Characters / Marvel Comics: Daken

Akihiro

^{Click here to see him as Fang} 

Notable Aliases: Daken, Wolverine, Dark Wolverine, Death, Horseman of Death, Fang

Nationality: Japanese, Krakoan

Species: Human mutant

First Appearance: Wolverine: Origins #5 (October, 2006)

"I never knew my father. I was raised... to be someone different than him. And now I'm supposed to be him. I never asked for that, but when the opportunity found me... I was curious. I wanted to know what it was like. To have people look at me and see... my father."

Akihiro, more commonly known as Daken, is the son of Wolverine and his deceased wife Itsu. Blessed with his dad's Wolverine Claws (although with a twist or two there) and Healing Factor, as well as the added ability to give off pheromones, Daken is a younger, darker and edgier version of his dad, who was the dark and edgy poster child of the 70s-90s. He loves Xanatos Gambits, seducing people just to prove he can and is smart enough to dupe Norman Osborn and Reed Richards — but still gets his ass handed to him by his father. Speaking of dad, Daken has quite a few daddy issues.

Daken first appeared in Wolverine Origins #10 (March, 2007), created by Daniel Way and Steve Dillon. He went on to serve as a member of the Dark Avengers and Dark X-Men. He became the protagonist of Wolverine's ongoing (Logan got a new ongoing titled Wolverine: Weapon X), which was retitled Dark Wolverine, but kept the series numbering. He gained his own title Daken Dark Wolverine in 2010, which was ongoing until 2011.

Daken featured in Rick Remender's Uncanny X-Force and Uncanny Avengers. He also was one of five characters focused on in The Logan Legacy, a seven-issue miniseries that explored the aftermath of the death of Wolverine, which starred in the weekly ongoing Wolverines.

With the rise of the mutant nation of Krakoa, Daken was one of many villainous mutants offered sanctuary on the island. Seeking to set his past behind him, Daken sought a better relationship with his father and eventually joined the newest iteration of X-Factor, putting his enhanced senses to use in investigating the deaths of mutants to enter them into the resurrection queue. During his time on the team he got together with Aurora, and as of 2024 the two are still a couple. He would later join the Marauders, earing the title and costume of Fang for his heroic actions, and eventually lends his services to Alpha Flight to help protect mutant refugees.

---

Daken provides examples of:

A-H

• Aborted Arc: Daken found out that Bucky Barnes was responsible for his mother's death, but despite a clear set-up he never confronted him.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Just like Wolverine, his claws have tremendous cutting power, although, unlike him, his natural claws are actually of some kind of metallic composition
• Affably Evil: Swings between this and Jerkass as it suits his whims or plans or both.

