Wolverine's son, Daken

Daken

Like many Marvelite and die-hard X-Men fans, I rolled my eyes at hearing Wolverine had a daughter. Upon seeing her in Messiah Complex and later on in the new X-Force, I ate my serving of humble pie. It turns out that X-23 is a very well done character (strangely debuting in the X-Men: Evolution series often referred to as a children’s cartoon) with a lot to offer the Marvel Universe and the X-family. Then there was the rumor that Logan also had a son.

‘Come off it,’ I thought.

The lifelong loner suddenly is suddenly a dead-beat dad! Intrigued, I picked up the Original Sin storyline running through Wolverine: Origins and X-Men: Legacy issues. It turned out to not only shed some light on Daken’s intentions but also Wolverine’s past. In other words… I wanted to know more about Wolverine’s son and just in time since he is now a member of the Dark Avengers.

Introduced in Marvel’s answer to DC’s ‘Legends of the Dark Knight’ series Wolverine: Origins, Daken’s history is tied to a newly unearth mysterious character called Romulus. The true identity of this shadowy villain is still unknown, but it has become plain that he has certainly done a number of Daken. Whereas Logan was turned into a weapon by the Weapon X program, Romulus deliberately molded Wolverine Jr. into a cold-blooded killer. Father and son have been at odds with each other until recently when Daken’s programing was finally undone and the pair decided to combine forces and hunt down Romulus once and for all.

The introduction of Daken opened up a new side to Logan’s persona that we had never seen before. Desperate to win his son’s trust, Logan dropped his guard completely and admitted that he had no idea how to show Daken how helpless he was to undo the damage that had been done to his child… even as Daken leapt at him, claws thrashing. For a character as old and over-exposed as Wolverine is, I never thought that I would actually see a new facet to his identity, but I was proven wrong. Unfortunately, so was Logan for trusting his son.

As Wolverine: Origins writer Daniel Way told Newsarama: “Just like anyone else, fatherhood has changed Logan—hopefully, for the better. In the wake of both regaining his memories and learning of the existence of his son, he can now see that he has set a horrible example for others to follow—that’s why, in ORIGINS, you don’t see him hacking and slashing, going nuts, letting the cards fall where they may. That’s what got him where he is today. He has finally taken control of his destiny. The tragedy of this, though, is that Daken is walking the exact same path that Logan did—how can he, Logan, convince his son to change his ways without being hypocritical? It’s something that he’s trying to figure out as he goes. For once, he’s thinking about the future instead of the past.”

The surprise ending to the most recent issue saw a major turn of events as Daken has forsaken his father’s path of the noble warrior and instead started in a quest for domination and destruction. Clad in a Wolverine costume, Daken has joined Norman Osborn’s Dark Avengers, a decision that will pit him against his father again in next month’s 50th issue of The New Avengers.

New Avengers #50

A character I thought introduced as a simple gimmick has turned out to be a perfect foil to Wolverine’s nature. Whereas Logan has struggled to gain control over his darker nature, Daken embraces it and is more than happy to admit what he is… a animal in a man’s skin. In fact, Daken will be taking over the lead of the Wolverine series after issue #75, how’s that for showing up his father!

Recommended:

Wolverine: Origins, Vol. 2: Savior (v. 2)
Wolverine: Origins, Vol. 3: Swift and Terrible (v. 3)
Wolverine Omnibus, Vol. 1 (v. 1)
X-Men: Original Sin

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