Norman Osborn’s unveils the New Initiative teams composed of various allegedly reformed super-villain groups such as the U-Foes, Psionex, Force of Nature and the Serpent Society. This was a really cool direction for The Initiative book with a major appeal to the Thunderbolts fan in me. Hell, half these characters were Thunderbolts for 2 minutes in Fabian Nicieza’s final arc. Sadly, The Initiative had so many characters and ideas and stories to juggle, the “minor villains posing as heroes” didn’t get much chance to shine through.
But I’m mainly posting this as we see that Asylum is with Psionex... but which Asylum is it? When Psionex first appeared they had a member called Asylum but eventually Psionex re-appeared with Darkling taking over the role of Asylum from whoever the original was. Shortly after that, Darkling was institutionalised. We never ever found out who the original Asylum was or what happened to her. She was defeated by Speedball and had her form dispersed, leaving behind only her mask, but that is also how she was defeated by Nova in her first appearance.
Personally, I think it’s a much more sensible assumption to say this Asylum here is that original Asylum - not Darkling. Darkling’s appearance in New Thunderbolts #16, where he was still institutionalised, would be placed not too long before The Initiative and as we saw in that issue he is barely cognitive. Although, it’s very possible Baron Zemo used the Moonstones to cure him of his madness, much like he promised to do with Blackout, but the nature of Blackout and that promise is a whole other thing I’ve covered in-depth before...
So let’s say this Asylum is Asylum and Darkling is still receiving care and should he ever return he can be Darkling again. I never much cared for making Darkling into Asylum... there was already an Asylum and Darkling had a big story introducing him and should’ve been allowed to stand on his own rather than making him into the new Asylum.