• Affirmative-Action Legacy: While not intended to replace Logan, the original Wolverine (who remained active), he operated with the Dark Avengers using the name Wolverine and is half-Japanese and bisexual.
• Alas, Poor Villain: He has done this twice. The first time, he broke down while dying, asking to see his father and apologizing for placing a bomb at the Jean Grey Academy, before immolating himself with a bomb. The second, in which he inexplicably came back from the dead, involved him imagining how life could have been with his father and mother, had she not been murdered by Romulus. Wolverine is then forced to drown him to kill him, as by this point he is little more than a pawn for Sabretooth to use against him. Wolverine himself then breaks down, realizing they could have had a happy life too. Considering Daken was The Sociopath most of the time... damn.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: It's apparently genetic. Both women and men are attracted to his bad boy status, even without him using his powers to seduce them.
• An Arm and a Leg:
  • He has his arm torn off by Mr. Sinister in Wolverines #1 after his healing factor was stripped from him by Siphon at the end of The Logan Legacy. By the time of All-New Wolverine his healing factor had recovered and he grew back his arm.
  • And he loses his arm again after being attacked by the Orphans of X in issue 25.
  • In the Wolverine series, he battled Sabretooth and lost. Creed then has Daken dismembered and the body parts given to Logan as a "birthday present".
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: A non-videogame example happened when he was with the Marauders, he killed a traitorous Lupine so Lupine loyalists in the Sh'iar Imperial Guard award Daken with a title, Fang, and a uniform. Daken accepts it as the high honor it is and brings his new title and clothes to Alpha Flight.
• Animal-Themed Superbeing: Under his Wolverine guise.
• Anime Hair: Daken's hair is a literal inversion of his father's. Where Wolverine's hair is big and tall on the sides, but more subdued on the top, Daken rocks a Mohawk on an otherwise bald head. As of Wolverines however, he lets his hair grow out to resemble more like Logan.
• Antagonistic Offspring: He hates his father to the point where he's attempted to usurp Sabretooth's role as Logan's Archenemy, he definitely counts, thanks in no small part to Parental Abandonment and being raised by the murderous Cyber. He desperately wants to kill his father, though despite what he might think, he's not quite good enough to pull it off yet. Averted by his "sister", X-23, who, despite her issues, views Wolverine as a father figure and gets along with him fine.
• Anti-Hero: On the occasions he actually helps the heroes without any ulterior motives, he’s still kind of a dick and generally savage to his enemies. After joining X-Factor, it’s even lampshaded that they need to keep an eye on him lest he rub off his worse tendencies on the rest of the team.
• Anti-Villain: He generally occupies this role rather than being an outright villain, though it's often Depending on the Writer. More recent works have swung him more towards the "anti" end of the scale.
• Appropriated Appellation: Daken (駄犬) means "mongrel" or "dog" in Japanese and was the name he was taunted with as a child.
• Archenemy: After Sabretooth, he's the strongest contender for the title, what with his Evil Counterpart status, personal connection to Logan, and popularity among writers and fans alike. Ironically and despite this, Daken is shown to be profoundly saddened by Logan's death and makes an effort to give him some form of proper burial. Later during Wolverines he's insistent that Logan's remains be treated with respect once they're recovered, and is prepared to come to blows with Sabretooth when he (incorrectly) believes the latter is mocking him for it.
• Armor-Piercing Question: During their team-up to take down Malcolm Colcord's attempt to revive the Weapon X project, he tries to deliver one to his little sister, Laura Kinney a.k.a. X-23, by asking why she holds herself back by caring for others and is afraid to let go and fully embrace her training and skill as a killer. The question falls flat: Laura isn't fighting to prove anything but is instead fighting for something bigger than herself. She then completely turns it around on him by asking why he holds back and is afraid to allow himself to care about others. Manipulative Bastard that he is, Daken still doesn't have an answer.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
  • For all his antagonism towards Logan, he really did love his father in his way, and at times even expressed regret that he never truly got to be a part of his family. He even went out of his way to recover what effects of Logan's he could from an Auction of Evil so he could give him a proper Japanese funeral.
