Issue(s): Dark Angel #6
Cover Date: Dec 92
Title: "Bad blood / Power unconfined!"
Credits:
Simon Furman / Bernadette Jaye & Paul Neary - Writer
Gary Frank / Kevin Hopgood - Penciler
Andy Lanning / Sean Hardy - Inker
Gary Russell - Editor

Review/plot:
Gary Frank is credited with "starts" on the main story here, as opposed to Andy Lanning's finishes. This issue is confirmed to be as a "fill-in" in a later lettercol. As far as i'm concerned, Simon Furman and Gary Frank can fill-in wherever they like.

A creature has escaped from Dark Angel's father's castle and is killing people in Darkmoor.

Hell's Angel learns that Mys-Tech have discovered the location of her father's soul fragment. She wants to beat them to it, but she has to deal with the escaped monster. Guide shows up and offers to send more dead super-heroes to delay Mys-Tech. She agrees even though she recognizes that she's just selling her soul to Guide's master.

Excalibur are also called in to deal with the monster.

Hell's Angel gets there first, but gets into trouble and is rescued by Nightcrawler.

Meggan is the first to realize that the monster isn't just a monster.

Then Hell's Angel has the same realization.

Turn the page and she's suddenly zipped away to where Mys-Tech are fighting the dead super-heroes (Miss America, Guardian, Torpedo, and Thunderbird).

She's spotted by Tyburn, but she doesn't do anything.

So she makes it to her father first, and reveals that the monster was her brother.

She sends her father's soul fragment to join the rest of his soul. Turn the page again and we're suddenly back to Excalibur.

At the end of the story, she changes her name to Dark Angel.

I don't know why the jumps between Excalibur portions are so sudden. The Excalibur portions are essential to the plot. I don't see any way they could be stripped out, unless the text of Hell's Angel's monologue to her father was also to be re-scripted (which hasn't been the case in past issues where the guest appearances were designed to be removed).

There's also a back-up in this issue. It's a brief exploration of why Dark Angel needs to wear the armor that limits her powers.

Bscially, her unrestricted power allows Dark Angel to travel back in time, where she kills Mys-Tech before they make their deal with Mephisto. But her actions cause ripples across the timestream, which warps the present day. So everything is restored and she goes back to wearing her armor. In the next arc we will see that she continues practicing without her armor, though.

Quality Rating: C+

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Nightcrawler isn't wearing a cast, so this takes place after Excalibur #54. And we'll see that Dark Angel #7 takes place before Excalibur #55, so this also goes between Excalibur #54-55.

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A