It has been 20 years since Marvel Comics released a comic that introduced a dark new antihero who changed the legacy of one of Marvel’s most popular heroes. The issue was Wolverine: Origins #5 (2006) by Daniel Way and Steve Dillon. This followed a storyline where Wolverine’s dark past was revealed in a story where Captain America, Hellion, and Cyclops were fighting Wolverine, and Emma Frost had to help calm him so he could register the truth about his past. It was all about Wolverine’s relationship with Itsu, and how her death brought a Wolverine antagonist into the world who would go on to become a legacy hero in Marvel Comics.
This was the issue that featured Daken in a cameo for the first time in Marvel Comics and would kick off the storyline where his only goal was to kill his father, Wolverine.
Wolverine: Origins #5 was the end of the “Born in Blood” storyline, and this issue opened with Wolverine fighting Captain America, Cyclops, and Hellion. However, it wasn’t until Emma Frost showed up and helped clear Wolverine’s mind that everyone learned what was happening. In Wolverine’s past, he was living a happy life with Itsu, but he returned home one day and found her murdered. Not only was she murdered by a brainwashed assassin (revealed to be the Winter Soldier), but she was pregnant. That baby was stolen from her womb by a man named Romulus, who then dropped the baby on the doorstep of a wealthy couple who raised him. He then took Daken years later and raised the child to become a cold-blooded killer with an intense hatred for his father.
It should be mentioned that this issue only showed the aftermath of Itsu’s death, and the only appearance here of Daken was the baby being carried away from the murder. This was the end of the “Born in Blood” storyline, and the title of the storyline clearly referred to Daken, although he didn’t show up in person as an adult until Wolverine: Origins #10 (2007). This issue saw Wolverine surrender himself to Dum Dum Dugan, only for Daken to show up and attempt to murder his father, whom he considered weak. The issue ended the “Savior” storyline and then moved into Wolverine’s first major confrontation with Daken.
This leads to Wolverine attempting to save his son, but this isn’t going to be easy since Daken only wanted revenge against the man he was raised to hate above any other. If anything, Wolverine: Origins was as much about the origin and development of Daken into the Marvel Universe as it was about missing parts of Wolverine’s history.
This comic book storyline made it impossible to ever think Daken would become a hero. He tried to kill his father. He murdered innocent people to work his way into the position to get at his dad. He even got a girlfriend just to give him a place to stay and then poisoned her and made it look like a suicide to eliminate her completely. He was remorseless and irredeemable. He was under the control of Romulus, but he was also a cold-blooded killer who didn’t care who he hurt in his desire for revenge against his father. Daken was terrifying.
Father and son finally fought each other in Wolverine: Origins #10 (2007). It then took all the way until Wolverine: Origins #25 (2008) for the story to pull the Winter Soldier back in to help Logan stop his son with a carbonadium bullet, in an issue that also included a fantastic battle with Deadpool as well. Soon, Daken and Wolverine were working together as they looked for the man who manipulated both of them and had Itsu killed: Romulus.
After this, Daken went through a lot of changes in his Marvel Comics existence, but most of his life was still spent either hating his father or wanting to one-up him. He even proved this further during the “Dark Reign” storyline when he took his father’s place as Wolverine in the Dark Avengers and continued his murderous ways when he murdered the Punisher. While Daken did get a slight redemption on Krakoa, he is now operating as Hellverine after he died and returned as the Spirit of Vengeance, proving that it is impossible to hold a bad man down. Daken remains one of Marvel’s darkest antiheroes, and it all started 20 years ago when his origin story was revealed.