  • Although his early interactions with X-23 were hostile, by the end of their second encounter in Madripoor he began to establish a grudging respect for her. By The Logan Legacy and Wolverines this had grown to something resembling brotherly affection, which Laura returned, openly considering him her family. In All-New Wolverine their relationship is firmly established when Daken agrees to help fight the disease ravaging Roosevelt Island entirely because Laura needs him.
• Back from the Dead: Was killed at the end of Uncanny X-Force. Was brought back in Uncanny Avengers as one of the Apocalypse Twins' Horsemen of Death.
• Badass Bookworm: As per his assassin upbringing he received a top-class education and is very, very intelligent.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Occasionally when he's not in either a dark variant of his father's costume, average street clothes, or pants and tattoos.
• Badass in Distress: "Orphans of X" kicks off in issue 25 with Daken getting ambushed in a Bad Guy Bar, captured, and having his arm lopped off and hung from a bridge as a message for Laura. He manages to escape in issue 26, killing one of his torturers in the process.
• Bad with the Bone: Daken has three retractable bone claws housed underneath his forearms, two claws that emerge from between the skin of his first and third knuckles, and one from his inner wrist. These claws are much harder and denser than normal human bone and their natural shape provides them with a razor-sharp edge capable of easily slicing through flesh and bone, and they have been shown to be able to penetrate metals as durable as Iron Man's armor.
• The Berserker: Subverted, people expect this of Daken, given who his dad is, and he has a tendency to take advantage of it at times. In one scene, Daken allows Norman Osborn to think that he has used Daken's temper and hatred for Wolverine to bait him, after which Daken smiles and points out the mistakes in Osborn's cultured facade.
  Norman Osborn: "But more importantly, you're MY Wolverine. YOU are Wolverine. Do you know what a hero is?"
  Daken: "You mean... like Spider-Man?"
• Big Brother Instinct: His relationship with Laura eventually develops into this, if in his own, twisted way, becoming one of the few people he openly cares for, and she is likewise protective of him.
• Blade Below the Shoulder: By virtue of being Wolverine's son, he has three on each arm, but one of them juts out through the front of his wrist.
• Body Horror: Like his dad, Daken's healing factor means that he tends to get put through the meat grinder on a regular basis.
  • There was one particular incident where he acquired a Bloodstone, which grants a healing factor that, coupled with his own, gave him super lupus that caused tumors to sprout from his body. The more damage, the greater the tumors, and Frankencastle blowing him up with a grenade caused him to sprout into a giant mass he had to cut himself out of.
  • Another major incident had him lose a fight against Sabretooth, who was killing survivors from 2023's mutant massacre. His body parts were cut up and mixed with those of other murdered mutants to be arranged into the words 'Happy Birthday'.
• Bond One-Liner: Ira, the Orphans of X torturer, mocks Daken throughout the session and relishes the thought of making him whimper. When Daken frees himself and shoves his claws into the man's head he sardonically asks if he heard that.
• Brought Down to Badass: Daken's healing factor still isn't back to full strength after the events of The Logan Legacy and Wolverines. As such, he's one of the first of the group to drop when the virus overwhelms him.
• Brought Down to Normal: He has his Healing Factor stripped from him in the last issue of The Death of Wolverine: The Logan Legacy when he's attacked by Siphon. This bites him on the ass hard in the first issue of Wolverines when Mr. Sinister rips off one of his arms and plucks out an eye for good measure.
• Butt-Monkey: Daken is not having a good day during "Orphans of X." He's ambushed and blown up at a Bad Guy Bar, stripped naked, has his recently-healed left arm lopped off again while being tortured, escapes in a hail of bullets and has to resort to using a dog as a projectile weapon, gets his ass handed to him by Laura, Gabby, and Megan after he shoots the clone of Sarah before he can explain, and gets shot by a bullet coated with metal from the Muramasa Blade.
• C-List Fodder: During Dark Reign, after he does some PR-damaging slaughter, Norman Osborn arranges for a few D-list villains, many of whom weren't seen in years, to get together and target him so Daken could come up as a good guy again. Three of them wound up killed, and the ones a bit less obscure managed to survive.
• Cain and Abel: He's the Cain to X-23's Abel. However he and Laura actually get along rather well, and she's one of the only people he genuinely seems to care for.
• Calling Parents by Their Name: He generally addresses his dad as "Logan", since he didn't meet Wolverine until well into adulthood and has hated his dad's guts since day one for abandoning him (albeit unintentionally) and also for a period when he believed he had killed his mother. He has only ever called him "Dad" sarcastically or in rare moments of emotional honesty.
