It’s really hard to understand how infuriating it was to read Wolverine in the 2010s. Daniel Way undertook the “Wolverine: Origins” series that was, in concept, supposed to reveal to Logan all the mysteries that he had been unable to remember. As it all unfolded, it became clear that the “big reveals” he experienced were … Only they weren’t all big reveals. Some of them were completely unsurprising and for others there was enough doubt still there that a future writer could undo them. So the whole point of the book became moot.
Plus, in the pages of Dark Wolverine, Daniel Way introduced Daken. I understand that he’s a fan favorite character because who doesn’t like a dude with claws and daddy issues but Daken just doesn’t make sense as a character. He runs around hating his father and trying to kill him but then never really goes far enough to succeed–even though it seems like if he really wanted to, he could.
If that ambivalence were intentionally part of the makeup of his character it would be one thing, but Daniel Way’s stories lack any sort of nuance or complexity–they’re just bloodbaths with explosions, issue after issue.
And on top of that, practically the same exact thing was happening over in the Hulk book where Bruce’s son Skaar kept trying/not trying to kill him. But that analogy only goes so far because in this story Skaar is allied with Wolverine, not Daken. Because, frankly, Skaar doesn’t make a lot of sense either.
“Reckoning” starts with Wolverine sharing with Nightcrawler (and us readers) one of his recovered memories…
Which is that he killed Mariko when he realized that she didn’t love him anymore. (We already knew that he killed her, but this spin on the motive hadn’t been part of that story.). Kurt rightly points out that she was going to die anyway, much more painfully, because she’d been poisoned–and therefore she asked Wolverine to kill her. But still, Logan feels the need to wring his hands for an entire issue about it.
See what I mean about the revelations being pointless? I mean, it’s not even true. She was dying and he killed her as a mercy. Just like he killed Jean Grey.
From there, Daken and Logan meet up, Logan says that he knows Daken betrayed him to Romulus and accuses Daken of loving Romulus, and then stabs his son with the Muramasa blade (which can kill regenerating mutants).
Seeing a pattern? Wolverine gets possessively loving and then stabs people.
Only it’s a trick to lure Romulus into appearing–it wasn’t actually the Muramasa blade. Daken was a part of that ruse, but then he immediately betrays his father and sides with Romulus. Why? I have no idea. See above where I already told you Daken makes no sense.
There’s a big fight and I’m thinking, “At last, this whole Romulus story will be over!” but just as it looks like we might get to conclusion, Cloak ‘ports in and takes Wolverine out of the action. Dang Cloak. He sucks without Dagger.
The next day, Romulus and Daken bond for a bit until Daken decides he wants to kill Romulus after all, but just as he’s about to do it he is ALSO teleported away. And Holy God, does this suck: Wolverine has Cloak imprison Romulus in the Darkforce Dimension. He won’t kill the dude. Even though he’s been stalking him for almost 50 issues, clearly with the intent to kill. I guess in the hands of Daniel Way, Wolverine doesn’t make sense either.
Almost as an afterthought, Wolverine cuts out his son’s Muramasa-blade claws (remember those? I’d already forgotten). In the aftermath, Daken goes and kills a male hustler. Apparently, he’s still got claws–just not ones made of Muramasa metal.
For anyone who had invested a lot in either Daken being a revenge-driven kid who was going to end up a big evil a-hole like Romulus, this is anticlimactic. It’s similarly disappointing if you’d been reading Wolverine: Origins from the start and expected that AT SOME POINT Wolverine and Romulus would face off.
So frustrating.