Now that Secret Invasion is finally over, Marvel have revealed just what “Dark Reign” is – it involves Norman “Green Goblin” Osborn being placed in a high-ranking position by the US government and put in charge of all the heroes who registered their services following Marvel’s “Civil War” event.

As part of the crossover, Marvel is launching “Dark Avengers” – the line-up of the team is technically still a mystery, and I love mysteries – so here’s my rampant speculation about who the “Dark Avengers” are.

Source 1: Dark Avengers #1 cover

Showing the team in near-silhouette in a direct homage to New Avengers #1, this cover contains a few clues to the identity of the team members. On close inspection, the characters appear to be Spider-Man, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Wolverine and Ms. Marvel.

However, some of those characters are unavailable, and all are unlikely to show up on a team run by Norman Osborn. If you consider Norman’s previous team The Thunderbolts, though, it becomes clear who some of these characters are.

That “Spider-Man”, for example, is quite clearly former Thunderbolt and Spidey-villain, Venom. Follow the logic, and the “Ms. Marvel” is very likely the former Thunderbolt, Moonstone, who has similar powers and appearance to Ms. Marvel. The real “Hawkeye” is currently going under the name of Ronin, but yet another Thunderbolt has the deadly accuracy needed to mimic his ability, and that’s Bullseye. Those three, unaccounted for in Thunderbolts, are all dead certs to be on the team.

That leaves two questions – is that really Wolverine, and who is the “Iron Man” figure, a character already referred to in solicitations as the “Iron Patriot.” We’ll come to Wolverine in a moment, but first, the Iron Patriot. There’s some speculation that it could be Osborn himself in the armour – after all, his time as the Goblin means he knows how to handle battle – but could it be anyone else? The final page of Secret Invasion saw Osborn colluding with a few of the world’s deadliest villains, including armoured despot, Doctor Doom. Could Doom be the man in the Iron Patriot armour? After all, what better place to hide a foreigner than under the guise of a Patriot? Osborn’s ego and Doom’s fierce independence mean that it’s an outside chance, but it fits just enough to make you wonder.

Source 2: Dark Avengers #2 cover

On this cover, we get a better look at the Iron Patriot, Venom-Spidey. Hawk-Bullseye and Ms. Moonstone, but we also see the former “Mighty Avenger” character, Ares, and the former Marvel Boy, Kree-superpunk Captain Marvel. Both of these characters straddle the line between Hero and Villain, and would gladly sign up with Osborn if he could promise to get them into the best fights. Chances are, they’re also on the team.

Source 3: New Avengers #50 cover

Lastly, it’s back to Wolverine. New Avengers #50 sees the “New” team take on the “Dark” team. While the half of the cover available mostly depicts the roster for the New Avengers, it is plain that Wolverine is fighting a brown-costumed version of himself – likely the figure see on the cover to Dark Avengers #1.

It’s a tough call, but Wolverine recently used his brown costume in his solo title, “Wolverine Origins”, which also introduced his wayward son, Daken. Daken could do a fairly plausible Wolverine impression, the only problem being that his third claw comes out of the front of his wrist, not the back of his hand – but in neither released cover is it possible to say that that isn’t the case.

Conclusion:

So, could this be the final Dark Avengers lineup?

Iron Patriot (Norman Osborn - or Dr. Doom?)

70s Costume “Ms Marvel” (Moonstone)
Black Costume “Spider-Man” (Venom)

Brown Costume “Wolverine” (Daken)

“Hawkeye” (Bullseye)

Captain Marvel (Marvel Boy)

Ares, God of War

Looks like a passable roster to me – there’s bound to be a curve-ball or two thrown somewhere, but if reading the story is half as fun as guessing, Dark Avengers is going to be huge in 2009. Not bad for a book with such a stupid title!

James writes Alternate Cover every Monday at Den Of Geek. His previous column can be found here.