13 Things I Loved about Daken: Dark Wolverine #4...

[fajrdrako]

12 Things I Loved about Daken: Dark Wolverine #4

Every time this comic comes out, I fear it won't be the same - the quality will slip, the subtle tensions will fall apart, the funny bits won't be funny any more, or the exciting parts exciting. Will the plot become predictable, as with so many other comics?

So far, as written by Daniel Way and Marjorie Liu, drawn by the wonderful Giuseppe Camuncoli, it's delighted me every time. This is what I liked about #4:

1. Reed and Sue are written like adults.

The Fantastic Four was, for a long time, my favourite comic. "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine". But then I grew up and it didn't. After a while I stopped reading, and every once in a while I'll pick it up just to see how it is. Hoping it will be good enough that I'll want to subscribe. Nope. Always disappointing, always the same old ideas - and worse, the stereotyping. I loved Reed Richards, as a kid. But so many writers just can't write intelligent characters. So many writers think the only way to write a genius is to make him inept in his relationships, or to turn him into a mad scientist.

It's such fun to see Way and Liu write the Fantastic Four as if they were real. And to see Reed and Sue not just acting like adults, but thinking like adults.



I love the way Giuseppe Camuncoli draws Reed - not just with interesting facial expressions, but with a casual, natural quality when using his powers, which are visually sort of grotesque, distorting.

2. The ugly costume is burned to scraps.

We got rid of the ugly costume from Daken: Dark Wolverine #1. Hooray! I love Daken's rueful reference to the events of that story. I love the way the ugly thing is in burned tatters. Thank you, Johnny.



What will he wear next? Personally, I like his look with tight jeans and tattoo.

3. Daken's repentence; his sincere repentence.

How could one not empathize with such a sincere attempt to change for the better?



Well, it's Daken. It isn't that we know he's lying - that would be too simple. It's that we know there's both truth and lies in what he says, and he has purposes in saying it, even above and beyond the knowledge that it's what the FF want to hear. Some of it may even be more related to the truth than we fear. Dare we hope?

4. Daken wears a Fantastic Four T-shirt.

It looks good on him. Much better than the ugly costume. He's borrowing Johnny's shirt, of course, and there's something delightfully domestic, even intimate, about this scene. Borrowing clothes, chatting in Johnny's bedroom, getting things off their chest in both a literal and figurative sense.


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5. Daken flirts with Ben Grimm. Who else dares to flirt with the Thing?

It starts out with the scenario of any good Marvel crossover story: they fight. And Daken, fighting, kisses him, and verbally flirts.



Ben later tells Reed and Sue that he's uncomfortable having Daken around, that he doesn't trust him. No dummy, our Bashful Benjy. But Daken makes him laugh, and Ben has a good heart. He'd tolerate Daken if just for Johnny's sake.

6. Ben is won over.

As their conversations continue, Ben Grimm starts to like Daken for himself - his wit, his nerve. "He's all right," he says gruffly to Reed and Sue, changing his former opinion. And later, after more delightful banter:



Confession: it was an awww moment.

7. Daken and Johnny talk about peace.

Neither Daken nor Johnny Storm are the kinds of characters you'd expect to have serious philosophical conversations.



"I'm still looking for my kind of peace." That, we can believe. What might his peace be? Mayhem? A burned-out desert? A change of heart? Does Daken even know?

8. Franklin has Daken pegged.

I love Franklin's description of Daken.

9. Reed and Sue aren't gullible.

I'd already enjoyed the depiction of Reed and Sue as thinking adults. Their compassion makes them reach out to Daken and try to help him - they see him as the troubled soul he is. But they don't fall for his smooth talk. They know he's devious, and they know he has ulterior motives for befriending them.



How wonderful that they aren't stupid. They haven't realized yet that he took something from them, and we don't know what it is.

10. Daken proves he's still a ruthless bastard: he steals a newspaper.

Right from out of the poor man's hands. I love his reaction, and his friends' reactions, and the fact that we don't hear their conversation because Daken doesn't care or notice.

11. We have a twist in the plot.

Daken is going after the person who killed his mother. I had vaguely thought it was Romulus, but Daken doesn't seem to think so: he thinks it was Winter Soldier, Bucky Barnes. Interesting development.

12. Madripoor, city of wonder - or is it Sin City?

Madripoor is interesting for several reasons: besides being a place of dark passions and exotic lawlessness, it has associations with Daken's father and with Wolverine's past. It is also the home of the clever and sultry Tyger Tiger. Dare I hope Daken will meet her? Dangerous and alluring - she's his kind of girl.

13. Way and Liu have been watching 'Leverage'.

'Nuff said.