Dark Wolverine #84

I've got a pair of Wolverine related reviews on tap for tonight. Besides that, I really don't have much else going on... A few of my subscription comics arrived in the mail today, so I'll probably take a peek at them tonight, but I won't be putting up any new reviews until Monday, with the Random Scan of the Week and the end of my spring break coinciding tomorrow. So yeah, all I plan on doing blog-wise tomorrow is the RSotW and a new post over at the pic blog, and that's it. The responsible thing to do would be to read a few school related things, since most of my schoolwork has vacated my mind during my time off. So that's how I'll be spending my Sunday, trying to remember what was going on at school last week, reading a few comics and if I can find the time, a little quality time with my PS3. Fun, fun, fun!

Dark Wolverine #84: Writers: Daniel Way & Marjorie Liu. Pencils: Giuseppe Camuncoli.
Last Issue: 8 out of 10.

This comic is the final part of Daken's role in the Siege storyline. We open this comic up with Daken reveling in the battle, ripping the Asgardians apart with his claws. Eventually he makes his way to Bullseye and a battered band of HAMMER agents, who are facing insurmountable odds. This situation leaves Daken at the proverbial fork in the road... He could easily sneak away from the battle and let the Asgardians overrun the HAMMER position, or he could step in and assist Bullseye and his battered soldiers... After a brief pause, Daken decides to stay and help, which brings him face to face with a panicking Bullseye. To shut Bullseye up, Daken plants a kiss on him(!), and tells Bullseye that they aren't retreating, they're staying and fighting. While that scene was playing out, the Hammer entrenchment was being surrounded by an army of furious Asgardian warriors, and Daken considers sneaking away from the battle via a nearby sewer pipe, leaving Bullseye and his charges to get slaughtered. Daken once again decides to stick around, not wanting to be called a coward, since that's the ONE thing he had never been called(you know what? I believe that!). From there we head to the Asgardian Fates, who seem displeased by Daken's decision to stick by the HAMMER agents. The Asgardian warriors attack, and Daken literally tears them limb from limb in an awesome scene where he denounces the Asgardians as gods, and announces that there are NO gods above him. Man is Daken awesome... Daken's actions buy Bullseye and the HAMMER troops the time they need to sneak into the sewer pipe, where they could try to find an escape off of Asgard. Later on, Daken catches up to Bullseye and his shattered men and tells them that the Asgardians are scared and on the ropes, and that if they are going to make any headway against their Asgardian enemies, they have to attack the Asgardians NOW, injured or not. After some thought, Bullseye bluntly tells Daken to go to hell, which nearly pushes Daken into a rage. He attacks a few of the HAMMER agents, and warns them that they'll either fight at his side, or they'll die at his feet. At that very moment, Norman Osborn arrives on the scene and tells the scared HAMMER agents that they need to follow him and press onward(pretty much parroting what Daken had said earlier). Much to Daken's shock, the troops follow Osborn, and Bullseye tells Daken that even scared out of their wits, the HAMMER agents could tell it was all an act with Daken, that he was a joke, and that nobody respects him, which is why nobody would ever follow him. YEOUCH! With that, Bullseye joins Osborn's forces and Daken stands there downtrodden. The scene then shifts, and Daken finds himself surrounded by the Asgardian Fates, where he complains to them that he fought and bled for those HAMMER soldiers, and they STILL wouldn't follow him. The Fates tell Daken that's because he's NOT a hero, which is why the HAMMER agents couldn't trust him. They then pose Daken with a simple question, would he like to see all of the men he fought for burn. Daken stops and thinks, flashing back on key moments of his life, and he realizes that he was never shown any mercy by anybody, and as such, he owed nobody any act of kindness. With that, he tells the Fates to let them burn, and the Fates teleport Daken back to the beginning of this comic book, where he first runs into Bullseye and his battered HAMMER soldiers. The same as before, Bullseye announces that they were being slaughtered, and Daken simply smiles, turns his back on Bullseye and the HAMMER agents and leaves the men to their fates.

You all know how much I love this comic! This is easily one of my favorite Marvel comics, and it's one of the VERY few comics I'll oftentimes read twice, just to make sure I was able to glean the full story. I loved how Daniel and Marjorie showed us throughout the first half of this comic that Daken was seriously considering turning over a new leaf, and that he seemed more then willing to lead Bullseye and those injured HAMMER agents against the forces of Asgard, provided they listen to his orders... But that's the thing about following orders, you can't/won't follow the orders of somebody you don't respect, and Bullseye and most of the HAMMER agents just didn't respect Daken, even after he saved their asses on more then one occasion. It was that event that seemed to help Daken remember who he was, not a hero like his father, but a cold-blooded, manipulative murderer, who only cares about himself and nobody else. In the end of this comic, after conferring with the Fates, Daken finally understood that. He isn't his father, more then that, he could probably never be his father, because Wolverine's actions are so counterintuitive to the way Daken operates. That's why the end of this comic brought such a broad smile to my face, because Daken realized that he was leaving Bullseye and his men to almost certain death, and he could care less about it. That in a nutshell is Daken. Nobody ever gave him anything or assisted him through his hellish childhood, and as such, why should he be bothered with the well being of others?

Score: 9 out of 10.What's not to like here?