• Character Development: The Age of Krakoa story arc has him growing increasingly more heroic and mentally healthier, as he's finally on decent terms with his father and is regularly seeing his sisters Laura and Gabby, as well as making real friends with people like Lorna Dane and Kate Pryde. He's also joined several heroic organizations such as X-Factor and Alpha Flight, which gave him purpose beyond bar fights, beer-swilling and sleeping around.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: He has a tendency to not be trusted due to him only staying on his own side and ends up abandoning others.
  • In one issue, he faces Cyber (whom he was allied with in the past) and chooses to be on Wolverine's side. Then betrays W. and sides with C. because "C. has a better plan". Then comes out that there is no freakin' plan! Then betrays C. again and says he planned it all with W. from the start... and then he betrays W. too. And the X-Men, for good measure.
• Cool Sword: He had part of the Muramasa Blade, which was forged for Wolverine, contained a "shard of his soul", and was said to be the only weapon that could kill him (or his kin, apparently) for good, melted down and grafted onto his wrist claws (which retract, like Wolverine's).
• Dark and Troubled Past: Let's see.. he survived his mother's murder (which happened before he was born!), watched his adoptive father commit suicide, and was raised by a hated enemy of his father's. Yup.
• Deadpan Snarker: He's his father's son.
• Death Is Cheap: He apparently died in an explosion he caused after his healing factor was destroyed. He later showed up, revealing himself behind the new Brotherhood. Where, after fighting Logan a bit, he died, again. After that, he became an undead Horseman of Death for the Apocalypse Twins, before an Unexplained Recovery in time for The Logan Legacy.
• Delinquent Hair: His hair is done up in a Mohawk.
• Depending on the Artist: Daken's depiction ranges from slightly ugly to extremely handsome depending on who is doing the drawing.
• Depending on the Writer: Whether he's actually bisexual or an Aromantic Asexual who only uses sex to manipulate people.
• Depraved Bisexual: Daken has killed countless innocents, including poisoning wine he knew his disposable girlfriend would drink. He was in a relationship with Icemaster in Uncanny X-Men (2018), and in X-Factor (2020) he is into Aurora and jokes that his being this trope is balanced out by Prodigy's aversion of this trope while they're on the same team.
• Distaff Counterpart:
  • His little "sister" X-23.
  • Kirika from the Age of Apocalypse timeline. Even more so since they both have Japanese mothers.
• Double Entendre: When Bullseye asks him which side he is on as the Dark Avengers and Dark X-Men quarrel, Daken responds that he always did like playing for both teams.
• Draco in Leather Pants: He gets a lot of this, even though he kills his lovers (both men and women) for shits and giggles. Doesn't help that his justification is his father's absence from his life. Fans who identify with his misplaced rage against said father, or the position said father fills on his team, or maybe just like the idea of an explicitly bisexual version of their favorite badass, flock to him in throngs. In the first issue of his 2010 ongoing it's strongly suggested that Daken raped a female assassin sent to kill him. Fandom has broken into three parts - those who deny it saying he just mocked her before delivering the killing blow, those who are disgusted by it, and... some really sick individuals saying that she deserved it. This article argues convincingly that Daken is a deliberate deconstruction of this character trope: he's the dark romantic hero without a wounded soul to protect.
• Due to the Dead:
  • In Death of Wolverine: The Logan Legacy #5, Daken assaults an auction in Madripoor and slaughters everyone there except Viper, Mystique, and a former lover in order to retrieve the remains of Logan that are being sold there so he can give his father a proper burial. He later angrily snaps at Sabretooth not to mock his insistence that Logan's remains be treated with respect once they recover them in Wolverines.
  • He reclaims the body of Laura's mother, Sarah Kinney, in All-New Wolverine #30 so Laura can finally give her a proper burial.
• Draco in Leather Pants: invokedDaken is very much a deconstruction of the dark romantic hero. Everyone who meets Daken — his father, Mystique, Norman Osborn, the Fantastic Four, Moonstone — thinks they've got him figured out. They all think they can reach him or control him. And they are all wrong.
