Daken isn’t a good guy, but in Daken Dark Wolverine #17, he’s far from the worst either. Daken must face his former lover, Marcus Roston, who turns out to be much more than just the Hollywood leading man Daken believed him to be. He has powers that Daken can’t explain, and to make matters worse, Daken’s own powers have been neutralized by his addiction to Heat, a designer drug given to Daken by Roston himself. Also, after Daken in his vulnerable state is FBI agent Donna Kiel who originally investigated Daken as a suspect in the “Claws Killer,” case is now dealing with her own forced Heat addiction.
Despite Daken’s history as a rather unrepentant villain, it’s still easy to want to root for Daken as he faces off against both Marcus Roston and Agent Kiel. While he may be the villain to the rest of the world, Williams still manages to portray Daken as the hero of his own story and a protagonist you want to get behind. Even stripped of his healing factor that would normally make him nearly invincible, Daken still refuses to back down from the fight, even when tempted to run away to Madripoor. When the thought to run enters his head, Daken counters with, “Run. The word alone makes bile rise and bubble with self-loathing.” Even with his physical strength depleted, Daken shows the kind of mental strength that makes you want to follow him into the fight. And with what he learns about Marcus Roston along the way, it promises to be a fight well-worth reading.
If you’re reading this comic for the promised appearance of the Runaways, you may be disappointed, as they only appear on two pages in this issue. (From the looks of things, however, they should get a larger part in the next one.) However, there’s still more than enough in this issue to make it an enjoyable, solid read, and one I would recommend picking up.
Sara McDonald started reading comics in the third grade, and now puts her English degree to good use talking about them on the Internet. She currently resides in Western Massachusetts with a roommate, three cats, and an action figure collection and spends the time she isn’t reading comics working for a non-profit. You can visit her blog at Ms. Snarky’s Awesometastic Comics Blog.