - hah! The best there is at what he does. Though I always figured Elektra could take the Punisher if she wanted to.
    
    
14. Elektra vs Daken. Hmm. Nice idea. Could be sexy.
    
    
15. I read Dark X-Men: The Confession again, and totally love that comic - though I'm not sure why it's under the Dark title, as it's about Emma and Scott, who are regular X-Men. Anyway, it seems that Emma has slept with both Namor and Tony Stark, being unfaithful to Scott. When did that happen? I love it that it happened, I love it that Scott knew and didn't care, I love it that this issue ends up with Scott and Emma loving each other more than ever and being more perfectly aligned. Smart people, these. And so interesting. I think they're my favourite couple in comics.
    
    
16. I'd like to see a list of all the women Tony Stark has slept with. That we know of. Ah - trust the Net to have everything: I found a list here. But it's out of date: Maria Hill isn't mentioned. Neither is Emma.
    
    
17. In some cases, the cover was better than the story inside.
    
    
18. I have comments too on The Incredible Hulk #603, but I'll make that another post.