DAKEN: Page 4 of 5

Publication Date: 31st Jan 2022
Written By: Douglas Mangum and Monolith.
Image Work: sixhoursoflucy and Gremlin.
Biography

BIOGRAPHY – PAGE 4

For many months, Daken kept hidden, biding his time and leaving no hint that he still lived. At some point, Daken came into contact with Sabretooth, a fellow former agent of Romulus who likewise had been believed dead for some time. Since his reappearance, Sabretooth and his lover, Mystique, had taken over the crime families in East Asia, but still longed for revenge on Wolverine. Along with them, Daken formed a new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, recruiting others for their shared revenge: the Skinless Man, the Shadow King, the Blob from the “Age of Apocalypse” reality, and finally the entire Omega Clan, whom the Shadow King manipulated into believing Wolverine’s X-Force had caused the death of their families. Daken’s plan came together after learning that Wolverine had enrolled in his school a young man named Evan, who was in truth a clone of Apocalypse. In a dark reflection of Wolverine’s intention to teach the young Evan to be a good man, showing that nurture triumphed over nature, Daken intended to break Evan and bring out a fully malevolent Apocalypse. Wolverine would be forced to watch the ensuing destruction and genocide, and those humans who survived would know that Wolverine was to blame. Regardless of what he told his teammates or himself, however, this plot was really a tantrum by an abandoned son, who felt his father cared for other children more than he did Daken.

After successfully kidnapping Evan while on a field trip, Daken and his Brotherhood took Evan across the American Midwest, killing random people and doing their best to show him that everything the X-Men had explained about his life was a lie. Though the Brotherhood met with limited success, Daken found himself encouraged by Sabretooth, who pointed out Daken’s shared similarities with Creed, as opposed to Wolverine and his hypocritical nature. Daken ate up the attention and was unable to see that he was being manipulated by Sabretooth. Creed had no real interest in recreating Apocalypse but simply wanted to coax a fatal confrontation between Daken and his father.

As Daken had anticipated, X-Force arrived and attacked the Brotherhood, trying to get to Evan. At first, it seemed X-Force had the edge, but a betrayal by one of Wolverine’s teammates, Nightcrawler from the Age of Apocalypse reality, allowed Daken’s father to fall into his hands. With his father at his mercy, Daken railed against the hypocrisy of Wolverine being called a hero, though he was no less a murderer than Daken. Their discussion eventually turned more introspective, however, as each expressed their own regret how things could have been different between them, had Logan raised Daken as his son. Just as Logan began to believe he was getting through to his son, Daken sprung his trap and dropped Logan into a chamber filling up with water. Even Wolverine’s vaunted healing factor could not prevent drowning. Ultimately, Daken’s plan went awry when Evan accepted the powers of Apocalypse, but rejected the cruelty and sadism of Daken and his Brotherhood. After Evan freed Wolverine from the water tank, he continued to take on the Brotherhood, leaving Daken alone against his father. Most likely seeing this battle as little different than their previous confrontation, Daken had no way of knowing that Wolverine had recently gained knowledge from a future timeline of what would happen if Daken survived their battle. In an ironic twist, considering how he had planned to kill Wolverine, Daken was drowned in a shallow puddle of water by his father. After his death, Daken’s body was taken by Wolverine back to Japan, where it was buried in the village of Shirakawa-Go. [Uncanny X-Force (1st series) #27, 30-35]

Sometime later, Daken’s body was recovered by the Apocalypse Twins, the children of Apocalypse’s Horsemen Death (formerly Archangel) and Pestilence. Utilizing a Celestial Lifeseed, the twins resurrected Daken, along with Banshee, the Grim Reaper and the Sentry, before transforming them further with the use of a Deathseed. Each of these Horsemen was specifically chosen to break the alliance of the Avengers Unity Division, a new team of Avengers mixed with X-Men who opposed the Twins' plans. Naturally, Daken was present to incite Wolverine. [Uncanny Avengers (1st series) #9]

Daken enjoyed the opportunity to confront his father after his murder. As the Avengers invaded the Akkaba Nebula, Daken isolated Wolverine from the others and incapacitated him using his new Deathseed-enhanced claws. Daken spent the next few hours torturing Logan physically and psychologically. He revealed that he knew Sabretooth was setting him up, forcing Wolverine into a position to kill his own son, but Daken went along with it because he trusted Logan would never go through with killing him. Even as he took his last breaths in the puddle, Daken said, he was sure Logan would let him up at any moment.

Daken and the Apocalypse Twins told Wolverine they would use the Scarlet Witch to weave a hex spell and capture all the mutants on Earth, and Wolverine’s actions with X-Force made it all possible. A seriously injured Logan was discovered by his teammates Rogue and Sunfire. He told them what he knew, accidentally sending Rogue off to murder the Scarlet Witch because that’s what she thought Logan would do. Wolverine pursued them, only to be waylaid by Daken. He was forced to watch as Rogue killed their teammate, even though Wanda was secretly working against the twins. Daken held Logan long enough for him to watch Rogue die as well at the hands of the Grim Reaper before they were raptured by the completed spell into the Twins’ space-ark. [Uncanny Avengers (1st series) #10-14]

