redconfession | Daken's got some weird genetics

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Daken's got some weird genetics

I was looking through my Wolverine: Origins 5 trade today, and I was feeling nerdy so I was looking at the dates in the Daken flashbacks. I came across two conclusions. The first is that Way can't keep his dates straight over the span of two issues, and the other is that Daken is the scariest 14-year-old ever.

First, the dates:

Canonically, Daken is born in 1946. It says so right there.

And there's more montage, mainly about Akihira talking about how happy he has a child and the other villagers being all "OMG abomination!"

Next in the montage is this:

That makes it 1955. Yes? I'm usually not good at math, but I have a calculator to help back me up on this.

The kids then proceed to try to beat up Akihiro until Akihira steps in.

Akihiro later (presumably) murders the leader of the kids.

It's assumed that this is that night, but any passage of time honestly could have occurred.

Anyway, after Akihiro and Akihira attend the kids funeral, they have a heart to heart about dragons and sons and sentimental stuff that Daken won't ever take to heart anyway. What he does take to heart is the conversation that his parents have after that, mainly that his mommy doesn't love him and his parents are having a child together. From that conversation there is...

Akihiro reveals he can read Greek, and tells mommy that her child is dead.

His powers manifest as mommy dearest tries to kill him with a bayonet and down goes mommy dearest. While Akihiro is still freaking out about the pointy things in his hands, Akihira kills himself.

Then this happens:

End flashback 1. But back to the math. If it was 1955 when the kids attacked Akhiro, at the least it can be when he kills his parents is 1956, as their deaths occur a year after the death of the leader of the kids. Like I said previously, there could be a longer span between the time the kid dies and the parents die, but I highly doubt it. Therefore the parents have died in at least 1956, and not a year sooner.

Everyone agree with me so far? Good.

---

Okay, next issue. We're like 4 pages in... and hey, another Daken flashback!

The flashback starts

But wait... 1955? That's impossible. I could understand if there were several issues between the first flashback and the second, but there's about 10 pages between them. Granted one flashback is in issue 26 and the other in issue 27, but there's still not that much. I'm not complaining per se, but sort of disappointed I guess, as Way is a good writer.

All right, math aside, here comes point number two.

After Romulus convinces Daken ~~how creepy he is~~ ~~that he'll take care of him~~ that he should follow him, they cut to a new scene.

So in 3 (4 technically as Way thought it was 1955) years, Daken goes from this:

to this:

Granted, that's not too bad, as it could have been a growth spurt or something, or the suit. I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt.

Later in the flashback:

Just so you know that only 9 months have passed...

Daken looks like this. At 13/14, THIS IS WHAT DAKEN LOOKS LIKE. Holy shit, he looks 40. I thought the Howlett genes you know, SLOW the aging process, not excel them.

Just a reminder, this is what Daken looks like at 64:

Why does he look older at 13/14 than he does at 64?

I blame it on Cyber.

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Kind of epic fail. XD

I just realized that Daken is as old as my Dad down to the year, kinda scary.

Yeah I thought so. I'm also pretty sure that the same artist who drew buff adult Daken in Dark Wolverine 78(?; the one where he convinces Bunny to run in front of a truck) drew buff 14!year old Daken. And he still looks younger at 64.

Daken's older than my father. And yet we still write porn. Is that bad?

Well, people write porn about Logan, who is older than any living person's father, so I'm gonna go with no, it's not bad.

It's possible for a mid-teens to be pretty buff, especially if they're on the shorter side, but um, yeah, that's a little ridiculous.

This is very true.

And according to Marvel Daken's 5' 9," and so it looks like he's shrunk over the years, as he looks well over 6 foot all crouched like that. Oh bad art.

*facepalm*

...actually, no. I'm perfectly fine with the porn.

:D

Because the porn is so lovely?

God, I must be equally nerdy because I can't tell you how many times I've thought the same thing! Like, Jesus, he sure is big for a tween or that was one hell of a fast puberty. (I guess it's possible to go throught puberty that fast, but I remember the boys from freshman year of high school being pretty scrawny.) And the "one year later" 1955 thing is also bizarre. I could understand making that kind of continuity mistake if these issues were published years apart, but they were back to back.

Further compounding the weirdness is the issue where Cypher tells Logan about having trained his son. I don't know the exact issue of this, but it's in the "Swift and Terrible" book. Anyway, Dillon draws the teenage Daken as still looking pretty big but not having had a mohawk. He also looks like a white guy.

The other continuity mistake that makes me absolutely crazy is Logan's marriage to Itsu. It's pretty clear that Daken was born in 1946 and conceived fairly soon after Logan and Itsu got hitched. However, we're told that Logan was living in Jasmine Falls for four years before he married her. That means he arrived in Jasmine Falls in 1941 or so--but wasn't he fighting all over the place during WWII? Like at Normandy etc?

That was Logan's twin. ;)

Lol! Yay crazy fans unite! I remember reading it and not paying attention to the dates, so I assumed like 10 years had passed. It wasn't until this last reading did I notice the years. And I've seen growth spurts, but not age spurts. He looks 40.

Yeah, people seem to forget Daken's half-Asian, and I have no idea why. And am I the only person who thinks that the mohawk is stuck there? Like Daken doesn't have a say in the matter? Because I can't imagine him willingly having a mohawk for 60 years.

Logan can clearly be at two places at once. Hell he's on three teams simultaneously it must be one of his mutant powers. It seems that Wolverine writers haven't learned the trick of the other comic writers--NEVER PUT DATES ON ANYTHING EVER. That way fans can't bitch that you're wrong.

I used to think that Daken's mohawk might have been part of his mutation (because who gives themselves a mohawk at age 9, and Logan seems to have weird hair issues too) but at times the rest of his hair starts to grow in a little, so I'm assuming he shaves it that way.

You're right about him looking really old. He's fourteen and he has a furrowed brow. Stressful life, I guess. Nothing like murdering your parents and living with Romulus to make your balls drop.

The only time his hair "grew in" (that I can remember) was the first issue of the Dark Wolverine/Seige tie-in. By the second issue it was gone, and there shouldn't be any passage of time between the two issues. That's why I think it was a mistake on the colorist's part (as that artist had done like half of Dark Wolverine already and wouldn't make that mistake).

I just laughed for like 10 minutes on that comment. Thank you for making my day. But yes, living with Romulus gives you hulk/steroid man bodies. It must be a rule. Except for Wild Child, he gets nothing and likes it.

Easy: Segovia's art and the art of the person I dislike the most when it comes to art in comic books.
Segovia always make people look older. He made Daken actually look younger in the book where he hands the old lady the purse.

And yeah... I already suck at maths, but Way seems to be much worse...

Yeah not a big fan of his art. My favorite artist was the one who did Dark Wolverine 85(?) when he was in Rome. Alas he only did it for the one issue.

I think the math thing is an issue of not keeping notes straight, honestly. If you're going to have such concrete dates, you should keep track of them, because crazy zealous fans like me will eventually notice you're wrong. However, if you don't think you can you shouldn't have such concrete dates.

I can't stand Segovia's Daken. I like Deodato's best--that's the Daken I picture in my mind. But I like Eaton's least, or whoever it was that drew Daken during the Original Sin arc. He makes Daken look fat.

I only liked Segovia's art in the Dark Wolverine/Wolverine Origins Crossover. I think it's because he toned down on the buffness and made him look like a real person in most of the comic. And yeah, Deodato's is best. The other's seem to forget that either a. he's an adult, b. fairly skinny, c. flashy. And then there was that one issue of Dark Wolverine where the colorist assumed daken shaved his head or something so there were little root hairs sticking out of his head on either side of his mohawk.

You mean Hulk!Daken? http://img220.imageshack.us/img220/4998/xml217frankblackdcp016rz7.jpg

Yeah, that's exactly the Daken I was thinking about. I sometimes get the feeling that these artists don't really know what Japanese people look like. Not that there's one way to "look Japanese"--but there Daken looks half Italian and half Cherokee or something. And he looks so old. He has wrinkles.

You'd think advanced knowledge of Japanese culture is a requirement at Marvel considering how many Japanese-themed storylines they enjoy pulling lately, but apparently it's more like "remotely passable knowledge (ex. know the words karate and daimyo--you don't necessarily have to know what it means!)." And you're right, he definitely looks Native American and not remotely Asian. I guess Deadpool calls him Eurotrash once and everyone forgets he's not remotely from Europe.

I'll assume "sped up growth due to X hormones" at his teen hood and leave it at that.

I blame bad/lazy art, but that's as good a theory as any.

I'd rather blame the miraculous growth spurt on poor communication between the writer and the artist.

Thank you for the scans. There are many I haven't seen.

Edited 2010-08-07 08:55 (UTC)

Lol, that's probably the case too. But that artist seems obsessed with making manly men of Liefield proportions, so I doubt anything Way would have said would have prevented him from looking like that.

NP. Everything but that last image came from Wolverine Origins 26 & 27. The last one came from earlier on, but I can't remember the exact issue.

This also brings up the only time I've ever seen Daken without his Mohawk. I don't know how to leave pictures so I'll have to leave links for you. It's from Wolverine Origins 15.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4138/4882706500_fbbb3d5770_m.jpg and http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4098/4882105529_5d40daf32d_m.jpg

He still doesn't look 14 or 15.

Yeah. I'd really like to see the script for that one--my hunch is that none of them are supposed to be Daken. And if they are, someone fucked up.

Back when it came out there wasn't a timeline given, it was just Cyber talking about that he trained him. My guess is Dillon decided that they'd cut off his mohawk for military training.

And seeing how I forgot, thank you for putting this all together. I thought I was losing my mind when I first read these issues.

Probably. However I'm really beginning to think that that mohawk is part of Daken's fucked up genetics and he couldn't cut it for too long if he wanted to (why else keep it for 64 years?).

Np. I was feeling extra nerdy after reading it and had to share.

Hello. And Bye.

Hello. Goodbye.

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Daken's got some weird genetics

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Test, just a test

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