Daken's Top Ten Moments...
Just because I'm having fun playing with Daken, Wolverine's son, I thought I'd list his ten best moments, in chronological order:
1. Seeing his mother. She died as he was born; he sees her through Charles Xavier's psychic projections of Wolverine's memory.
This is the first time we see a human, vulnerable side of Daken: but what happens next is even better. He rails against the lies - and it turns out he means Sebastian Shaw's lies, and Romulus's lies. For a time, he and his father Wolverine can be allies of sorts.
- - from Wolverine Origins #30
2. Hunting with his father. As allies, Logan and Daken go searching for Romulus. No dialogue here: just a silent moment with their silhouettes, showing both their differences and similarities, and their predatory grace.
- - from Wolverine Origins #31
3. Baiting Ares. Who would have the balls to tease the God of War? Guess.
proteus_lives in a scans daily post calls this "Daken's favourite game: gay chicken". He plays the same game in various ways with Ben Grimm of the Fantastic Four, and Bullseye, and even Norman Osborn.
- - from Dark Wolverine #77
4. Propositioning Venom. Yes, Venom, the creepy supervillain who consists of a layer of alien slime stretched over a human scumbag crook. A person no one, but no one would proposition... except Daken.
Later on, Venom calls Daken a total perv. Daken has no problem with this. He has a reputation to maintain.
- - from Dark Wolverine #75
5. Mind games with Norman Osborn. Norman Osborn, leader of the Dark Avengers - the one who put Daken on his team - used to be the Green Goblin, whom Spider-Man put behind bars and defeated over and over. Norman Osborn lectures Daken on the necessity of appearing to be a hero, and Daken makes the perfect barbed reply.
- - from Dark Wolverine #75
6. Daken turns down the gods themselves. The Norns offered him his destiny: Ragnorok, the destruction of the universe, and world supremacy. Daken does yearn for godhood and wants nothing more than power, but does he go for it? No way. He wants a future on his own terms.
He tosses them aside contemptuously, and goes to build his own fate.
- - from Dark Wolverine #83
7. Daken kisses Bullseye on the battlefield. Well, it certainly caught my attention, back when I was unfamiliar with Daken - and presumably it caught Bullseye's, as well. Of course, as I learned in reading the back issues, teasing and baiting Bullseye has been one of Daken's favourite sports all along. Bullseye, if you don't know, is one of the nastiest baddies in the Marvel Universe - the man who murdered Elektra.
Later in the same issue, they have this conversation:
- Bullseye: You psycho. You don't scare me. And you're lucky I'm so forgiving.
Daken: You were very forgiving when I stuck my tongue down your throat.
Bullseye: Shut up. You want to play games, do it when we're not dying.
I'm not sure, but I love the scene, and I'm amused to hear Bullseye call anyone else a psycho. Pot and kettle.
- - from Dark Wolverine #84
8. Daken escapes the siege. It's a disaster for Norman Osborn and his people, who are arrested and taken off by the real Avengers. But Daken does not go gentle into that dark night, and captivity is not for him.
All it takes is a little subterfuge. And... I love his sheer glee in escaping, in leaving explosions behind him, in being free.
- - from Dark Avengers #16
9. The pickpocket in Rome. On his own, Daken goes to Italy, where a young girl tries to pick his pocket. She doesn't get far. He's caught up in his own introspection, thinking about his father, and he gives her some advice:
- - from Dark Wolverine #87
10. A phone call from Johnny Storm, the hothead of the Fantastic Four. We've already seen Daken foster an alliance and friendship of sorts with the Fantastic Four, for reasons of his own. Seems the friendship with Johnny has continued, and even though Daken here is in Italy, Johnny phones him from New York to chat and ask his advice. I love the informal casualness of it, the way Daken answers "Hey" - which is how he greets people he likes.
Why does he have to hang up? Well, there's a crowd of ninja assassins about to attack him....
- - from Daken: Dark Wolverine #1
And a special bonus moment from Dark Wolverine #84: on the battlefield, seeing his side being annihilated and their cause lost, Daken finds his own values:
