Daken's got some weird genetics

[redconfession]

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.

Comments

[eva-roisin.livejournal.com]

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?

[darkfenixrising.livejournal.com]

That was Logan's twin. ;)

[red_confession.livejournal.com]

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.

[eva-roisin.livejournal.com]

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.

[red_confession.livejournal.com]

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.