I decided to rename “Paul’s Reading Dark Reign” because, at this point, it’s really just all buildup to Siege, isn’t it? Check out my previous reviews of Dark Reign and Siege related titles by clicking here.

In preparation for Siege, and ever since the event was announced, I’ve kind of been jumping into the Marvel Universe with both feet, and getting caught up on as many Dark Reign titles as catch my interest, starting with the ones I felt were “vital reading” first (like the Avengers books) and working my way to some of the other stories.

I recently received Dark Wolverine, Vol. I: The Prince as a gift.  I’ve heard a ton of great things on the title, but dropped off of Wolverine after the “Old Man Logan” storyline and, honestly, my little experience with Daken had made me not really care too much for the character.  In fact, in pretty much every appearance of the character outside of Dark Wolverine, I’ve seen Daken pretty much portrayed as a one-note angry thug who pretty much just grunts and hates his daddy.

But The Prince changed my mind.  Read my feel review after the jump!

Holy crap this book is good.  I haven’t really read a single issue of Daniel Way’s Wolverine: Origins title, which started after House of M, and deals with Wolverine now knowing his entire past.  In the pages of Origins, it was revealed that ol’ Wolvie has a son that pretty much hates his guts and wants to see him D-E-D dead.

Dark Wolverine, Vol. I: The Prince has a Dark Wolverine Saga recap of Daken’s origin, but it’s actually placed after the Prince storyline, which is a little awkward because it really would have made more sense at the beginning, but it does help explain who Daken is.  The 3-part The Prince storyline really paints a different picture of Daken than I’ve seen before.  In this book, he’s classy, brilliant, and extremely, extremely manipulative.  He spends the entire time manipulating the other members of the Dark Avengers (specifically Norman Osborn and Hawkeye/Bullseye), turning them on each other.  He even works his manipulations on the Fantastic Four, to the point that, even at the end of the book, you’re not sure if he’s good or evil.  And it works perfectly.

I enjoyed every manipulation, lie, cheat, steal in this book.  Daken is an absolutely genius, and I was excited to see what he was going to do next.  My only gripe?  I was hoping that the trade would collect at least six issues, as has kind of become standard in trades, but what we get here is the three-issue storyline, the Dark Wolverine Saga, and a two-part storyline from Wolverine #73-74 that, essentially, equates to one issue of material that’s pretty much unrelated to the Daken storyline.

The art by Guiseppe Camuncoli is absolutely perfect for this kind of book – it has an almost Peter Chung-esque feel to it, feeling like a superhero book, while at the same time not.  The character movement is fluid and exciting, and the style just works.

I’m really looking forward to picking up the second volume of Dark Wolverine.  I really wish more storylines featuring the character showed Daken in the same light.  Looks like it doesn’t come out until April, 2010 :-(.  Bummer.