Dark Reign: The List

Dark Reign started almost concurrently with my renewed interest in comics. In fact the whole reason I got started reading again is I saw a teaser for Dark X-Men from my buddy Adrik and thought "Hey! Mimic! I like Mimic, let's catch up" (Sidenote: I like Exiles Mimic, not Earth 616 Mimic. Who knew?). So I read the Dark Avengers books, and read through the Dark X-Men arc to get to Utopia and what not.

Then I heard tell of the Osborn's List. A crossover event in which Osborn would check things off his to-do list. These things range from revenge to murder to neutralization. Not really giving a crap about most of the Marvel Universe, i thought "Ehhh." I read the Avengers issue because I thought the preview on IGN was interesting, and I read X-Men because I do not intend on missing out on the X-Universe. Then randomly I read Wolverine, which, for anyone that's ever heard me talk about Wolverine before, knows is a very strange thing indeed. I despise his character for numerous reasons, but check in every so often to see if I've become a big enough fan boy to like his character. No dice yet, I'll keep you posted. But I thought I'd never read any of the others because I just don't care. But Spiderman came out, and I want to like Spiderman, so I read that. By that point I'd read more than I hadn't, and I had heard on a podcast that Punisher was worthwhile, so I figured I'd bite the big one and read all of them.

And actually, I'm kind of glad that I did. When I was just reading pieces of them, I thought "Wow, these are kind of disjointed stories that would probably mean a lot more to me if I was up-to-date with these series." But having read all 8 issues now I'm actually glad I did. Three of the more interesting twists happened in books I was not planning on reading. And they all start to show just how unhinged Osborn is and just how precarious his position.

Here's a very brief review of all of the titles, in publication order (I read them very out of order). There are spoilers, so be warned:

Avengers: Clint Barton is a badass. He manages to break into Avengers HQ and take out almost every single Dark Avenger. Had even one of his friends backed him up he would have succeeded in taking out Osborn. I get the whole "This is a slippery slope" argument, but there are things that need doing. ****

Daredevil: The fact that Bullseye blew up a building full of people should come as a red-flag for Osborn. I'm still not entirely clear on why Osborn doesn't think this whole thing was a bad plan (or maybe he does and he's got that plan in place too?). Not that the Daredevil universe really concerns me at all, but I the building blowing up surprised me. ***

X-Men: I don't like Namor. I don't like Namor as an X-Man. I don't like blue people. And scene. *

Secret Warriors: I don't care much for Nick Fury, but it wasn't a bad issue. Better than X-Men, but that's saying nothing. That Zodiac/Leviathan thing at the end sounds complicated in a fun way, and I enjoyed Nick's own list in response to Osborns. This is actually the first time I think the list was written out, although the first one I saw was in Hulk, which I think was a better reveal. ***

Wolverine: Cybernetic Zombies run by a giant Brain. Okie dokie then. It wasn't bad, I really just didn't quite understand what was going on here, and I was decidedly unmotivated to find out given past bias. Fantomex was cool, since this was my first time meeting him. I hate Captain Marvel. **1/2

Hulk: Not having read a Hulk book in years, I was kind of surprised that he got the radiation sucked out of him. But I liked the twist that Osborn's goal was to neutralize Banner rather than kill Hulk, because Banner is so smart. This is why I thought revealing the actual list was good here, because it made me go "Oh, this is more complicated." ***1/2

Punisher: Uhm, wow. Daken made Frank Castle fall apart. Literally. Ballsy of the writers to do that in a one-shot. I know I said spoiler alert, but this one needs to be read. ****

Amazing Spiderman: Already reviewed this in the main blog, but it's interesting to see Peter fight Osborn, since they have the most history. I'm interested to see the world start to turn on Osborn. ****

I found the series in general to be interesting. As with anything, there were some issues which were stronger than others. I think it's a good set-up for Seige, which I will only be reading pieces of. With Homecoming and Necrosha wrappping up, and Second Coming starting shortly, and Blackest Night ongoing in the DC universe, priorities have to be set.