Darren Cross

For the musician Darren Cross, see Darren Cross.

Darren Agonistes Cross is a fictional supervillain appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. He is the first enemy of Scott Lang, the father of Augustine Cross, and the cousin of Crossfire.

The character is portrayed by Corey Stoll in the film Ant-Man as the Marvel Cinematic Universe's iteration of Yellowjacket.

Publication history

Darren Cross first appears in Marvel Premiere #47 and was created by John Byrne and David Micheline.

In 2016, his character first appeared as the Yellowjacket in The Astonishing Ant-Man #12, written by Nick Spencer and drawn by Brent Shoonover.

Fictional character biography

Darren Cross is a millionaire and the founder of a successful corporation which rivals its unidentified top competitors. Darren was diagnosed with a heart condition due to overwork, and had to use an experimental nucleorganic pacemaker in order to save his life. The pacemaker was a success but enhanced Darren's circulatory system, mutating his body and giving him superhuman abilities. With a side effect that overuse causes the burning out of his heart, Darren went through various heart transplants, which led him to capture surgeon Dr. Erica Sondheim to replace his heart and to abduct "donors" from the slums.^[1] This attracted the attention of the second Ant-Man looking for Sondheim in order to save his own daughter's life. The resulting battle with Ant-Man burned out Darren's heart, as Sondheim had reimplanted his old, worn-out heart prior to Ant-Man crashing the surgery.^[2]

However, Darren's body was revealed to have been kept in a cryogenic state as his son Augustine Cross, having taken over as the family company head after his father's death,^[3] later became obsessed with bringing Darren back to life and eventually forced Dr. Sondheim to help.^[4] Enlisting Crossfire's assistance, Augustine had orchestrated Cassie Lang's capture as the girl's heart is required to withstand the unique conditions when transplanted into Darren. While infiltrating Cross's company to rescue Cassie, Ant-Man came across his restored nemesis.^[5] Darren engaged in combat against Ant-Man while Ant-Man buys time for Sondheim to transplant another heart to Cassie. Darren is ultimately forced to flee with his son when the Pym Particles now in his body caused him to shrink down.^[6]

As part of the All-New, All-Different Marvel, Darren Cross was later approached by Power Broker II to demonstrate his latest "Hench" App by hiring Whirlwind to kill Ant-Man. However, Cross was unwilling to give Power Broker the 1.2 billion dollars he demanded for investment in the Hench app. This caused Power Broker to cancel the demo and cancel Whirlwind's assassination on Ant-Man.^[7]

Cross later represented his own company when he attended a meeting at the Universal Bank with Tiberius Stone of Alchemax, Wilson Fisk of Fisk Industries, Sebastian Shaw of Shaw Industries, Zeke Stane of Stane International, Frr'dox of Shi'ar Solutions Consolidated, and Wilhelmina Kensington of Kilgore Arms where they discussed Dario Agger's and Roxxon Energy Corporation's plans to exploit the Ten Realms of Asgard. Darren also saw the arrival of Exterminatrix of the Midas Foundation who knocked out Dario and declared herself a new member of their assembly.^[8]

In order to combat Ant-Man, Cross recruited Egghead to work for him at his company. Egghead helped Darren control his Pym Particle abilities by creating the Yellowjacket armor for him.^[9] Cross, Egghead and Crossfire attacked during his nemesis's trial in Cassie's place, but were engaged by Ant-Man, She-Hulk (as Scott's defending attorney), Miss Thing, Grizzly, Machinesmith, and Stinger. Cross was defeated by Stinger, which led to Peggy Rae's final approval of Scott's superhero life and Scott's acquittal in court.^[10]

Powers and abilities

Darren Cross's pacemaker made for his heart gave him superhuman abilities like slightly superhuman strength and increased sensory perception (especially eye-sight); but the side-effect has it burning out each heart that is transplanted into him.^[2] After gaining Cassie Lang's Pym Particles-equipped heart during the heart transplant, he gained size-shifting abilities with so far no control of it. It was shown that he can grow when angry and shrink when calm.

In other media

Film

Corey Stoll as Darren Cross / Yellowjacket in the 2015 film Ant-Man

• Corey Stoll portrays Darren Cross / Yellowjacket as the primary antagonist in the 2015 film Ant-Man.^[11][12] He is a former prodigy that is the son-like protégé of Hank Pym, a sibling-like relationship with Hope van Dyne, and a nemesis of Scott Lang. Cross pushes Pym out of his mentor's namesake company and takes over as CEO, stemming from an obsession with duplicating the original Ant-Man's shrinking technology. Cross attempts this with his Yellowjacket suit despite his imperfect shrinking technology, which slowly drive him mad. While trying to sell his imitation shrinking technology to Mitchell Carson's HYDRA faction and the Ten Rings, Cross has a confrontation with Scott, resulting in Cross donning the Yellowjacket suit to stop the new Ant-Man. When Scott and Hank completely destroy Pym Technologies' work, Yellowjacket tries to exact revenge by threatening the new Ant-Man's daughter, but Scott stops him by shrinking into the Yellowjacket suit and messing with its functions, resulting in Cross shrinking uncontrollably.
• The Darren Cross version of Yellowjacket appears in Lego Marvel Super Heroes: Avengers Reassembled, voiced by Travis Willingham. Hired by Ultron, he takes control of Iron Man's armor. After the Vision notices Yellowjacket, Captain America calls for Ant-Man to fight Yellowjacket where he is knocked out of Iron Man's armor and onto a nearby web on the S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier to be found by Spider-Man and Iron Spider. After getting some information out of Yellowjacket, Spider-Man tells the Avengers about Ultron's plans to use Avengers Tower's special codes to get control of the Iron Legion. While the Avengers head out to fight Ultron, Yellowjacket was taken away by some S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

Video games

• Yellowjacket appears as a playable character in Marvel: Future Fight.
• Yellowjacket appears as a playable character in Marvel: Contest of Champions.
• Yellowjacket appears as a playable character in Lego Marvel's Avengers.
• Yellowjacket appears in Marvel: Avengers Alliance 2.^[13]

References

External links

• Darren Cross at Marvel Wiki
• Darren Cross at Comic Vine