Dark Angel (TV series)

From Fanlore
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Fandom
Name: Dark Angel
Abbreviation(s): DA
Creator: James Cameron, Charles H. Eglee
Date(s): October 3, 2000 – May 3, 2002
Medium: Television series
Country of Origin: United States
External Links: www.darkangeltheseries.com
at IMDb and at Wikipedia
Click here for related articles on Fanlore.

Dark Angel is a TV series that ran for two seasons and starred Jessica Alba as a genetically engineered supersoldier called Max who escaped from a secret government facility when she was a child. It is set in a dystopic future in Seattle. Max works with an activist called Logan Cale (Michael Weatherly) to help people who suffer under the current regime of corrupt politicians and policemen and organised crime. In season two (which also starred Jensen Ackles as Alec, another gengineered supersoldier) the main focus shifts to the transgenics (other genetically engineered beings) and their struggle for a life in the human society.

Dark Angel Fandom

Pairings

The fanfiction written for Dark Angel is mostly het and focuses either on the pairing Max/Logan (M/L) or on Max/Alec (M/A). In the first season, Max/Zack was the alternate het 'ship to Max/Logan, although it never reached the popularity of Max/Alec. Some of this may have been due to fakecest, since Max regarded Zack as her older brother. Although the series did feature an openly gay character, Original Cindy, there is not a lot of femslash in the fandom, though that number is growing, and OC/Max/Alec and Alec/Max/Logan threesome stories have begun cropping up from time to time. There was a small slash fandom, with the main slash pairing appearing to be Logan/Alec (A/L).

The popularity of Supernatural, co-starring the actor who played Alec, has led to the slash crossover pairing of Alec/Sam being fairly common. More rarely, fanworks feature Alec/Dean, a same-actor crossover pairing.

Common Tropes in Fanworks

  • Heat fic: is a common story trope in the fandom, similar to Star Trek's Pon Farr stories, inspired by the overt sensuality of Max' heat cycles in canon.
  • Post-canon: because the show was cancelled after it's second season, and many storylines were not wrapped up, there is quite a bit of post-canon fic, continuing the story or giving it a satisfying ending
  • Crossovers: usually with other scf-fi/fantasy fandoms, the most popular being Supernatural, because of Jensen Ackles appearing on both shows. There is also some crossovers with NCIS, again because some DA fans followed Michael Weatherly there.
  • Original characters: were often found, they were usually fellow Manticore escapees that had encounters with Max, Alec or Logan

Petition

In 2015 fans created a petition to bring back DA With the possibility of a Movie, the petition can be seen here

Challenges

Terminology

  • '09er (oh niner): any of the twelve X5s from Max' unit who escaped Manticore in late February 2009
  • barcode: All transgenics except Joshua have a unique twelve digit Manticore serial number imprinted in their DNA to display on the back of the neck as a barcode.
  • designation :usually the final three digits of a transgenic's barcode number, often prepended by their series. eg: X5-452 for Max
  • heat : period of elevated sexual desire experienced by Max two or three times a year, and lasting a couple of days
  • nomalie, nomlie :childhood name among the X5s of Max' unit for monster, usually applied to transhumans, sometimes to X series soldiers with serious flaws
  • Pulse, The: At 00:05 PDT, June 1, 2009 a high-atmosphere nuclear burst emitted a catastrophic electromagnetic pulse that wiped out much of the computer data storage in the continental United States, particularly west of the Rockies. The country plummeted into economic depression which persists into the 2020s.
  • pre-Pulse :old, vintage, traditional, sometimes with connotations of higher quality or halcyon days
  • Red: south african ex-con soldier modified for high adrenal activity by a neural implant in the brainstem
  • transgenic: a person genetically designed by Manticore, or having to do with such a person
  • transhuman: n. and adj. for the subset of transgenics appearing other-than-human

Archives

Fansites

Communities

Livejournal

Message Boards

Mailing Lists

Resources