• Enemy Mine: X-23 Vol. 3, the crossover between him and X-23 crossover involved this. Daken was initially working with Malcolm Colcord while playing all the other parties against one another in pursuit of his own goals. However, once Colcord's intent to recreate Weapon X is revealed, Daken and Laura throw in together to bring him down. Unlike Daken's relationship with their father, the team-up results in them becoming Friendly Enemies when they realize they're not so different.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: His dead mother Itsu is one of the closest things to a soft spot that Daken has. The other is his "sister," X-23.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Zig-zagged. Daken's Smells Sexy pheromones are just as effective on males as on females, a fact that he ruthlessly exploits as a tool for manipulating people. Even ones who would otherwise find him personally repulsive due to his personality. Also, his attractiveness is nowhere near so effective against those who are not affected by his pheromones. For example, Hulkling of the Young Avengers is unaffected, and can even tell that Daken is trying to manipulate him with his pheromones because Hulkling is a Non-Human Humanoid Hybrid with absolutely no human ancestry.
• Evil Costume Switch: As a member of the Horsemen of Death, he wears a black variant of his Dark Avengers outfit.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • Daken is this to his father.
  • More so to his sister since Wolverine already has a long-established evil counterpart. Daken shows how Laura could have turned out (and still might) without any positive guidance in her life. Despite that, after an initial violent encounter, they actually get along quite well, and in fact, she's one of the few people who he seems to have genuine affection for.
• Evil Hero: As Wolverine as a member of the Dark Avengers.
• Extreme Omnisexual: Sort of (see below). Daken plays with gender stereotypes like they were jazz songs with no rules. As in the scene where he seduces a female anorexic supermodel by finger-feeding her a strawberry she had been afraid to eat and then flirts with the nebbishy male fashion designer on the same page without stopping for breath. He follows this up by flirting with the Shapeshifter Mystique before the end of the comic.
• Eye Scream: See An Arm and a Leg above; Sinister also takes one of his eyes.
• Face–Heel Revolving Door: Don't expect him to stay on anyone's side for more than a day. Why everyone is continually surprised by this is a question best left for the ages.
• Fan Nickname: Sniktling. Trollverine has become the popular name for Daken.
• Fantastic Drug: Heat, Daken's new psychotropic addiction. Also, while he's drugged, there is a rather neat Art Shift. It is also arguably a MacGuffin since it also negates his Healing Factor.
• Freudian Excuse: According to his creators.
• Generation Xerox: He and Skaar don't get along any better than Wolverine and the Hulk. Much to Wolverine's relief, because he was utterly terrified by the idea of Daken befriending gamma-powered space Conan.
• Genius Bruiser: Although not the obvious muscle head his dad is, Daken can pull this off pretty well too.
• Good Thing You Can Heal: He's done his fair share of standing around and letting horrible injuries happen to him for no reason other than the fact that they'll heal quickly.
• Half-Breed Discrimination: He is half-Canadian and half-Japanese. His name even means Mongrel. He grew up in Japan right after World War II had just ended. Considering how the culture would be responding to an abandoned child of mixed descent at the time, his Jerkass nature becomes a little more understandable.
• Handicapped Badass: Even with one arm, this is still Daken we're talking about. He manages to free himself from captivity by the Orphans of X and makes a mess during his escape.
• Headbutt of Love: Daken twice in the #8 issue of his comic, though it's not romantic. The power of using his pheromones to control people's emotions works best when he's in close contact, and that's as close as he can get without kissing.
• Healing Factor: His dad is Wolverine. Duh. He briefly lost it during the events of Wolverines, and even after it restarted it remained severely compromised for some time.
• The Hedonist: When one of your powers is pretty much "seduce people", you might let it get to your head.
• Heel–Face Turn: Of a sort. Daken doesn't exactly go full Face, but after Colcord double-crosses him, he and Laura are no longer at cross-purposes and work together to shut him down.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Generally a Heel but he has his moments of almost Anti-Hero, particularly when it concerns his "little sister" Laura.
• Heroic Sacrifice: He allows the Orphans to capture and kill him after putting Megan's phone inside his body so Laura can track him to the Orphans' base.
• Hero Killer: He killed the Punisher. Frank got better, though.
• Hot Blooded Sideburns: Like his father, Daken grows some and is hotheaded.
• Ho Yay: In Dark Wolverine, Daken snidely implies that Ben Grimm, aka The Thing, has feelings for his old pal, Johnny Storm. Ben's enraged response suggests that Daken hit a raw nerve.

