Cloak and Dagger (comics)

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Cloak and Dagger

Cloak and Dagger #1, October, 1983. © Marvel Comics. Art by Rick Leonardi.
Publication information
Publisher Marvel Comics
First appearance Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #64 (Mar 1982)
Created by Bill Mantlo
Ed Hannigan
In story information
Alter ego (Cloak) Tyrone "Ty" Johnson (Dagger) Tandy Bowen
Species Human Mutate
Team affiliations New Warriors, Secret Defenders (Dagger), "Marvel Knights" (Dagger)
Abilities (Cloak) Teleportation
Ability to link to the "Darkforce Dimension"
(Dagger) Ability to create "daggers" of light

Cloak and Dagger (Tyrone "Ty" Johnson & Tandy Bowen) are a fictional comic book superhero duo in the Marvel Comics universe. They were created by writer Bill Mantlo and artist Ed Hannigan.

Contents

[edit] Publication history

Cloak and Dagger first appeared in Spectacular Spider-Man #64 (March 1982). Since then, there have been a number of attempts to launch various ongoing Cloak and Dagger series, but none survived past 19 issues.[1] The pair did make numerous appearances as guest stars, appearing in a wide variety of titles, such as Runaways. The heroes were a prominent part of the Spider-Man Maximum Carnage story arc (Dagger was killed early in the battle, but reconstituted herself through Cloak). Cloak made a solo appearance in issues of the miniseries House of M, as a member of an underground human resistance movement. It was uncertain if Dagger also existed in the altered reality of House of M.

[edit] Fictional character biography

Tyrone "Ty" Johnson (Cloak) and Tandy Bowen (Dagger) met in New York City as runaways. Tyrone was a teenage boy from South Boston, Massachusetts with a debilitating stutter. He ran away to New York City when his speech impediment led to his best friend's death.[citation needed] Tandy was a teenage girl from a privileged upbringing (born in Shaker Heights, Ohio) who ran away because she thought her multimillionaire supermodel mother was too busy for her daughter with her career and social life. They met when Tyrone, who had been considering stealing Tandy's purse, returned it after someone else stole it first.

They were then seized and used as guinea-pigs for an experimental drug given to them against their will by agents of Silvermane. In their case, the drug turned them into super-powered beings. It was later revealed that they were both actually mutants, and that the drug had simply awakened their latent abilities.

Tyrone, as Cloak, gained the ability to access the "Darkforce Dimension" through his extra-dimensional cloak; those drawn into the cloak were stricken with fear and often rendered catatonic. The treatment also cured his stutter. Tandy, as Dagger, gained the ability to generate light, which could purge drugs from others' bodies and subdue the darkness that frequently threatened to overwhelm Cloak. In a more offensive role, she could generate daggers of light, which could stun, cause burns or heart attacks or even an intense desire to reform a criminal life.

Cloak and Dagger became vigilantes and hunted and killed Simon Marshall, and his drug-dealing henchmen responsible for activating their powers. They first encountered Spider-Man during these events.[2] They next murdered Silvermane in revenge, and battled his reanimated cyborg form.[3] They next teamed with Spider-Man to thwart the Punisher's murder attempt on the Kingpin.[4]

When their activities became too damaging for the illegal drug trade, some dealers kidnapped members of the New Mutants and tried to control them by injecting them with a drug similar to that which gave the duo their powers. Cloak and Dagger saved them with Spider-Man, but turned down an offer to join the X-Men's School for Gifted Youngsters.[5]

Cloak and Dagger battled Silvermane and the Answer. The Kingpin wanted Dagger to help heal his wife, but Dagger refused to help him.[6] The pair next met Power Pack.[7]

Cloak and Dagger encountered the Beyonder during Secret Wars II.[8] They also encountered Mayhem, a police officer who had gained powers from illegal drugs similarly to what had been done to them.[9] They next encountered Doctor Doom in Latveria.[10] Alongside Doctor Strange, they battled Ecstasy.[11] They were used in Nightmare's plot to defeat Doctor Strange.[12] They battled Mister Jip, and Night and Day.[13] They also encountered Power Pack again.[14]

Dagger was later possessed by Night, and battled X-Factor, and lost her sight temporarily.[15] Cloak and Dagger battled Hydro-Man, the second Jester, the Hulk android, Rock, and Fenris alongside the Avengers.[16] Dagger later regained her sight, and helped defeat Mister Jip.[17] Cloak later unknowingly met his sister.[18] Cloak and Dagger later battled D'Spayre, learning that he gave them their Dark Form and Light Form, which had been pieces of his soul, which interfered with their natural mutations.[19] Cloak played a small part in the Infinity Gauntlet saga, and was among the heroes assembled by Adam Warlock to fight Thanos.[20]

The two tend to live in churches, supported by friends and priests. They have fought many threats over the years, including Doctor Doom, the villain known as Mr. Jip, and Dagger's own father, who has similar powers to hers.

