Post by Megalictis on Aug 26, 2010 8:17:01 GMT -5
... but will begin again in Daken: Dark Wolverine next month.
Concluding this chapter in the life of Wolverine's prodigal son we see him wandering around San Francisco apparently following someone while musing on his contempt for the weak, frightened, human race. He thinks about how easy it would be to kill "her" while also reminiscing about the Zodiac killer. He tails his target into a bar, coming so close as to caress her neck as he passes, invisibly... and leaves the bar. She turns, dismisses it as nerves, as Logan asks "Something wrong, Melita?"
Apparently Daken has decided he no longer wants his father's life. It's too small. He wants something more. Something bigger.
Daken has come a long way from the character I absolutely hated - that mohawk, the unside-down claw, the tattoo that should get erased by his healing factor, the implausible timeline of his past, and the absurd contradiction between his obsessive hatred of his father and his inaction on this motivation for the last fifty years. I wanted him dead so I could just forget Daniel Way had ever dredged-up this travesty of a Wolverine wanna-be. I was disgusted to see this pretender take over Wolverine's flagship title, but I actually gave it a read just to see if what he was up to had any bearing on the REAL Wolverine.
And that's where it happened: Daken started to get interesting. His look and his implausible past still bother me, but his motivations (twisted as they are) suddenly started to become more realistic, more complex. His greatest power isn't his claws or his healing factor or his fighting skill - it's his ability to constantly manipulate those around him to his advantager, building an ever-more complex network of schemes and deception. (The Fantastic Four even think they owe him a favour)! So what happened to change this whiny Wolverine knock-off with daddy issues into a believable sociopath more cunning than Victor Creed at his best? I think I can sum it up in two words: Marjorie Liu.
Liu seems to have a consistent talent for taking characters who seem two-dimensional and revealing motivations that are believable in the real world. It's like she grabbed that ridiculous mane of Daken's, flipped open his cranium and said "Hey guys, look what's in here!" The keys to this process seem to be a combination of first-person narration and an examination of what a character does in terms of real-world motivations (motives that would make sense even if the characters had no super powers). So while there are still big problems with the logic of his back-story (and the tattoo, and the hairstyle), at least going forward Daken will be an interesting villain, and Marvel's first atetmpt at a sociopathic protagonist in an ongoing series.
Concluding this chapter in the life of Wolverine's prodigal son we see him wandering around San Francisco apparently following someone while musing on his contempt for the weak, frightened, human race. He thinks about how easy it would be to kill "her" while also reminiscing about the Zodiac killer. He tails his target into a bar, coming so close as to caress her neck as he passes, invisibly... and leaves the bar. She turns, dismisses it as nerves, as Logan asks "Something wrong, Melita?"
Apparently Daken has decided he no longer wants his father's life. It's too small. He wants something more. Something bigger.
Daken has come a long way from the character I absolutely hated - that mohawk, the unside-down claw, the tattoo that should get erased by his healing factor, the implausible timeline of his past, and the absurd contradiction between his obsessive hatred of his father and his inaction on this motivation for the last fifty years. I wanted him dead so I could just forget Daniel Way had ever dredged-up this travesty of a Wolverine wanna-be. I was disgusted to see this pretender take over Wolverine's flagship title, but I actually gave it a read just to see if what he was up to had any bearing on the REAL Wolverine.
And that's where it happened: Daken started to get interesting. His look and his implausible past still bother me, but his motivations (twisted as they are) suddenly started to become more realistic, more complex. His greatest power isn't his claws or his healing factor or his fighting skill - it's his ability to constantly manipulate those around him to his advantager, building an ever-more complex network of schemes and deception. (The Fantastic Four even think they owe him a favour)! So what happened to change this whiny Wolverine knock-off with daddy issues into a believable sociopath more cunning than Victor Creed at his best? I think I can sum it up in two words: Marjorie Liu.
Liu seems to have a consistent talent for taking characters who seem two-dimensional and revealing motivations that are believable in the real world. It's like she grabbed that ridiculous mane of Daken's, flipped open his cranium and said "Hey guys, look what's in here!" The keys to this process seem to be a combination of first-person narration and an examination of what a character does in terms of real-world motivations (motives that would make sense even if the characters had no super powers). So while there are still big problems with the logic of his back-story (and the tattoo, and the hairstyle), at least going forward Daken will be an interesting villain, and Marvel's first atetmpt at a sociopathic protagonist in an ongoing series.