I-Z

• Icy Gray Eyes: When the colorist actually remembers what his eye color is, it's usually depicted as a steely gray. This is done most likely as a contrast to his father's much warmer blue ones.
• I Just Want to Be Loved:
  • Drunkenly confesses to Logan that sometimes, he wonders what he would've been like if Logan and his mother raised him.
  • His relationship with Sabretooth was implied to be this, as Victor himself says the kid was so starved for fatherly love that he would do anything Victor said. This is retconned later in that Daken knew Creed was playing him all along, and just went with it because it served Daken's own purposes.
• Immortal Breaker: Daken's claws were bonded with metal from pieces of the Muramasa sword when it was broken, making him a dangerous threat to his father. Eventually, the sword and the claws (once Wolverine chopped 'em off) were buried - and found by new villains, who melted them down and made bullets. Uh-oh!
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Most of his enemies die like this.
• Important Haircut: Following his Heel–Face Turn in X-Factor, he's mostly kept his hair in tied back in a bun instead of the wild mohawk he's most known for. This makes him look a lot more normal and fits his improving disposition.
• Incest Yay: Some of Daken's private thoughts when he watches Laura in action read this way. Then again, it is Daken.
• Incest Yay Shipping: His private thoughts about little "sister", X-23, upon seeing her in action once their various conflicts, double-crossings, and manipulations are put aside so they can focus on dealing with Colcord are out of the way, can easily be read with a romantic subtext. And considering this is Daken we're talking about... it certainly puts fuel into the fire among some of the fans and makes Daken one of Laura's many fandom pairings.
• Informed Ability: The guy is supposed to be a highly-trained warrior, but from most of his appearances, the guy is repeatedly maimed and beaten, by far less skilled opponents, no less. His entire game plan can be summed up as: Attack! Attack! Attack!. In one of his appearances, he is very easily taken down by a group of Z-list villains that Norman Osborne all but lined up for him to defeat. Heck, The Punisher almost KILLED Daken (to get revenge on Daken for killing Frank once, in case you are wondering). And would have killed him too, were it not for Wolverine's intervention.
  • Although, to be completely fair, the Punisher was Frankenstein monster powered by magic stone at the time, ergo much stronger and tougher than usual.
• Killed Off for Real: Drowned by Wolverine in X-Force. That didn't stick, as he came back in Uncanny Avengers not long afterward, and he's back to normal by All-New Wolverine.
• Legacy Character: First he took the Wolverine mantle under nefarious circumstances but then her took the mantle of Fang under sincere and honorable motives.
• Legacy Launch: He got his first solo series when he briefly stole the Wolverine identity while part of the Dark Avengers. Once that series ended, Daken received his own solo title without the Wolverine costume.
• Man Behind the Man: Seizes control of Madripoor during "Collision", and sets himself up as this, leaving Tyger Tiger as the public face.
• Manipulative Bastard:
  • He cares for nothing but his own desires and is willing to use anyone to get what he wants. He's helped by the pheromones he can emit, which allow him to toy with the emotions of people around him and pull off Xanatos Gambit after Xanatos Gambit. In one case, he completely takes over Madripoor by secretly supporting everyone in their bids for power after a shutdown of major utilities that he himself arranged, before putting up Tyger Tiger as a puppet, and that was just part of his master plan to get Malcolm Colcord to give him the full Weapon X treatment. And oh yeah, he had a backup plan for that (in the form of his little sister, X-23, whom he put in place by capturing her and turning her over for experimentation, then allowed her to escape through a combination of unlocked restraints and a vial of Trigger Scent) in case Colcord tried to stiff him. He did. The boy has so many plans within plans, you never know if he's genuinely being nice to you or is just setting you up.
  • He once drove a lover he was messing with to suicide to get rid of any loose ends. Daken is himself manipulated into getting himself killed at his father's hands by Sabertooth, an even bigger bastard. Then after he got better, it's retconned that Daken knew what Creed was doing all along and just went with it for his own reasons.
• Man of Kryptonite: He is completely scentless, rendering Wolverine's legendary sense of smell useless.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Daken is Japanese for "mongrel". He chose to keep this name after being called it regularly when he was a child in Japan, with the other people noticing that he was half white, hence "mixed breed".
  • Akihiro means "bright", "autumn", or "boy", depending on the kanji used. This is the name his adoptive father gave him.
• Meaningful Rename: Akihiro switches his codename from Daken to Fang, as it was the first name he earned and used for altruistic reasons, unlike his other aliases which were either forced upon him or he appropriated for his own personal gain.
• Morality Pet: X-23 manages to be one for him (or at least about as close as it gets for him). This is most noticeable in Wolverines and All-New Wolverine, as Daken is much more of a lighter shade of gray under her influence.
• Mr. Fanservice: If there is a single issue that doesn't involve him not wearing a shirt, being in tight spandex, or catering to some form of fetish, the person who finds it deserves a Marvel No-Prize.
• My Real Daddy: Majorie Liu is this for Daken — it was once she joined his creator, Daniel Way, at writing the character, that he became the Depraved Bisexual Magnificent Bastard Troll people love. To be fair, Brian Michael Bendis putting him on Dark Avengers and other writers using him for cameos with the rest of the team probably helped a bit.
• Naked on Revival: Happens to him twice: The first time when he wakes up after being tortured by the Orphans in part 2. The second time after he's been shot by a Muramasa bullet, and stuck in the morgue until Laura can remove it.
• No Love for the Wicked: Despite being infamous as a Depraved Bisexual, he is actually aro-ace according to Word of God. He only uses sex as a tool to manipulate others.
• Non-Action Guy: It's not that he isn't good at fighting or doesn't enjoy a decent brawl, but he spends a lot of his ongoing dealing out measured and calculated violence and only then when it's absolutely necessary. His stated reason for this restraint and his heavier focus on scheming is that he doesn't want to be the raging brute he perceives his father to be. He ultimately fails and ends his series picking a fight with the Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, and whoever else was in New York City when he attacked it.
• "Not So Different" Remark:

• He has one of those moments with Banner who, currently depowered, convinced him he is as much of a killer as him.

• Used on Donna Kiel, an FBI agent who's been hunting down Daken for the past few issues. Daken tells her that he is fond of her, and regards her as his equal, as well as labeling her a psychopath, like himself.

