Synopsis / Summary / Plot
This issue contains 3 stories.
Story 1:- The temptation of Cloak and Dagger
Script: Paul Cornell, Pencils Leonard Kirk, Inks Leonard Kirk, Colours Brian Reber
In Colombia a drug lord has asked Iron Patriot (Norman Osborn) to get rid of some annoying superheroes for him (and for money). His targets are Cloak and Dagger who are burning poppy fields.
When he interrupts them they assume he's here to stop them but he offers them a job. Suspicious Cloak threatens to send IP to the Dark Dimension but Norman says he's come prepared for that. He claims to have a device in his hand that would turn Tyrone Johnson "inside out".
Tandy Bowen decides to hear Norman out. He asks them to join his X-Men, brushing aside the fact that they're not actually mutants. (Despite 1 of their series being bannered 'The mutant misadventures of ...'.) In particular he wants to help them continue their war on drugs more successfully, something that would earn him kudos from the Administration. In return they will be called on to fight anti-mutant bigots. Oh, and to do whatever he asks.
Tandy agrees because of the benefits, but makes it clear that it is under coercion. But when they have shaken on the deal Norman shows them what the device in his hand *really* does. He pushes the button and the whole poppy field explodes - he had scattered mini-bombs in the field as he arrived. But he also claims that he could still have turned them inside out a different way.
Then as drug cartel troops attack IP allows Cloak to spirit the 3 of them away.
Story 2:- Weapon Omega
Script: Marc Bernardin & Adam Freeman, Pencils & Inks Michel Lacombe, Colours John Rauch
Michael Pointer is working on a building site as part of his attempt to atone for all the deaths (including most of Alpha Flight) when he was turned into the Collective (New Avengers #16). His boss (who has a bout of coughing at the time) sends him down to the ground to see Norman Osborn who has come to talk to him. And he offers him a place with his new X-Men.
Michael points out that if he's around mutants he'll start absorbing their energy which will kill them. (That's his mutant power, latent before the Collective event.) But Norman says he can see to it that Michael won't do that anymore.
Osborn also says that that's why he's here *now*. HAMMER just stopped a shipment of the illegal Mutant Growth Hormone but the gas was released during the gunfight. The wind has blown it here and now everyone on the site is going to be turned temporarily into a mutant (remember the boss coughing). Osborn needs to get Pointer away before he kills all his friends.
Michael says people have said they'd help him before but all they wanted was his power for their own use. (Presumably referring to working for the Canadian government in Omega Flight and Marvel Comics Presents where they secretly fed him power from prisoners given MGH.) Osborn counters that Michael's only choice in life his *who* his power hurts.
As he starts to glow and workers start dropping around him Pointer runs away. But Osborn gets ahead of him via helicopter and claims he's heading towards a school full of children temporarily mutant-ised. Michael agrees to join his team, and Osborn promises that geneticist Hank McCoy will be working on his problem.
But in the chopper we see that the Hank McCoy in question is Dark Beast from Age of Apocalypse rather than the good Beast of Marvel Earth. (DB was recruited for the job last issue.) Osborn tells McCoy (wearing an energy shield that protects him from Michael) that he won't use Pointer as a superhero but as a warden (presumably of a prison for mutants).
Story 3:- I am Daken
Script: Rob Williams, Pencils Paco Diaz, Inks Guillermo Ortega, Colours Edgar Delgado
We start off with Daken as (Dark) Wolverine fighting aliens/robots/whatever with his Dark Avengers teammates Iron Patriot, Hawkeye (Bullseye) and Spider-Man (Venom (Mac Gargan)). He and everyone else keeps comparing him to his father Logan/Wolverine.
Later he meets with Norman Osborn who offers him another job with his Dark X-Men. Norman is gambling that joining an X-Men will attract Daken as another way of emulating/annoying his father. But Daken is desperate to stop defining himself in terms of Logan - even though he can't stop doing it.
Osborn takes him to a private box at the opera to see Oedipus Rex, pointedly remarking that it's about a man who kills his own father. He also openly says his team needs a berserker Wolverine-figure. Daken resents the implication that he's insane (like he views most of the other Dark Avengers). But Norman laughs and says of course he is.
Daken then disrupts Osborn's control of the conversation by showing that he knows a lot more about the details of the Oedipus story, the original play and this operatic version, than Norman expected. He agrees to join the X-Men but denies being insane, unlike NO when he was Green Goblin. And walks out having had the last word.