Daken enjoyed six years of victory as the Twins arranged for the destruction of Earth and humanity, then restarted mutant civilization on Planet X. Wolverine was held prisoner and tortured this entire time, much to Daken’s delight. However, Kang the Conqueror helped the surviving members of the Avengers Unity Division travel back in time and prevent their failure. [Uncanny Avengers (1st series) #17-20] In the new timeline, the Apocalypse Twins’ plans were undone by Kang and the Avengers. The Akkaba space-ark crashed in the Sahara Desert, leaving only Daken and Grim Reaper active. Cutting their losses, the two Horsemen went their separate ways. [Uncanny Avengers (1st series) #21-22]

Daken’s Deathseed enhancements proved to be unstable and, after a period of fluctuation, his new Horseman powers faded away. Daken was deeply conflicted after Wolverine died, leaving his grudge and father issues unresolved. He was kidnapped along with several other super-beings with healing powers such as Sabretooth, X-23, Elixir, Lady Deathstrike and Mystique by a group of former test subjects for the Arcadia Corporation. These mutates and their leader Shogun were dying as a result of their modifications and wanted to find a way to convert the others’ healing factors to save them. Daken and this group were specifically targeted because Arcadia had already swept them up and experimented on them without their knowledge, implanting a series of control words in their subconscious. Sleep, Obey, Kill, or Erase… these words could be used against them at any time. Shogun and the others knew these words as collateral, but offered to erase the words from Daken’s faction if they helped them survive.

While Daken and his group were processing all this, they were attacked by Siphon, another escapee from Arcadia. Siphon was a vampire-like mutate who fed off of the healing factor energies of enhanced beings. He had tracked this congregation like a bloodhound and lashed out at them. Elixir was the first to die as Siphon drained the young healer dry in order to empower himself. Daken tried to strike back, but the Arcadian mutate got his claws on Daken and siphoned away his healing factor as well. X-23 got Daken away from the leech, but his healing abilities were now gone. [Death of Wolverine: The Logan Legacy #1-7]

Daken and his unlikely allies traveled to the Paradise site where Wolverine died and Shogun’s group had escaped from Arcadia. Shogun believed Wolverine’s body could be used to help stave off their cellular deterioration. Daken’s humiliation continued when he faced Mister Sinister, who wanted to study Logan’s genome for his experiments. Sinister was unfazed by Daken’s attack and easily removed an eye and arm from Daken as comparative samples for his Wolverine study. Daken was horribly injured and thrashing around as Sinister escaped with Logan’s body, forcing Junk to use his Sleep word just to get him under control. A small dose of Regen serum culled from Paradise gave Daken a jolt of healing factor enough to stabilize him, but he was greatly humbled by his wounds. [Wolverines #1-2]

A bitter and feeble Daken struggled to recover aboard the Changeling ship while the rest of the team hunted Sinister. Fang of the Imperial Guard visited the crew to learn how his friend Wolverine had died. He took Daken hunting Frost Giants in Jotunheim and convinced one of the dim-witted giants that Daken was the father who abandoned him. Daken barely survived the fight, and Fang’s trick forced him to confront the futility of holding a grudge against Logan for not being there for him as a father. [Wolverines #8-9]

For her own reasons, Mystique fed intelligence to Daken so he could hunt down Siphon and gain vengeance. Daken ran off on his own to confront his monster, but X-23 pursued him. Laura had begun to see Daken as family (what little she had left of Logan), and wouldn’t let him get himself killed. They found Siphon feeding off a nest of vampires that had been targeted by Blade. It turned out Siphon wasn’t a beast, but an intelligent, reasoning being who descended into a feral state when he didn’t feed on healing energy regularly. He accepted a formal duel with Daken to settle the score between them. The vampires interrupted the fight, and Blade and X-23 got involved as well once the melee broke out. X-23 got Daken to see that killing Siphon wasn’t going to make anything better for him. Daken left Siphon alive and allowed Mystique to bring the creature aboard the Changeling, to see if he had any potential value in jumpstarting his healing factor. [Wolverines #14-15]

Mister Sinister wanted revenge on Daken’s group for spoiling his earlier plans, and he lured them into a trap. He had gained access to their Control words, and temporarily took control of the group, but Shogun used the Erase words to restore Daken and the others to their senses. Daken released Siphon from the Changeling’s detention and turned him loose on Sinister, allowing the mutate to drain away Sinister’s regeneration abilities and leave him vulnerable. Daken and Siphon were almost allies after Sinister’s demise, but Mystique betrayed them all. She re-injured Siphon (making him need to feed again) and had him and Daken’s group teleported to a trap in the Everglades. Siphon drained all of their healing factors as Mystique intended, turning it into an energy source she harvested for her own purposes. Daken and the others escaped their snare and tried to confront Mystique, but she took them all down and seemingly left them for dead. [Wolverines #16-20]

Despite their injuries, Daken and the others survived. Over time, Daken’s healing factor recovered on its own. Once it began working again, Daken’s arm slowly re-grew as well. When an alien virus landed on Roosevelt Island and began infecting people, Laura was present and learned her healing factor could actually draw the virus out of the sick, curing them while her system purged the effects. Word was sent out for other superhumans with similar healing factors to come assist Laura in healing the people of Roosevelt Island before they succumbed to the rapidly fatal virus. Daken came, not out of any concern for the innocents, but for Laura’s sake. By absorbing his share of the virus, he ensured Laura would not kill herself trying to cure more people that her healing factor could withstand. For the first time, Daken also met his new “sister” Gabby, a secondary clone of Laura produced by Alchemax. Gabby is awesome, FYI. [All-New Wolverine #21]