• Not in This for Your Revolution: When Daken arrives on Roosevelt Island, he makes it clear he doesn't really give a toss about the people of Roosevelt Island. The only reason he's there is because Laura needs him.
• Older Than They Look: He was born in 1946, which makes him old enough to be the father of most of his teammates when he served with the Dark Avengers. He barely looks like he's in his early 20s most of the time.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: He has this with his father; he fought Deadpool when it seemed he was about to kill Logan. Of course, Wolverine set the whole thing up.
  Daken: He's my father. And I'm going to kill him for it, not you.
  Deadpool: So you're not going to kill me? Awesome!
• Out of the Inferno: During a crossover with X-23, the pair are caught in the explosion of Malcolm Colcord's lab, and subsequently strolling out of the flaming wreckage.
• Pet the Dog: He is a murderous, manipulative sociopath and Anti-Villain. However, he does have a genuine soft spot for his little sister Laura and her 13-year-old clone Gabby. In All-New Wolverine, he comes to Roosevelt Island not to save lives, but simply because Laura wants him to be there.
• Power Perversion Potential: He is the contemporary classic example of the Depraved Bisexual because aside from the obvious claws/regeneration/bone strength he got from his father, he can also manipulate and release pheromones from himself, making people he chooses aggressive, losing their senses of perception and general thinking, or, more relevant to this trope, horny as all hell. He's tried this on female and male targets, some of whom note specifically to him that they're immune to that ability. Magnificent Bastard as he is, it goes without saying that he often uses this power to his advantage. In Dark Avengers, he also uses this on Bullseye and Moonstone.
• Practically Different Generations: Daken was born just after World War II, making him no younger than his 70s. His sister, X-23, is 20 years old as of All-New Wolverine. Gabby is even younger, being thirteen years old.
• Pragmatic Pansexuality: He uses sex to manipulate both men and women. Word of God says that sex is purely about control for Daken (although this may have changed after he got together with Aurora).
• Pet the Dog:
  • Daken loves to invoke and then subvert this trope. To put it more bluntly, this is a character who has very few redeeming qualities.
  • He demonstrates genuine affection for X-23, who is one of the few people he treats as an equal. When he later comes to help out with The Plague ravaging Roosevelt Island in All-New Wolverine, he admits he doesn't give a damn about the island, and is only there for her. This extends to Gabby, as well, and Daken even gives her her first superhero name.
  • He shows moments of kindness to street kids and children who have suffered rough upbringings.
  • For all his antagonism towards Logan, he really did love his father in his own way, and at times even expressed regret that he never truly got to be a part of his family. He even went out of his way to recover what effects of Logan's he could from an Auction of Evil so he could give him a proper Japanese funeral.
  • His relationship with Aurora started out as this, with the two bonding over their pasts and Daken genuinely wanting to be kind to her and have her be comfortable around him - he even makes it a point to tell her he will never use his pheromones on her.
• Pheromones: Daken can produce these to make people fall in love with him, regardless of their gender. He can also manipulate people in more subtle ways, it's just that seduction is his favorite way of getting what he wants.
• Pretty Boy: Daken and Gambit have a scene in Daken's solo comic where they snark at each other, using it as an insult.

• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Averted. Daken is regularly treated as an Anti-Villain or a Noble Demon, and has a large number of fans, despite the fact he's a completely unapologetic rapist (primarily with his pheromone powers, but at least once he's just straight-up forced himself on someone). For note, his pheromone power works very similarly to Zebidiah Killgrave (AKA, the Purple Man), who by comparison is treated like an irredeemable monster because of his use of this power for the same reason.
• Reality Is Unrealistic: The part of his origin that involves him as a baby being abandoned on the doorstep of a Japanese couple and taken in by them caused some criticism for using an old plot device that could hardly work in the 20th century. In truth, this happened frequently to children of mixed race who were born right after World War II. Mothers would sometimes leave their children on the doorsteps of sympathetic neighbors in a gamble that they would be taken in.
• Really 700 Years Old: Like his old man, Daken is older than he looks. Daken appears to be in his mid-twenties or so but was born just after World War II had ended in 1946.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Daken and Laura take turns delivering this to each other during their rampage through Colcord's base. Daken tries to call her out on her empathy for others, believing that her skills as a killer make her better than everyone around her and that her heart only forces her to hold back. Laura flatly tells him that she doesn't fight because she has something to prove, but for something bigger than herself. She then turns this around on him, asking why he holds back by not taking the risk of allowing himself to actually care for anyone. Daken doesn't really have an answer.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: He was widely despised by the fanbase during his initial appearances in Wolverine Origins, but started growing into a fan favorite after joining the Dark Avengers.
• The Resenter: He feels resentment towards his father, his sister, and anybody else who might have a better life than he does.
• Shared Family Quirks: He shares the same mutations (Healing Factor, Super-Senses, Wolverine Claws) with his dad. He takes Logan's skill with the ladies even further by also having skills with men, thanks to his manipulative nature and pheromones.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: At the end of his focus issue of The Logan Legacy, Daken spares Mystique, Viper, and Agent Kim — a former lover who was acting as Hydra's spy at the auction selling off Logan's remains — telling the latter to live a good and full life. After telling his story to his handlers but withholding his relationship with Daken, Kim is promptly killed when they probe his mind to find out just why Daken spared his life.
• Small Parent, Huge Child: Downplayed. He is a whole head taller than his famously short father Wolverine, but this merely places him at 5'9, and Wolvie is still a good deal stockier.
• Smells Sexy: He has pheromones that let him nudge people's emotions. The pheromones allow him to push people's emotions in many directions, and Daken has been shown to use this to good effect... He just prefers using it to make himself a sex god. It does not, however, work on non-humans, regardless of sexual orientation, as Hulkling proved.
  • However, with his Heel–Face Turn and the general realization that pheromone powers are just a mess for consent, his X-Factor run tries to thread the needle with Daken explaining that his pheromones don't create emotions, but just enhance what's already there. He can't make anyone sleep with him unless they already find him attractive. Still a little messy, but there is a chance any strong psychological barriers to just having sex with Daken would likewise get heightened to full anxiety.
• The Sociopath: He hates his father and cares for no one but himself, and unlike X-23 he has no problem using his powers to get what he wants and kill off anyone who gets in his way.
• Storyboard Body: He has a large tribal tattoo on his chest and arms.
• Stupid Sexy Flanders: He is this to Venom and Bullseye in Dark Avengers. Add to that the fact that Daken is bisexual and also emits pheromones which can make him influence people of the opposite gender. Making his Stupid Sexy Flanders a superpower.

• Survivor Guilt: Muramasa reveals in All-New Wolverine #28 that the reason his Healing Factor remained compromised after the events of Wolverines is because of the immense guilt he carries over his father's death, and not being able to stop it.
• Training from Hell: Ever since he was a child he has been trained as an assassin at the unpleasant hands of Cyber.
• Tell Me About My Father: In an interesting inversion, he asks his father about his mother. Due to the fact they're in a mental plane of existence, Logan decides to show him rather than just tell him. It's a sweet moment until Daken can't touch her and demands more, which Logan can't give.
• Twofer Token Minority: He's half-Asian and bisexual.
• Unobtanium: For a while there, Daken had his claws bonded with metal from the Muramasa Blade which negates healing factors, allowing him to threaten even his dad.
• Unexplained Recovery: His solo series ended with him committing suicide by blowing himself up after losing his Healing Factor. He later returned in Uncanny X-Force as the leader of the new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, with no explanation as to how he'd survived or regained his powers.
  • The series also featured the return of the Runaways, including Chase, who was shown barely clinging to life at the end of their own series.
• Unstoppable Rage: Daken takes full advantage of his father's reputation and what he's well known for his Berserker Rage. So he uses this in battle as well.
• Unwitting Pawn: In Uncanny X-Force, Daken is ultimately an unwitting sacrificial pawn in Sabertooth's latest scheme to screw up Logan's life. It's afterwards turned on its head when it's revealed after his return that he knew Creed was just using him all along, and just went with it for his own reasons.

• Walking Shirtless Scene: To the point of almost once an issue. Lampshaded in one issue when he begins to take off his costume for absolutely no reason whatsoever, seems to think about it, and then continues.
• Wolverine Claws: As expected from the son of the Trope Namer, he has two knuckle-set claws on both hands and two underneath his wrists.
• Wolverine Publicity: During the brief period where he was posing as Wolverine at the behest of Norman Osborn, he was a member of both the Dark Avengers and Dark X-Men. The writers decided to have several characters get in some digs by asking just how many teams Dark Wolverine could possibly be a member of.
• Wolverine Wannabe: Wolverine's son, who inherited a great deal of his father's powers. The main difference is that he also has emotion-controlling pheromone powers, and his healing factor functions voluntarily rather than passively.

• Worthy Opponent: He and Laura come to view one another as this, and Laura becomes one of the very few people he genuinely respects.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Daken's reaction when, after escaping the Torture Cellar he was being held in, the owner calls in reinforcements. And every car in sight rolls down their windows revealing them all to be driven by members of the Orphans of X brandishing automatic weapons.

---