Thursday, December 27, 2018

"The End" Week: Daken: Dark Wolverine #23!


We've seen a couple issues of this series; but today the finale: from 2012, Daken: Dark Wolverine #23, "Lost Weekend, conclusion" Written by Rob Williams, art by Matteo Buffagni, Paco Diaz, Riley Rossmo, and Andrea Mutti.

His healing factor failing due to his drug use, Daken was looking to go out in the proverbial blaze of glory: blowing up a building, drugging Reed Richards, getting Wolverine friendly fired by the Human Torch. Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel, and Iron Man are there; but the Thing catches up to him first. Taking a massive dose of Heat to keep himself in the fight, he's tripping hard as the heroes save the bystanders, but feels lower than dirt as he watches. Or maybe just sorry for himself.

Daken goes down in Time Square, surrounded by maybe a dozen heroes and a SWAT team; and apologizes to his dad, Wolverine. That is, apologizes for leaving a time bomb at his Westchester school, before blowing himself up! Frantic, Wolvie has Thor fly him out to Westchester, but all he finds there is a Wolverine doll, as Daken's caption reads "I so desperately wanted to leave him with nothing."

This was the end of Daken's run as the protagonist, but he'd be back to lash out at his dad again and die again in Uncanny X-Force #34. And I don't think that even kept him down. Still, every story I've seen with him Daken is portrayed like a moody teen lashing out and making bad choices, but he was born in 1946!

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