The pair became romantically involved, though their relationship has had its ups and downs. Cloak has run away many times, not understanding that Dagger is fully willing to use her light power to satisfy his darkness.

For much of their original series, the two followed a drug ring throughout Europe, trying to destroy it at its source.

Cloak and Dagger on the cover of New Mutants #23, January 1985.  Art by Bill Sienkiewicz.
Cloak and Dagger on the cover of New Mutants #23, January 1985. Art by Bill Sienkiewicz.

Dagger was a member of the now-defunct "Marvel Knights" team, partnering up with many different heroes, including Shang-Chi, Luke Cage, Moon Knight and Daredevil. During her time with the Knights, Dagger developed a deep friendship with Black Widow. A powerless Cloak also appeared, after a brief time in which he had been feeding on the life forms of petty criminals, those who did nothing more than be extremely annoying. Black Widow let Ty and Tandy live in her apartment, which was later attacked by a homicidal Life Model Decoy of Nick Fury. Though at this point he was a normal human, Ty defeated the robot. (It was revealed during the series that Tandy had absorbed Ty's Cloak powers, once Cloak was no longer able to control his hunger and was consuming any and every lawbreaker, no matter how minute the offense.)

For a time, they even lost their powers to the heroes Sunspot and Wolfsbane but they cooperated in retrieving them when it was learned the others were not handling it well.

Some time after the Knights series, the two, powered normally again, met the Runaways. This meeting did not go as well as planned as outside forces manipulated Tandy and Ty's actual memories of the group, thus they were not able to help the Runaways. Later the two figured out what was going on and led the Avengers to what they thought was a way to help the team. Cloak would later request their assistance in clearing his name, as he was framed for attacking Dagger. He appealed to the fact that they all shared bonds in being runaways. They agreed to help, and successfully helped him apprehend his impostor.[21]

Cloak was part of the team that attacked Thanos in the Infinity Gauntlet storyline. During the battle, he manages to suck Thanos into the Darkforce Dimension, but is killed as Thanos releases energy from within him (all that is left are pieces of his cloak). His life is restored after most of the events are undone. Not all the heroes remember his involvement, not even Cloak himself, due to cosmic manipulation of time.

Incorrectly believing Dagger to have been murdered, Cloak joined in with a makeshift team of superheroes to battle her 'killers' in the Maximum Carnage crossover- consisting of Spider-Man, Firestar, Captain America, Iron Fist, Deathlok and Venom.

Dagger was one of the "seven brides" selected for the serpent god Set in the Atlantis Attacks crossover storyline, the other six being Jean Grey, the Invisible Woman, Andromeda, She-Hulk, Storm, and the Scarlet Witch.

Dagger was also a member of the New Warriors, during which time the dimension Cloak hooked into had malfunctioned, spewing its dangerous energies into the streets of New York. Those affected by the energies went mad and attacked anyone in sight.

After the House of M storyline, both are unaffected by M-Day.

[edit] Civil War

Cloak and Dagger were revealed to be members of Captain America's faction of super heroes who oppose the Superhuman Registration Act during the Civil War story arc.[22]

Cloak was shot by S.H.I.E.L.D. tranquilizers while teleporting Captain America and the rebel faction to a chemical plant where they believed a catastrophic accident had taken place. It turned out to be a trap set by Iron Man, who was there waiting with the pro-registration faction. Dagger was hit with a lightning attack by a clone of Thor.[23]

It is then revealed that the pair were captured off panel during a mission in Queens and jailed in the Negative Zone prison.[24] They are freed by the shapeshifter Hulkling, who was disguised as the pro-registration Hank Pym,[25] which leads to the climactic battle between the two sides, both of which Cloak teleports to Times Square, New York.[26]

Later Captain America surrenders, thus ending the fighting but leaving many other unregistered heroes as fugitives.

[edit] Secret Invasion

In Secret Invasion #1, Luke Cage calls Cloak, who drops the New Avengers at the top of Stark Tower to steal one of Tony Stark's quinjets. When Cage offers to take him with them to find the downed Skrull ship, Cloak refuses, and vanishes.

[edit] Powers and abilities

Cloak and Dagger were both latent mutants whose powers were activated when they were injected with an experimental illegal drug. They are however considered Mutates rather than Mutants as they required external stimuli to acquire their powers.

Cloak acquired D'Spayre's Dark Form, which gave him the ability to create an aperture into the dimension of darkness and to dispatch persons into the darkness dimension. He also gained the abilities of intangibility, and the teleportation of himself and others through the dimension of darkness. Cloak feels a constant "hunger" which can only be assuaged by "feeding" either on light projected by Dagger or on light consumed from victims dispatched to the dimension of darkness.

Dagger has the ability to create psionic "light daggers" which travel wherever she wills them, and which drain living beings of vitality when struck. Her "light daggers" also have the capacity to cure certain persons of drug addictions, and can alleviate Cloak's hunger for light.

Cloak and Dagger both have moderate experience at street-fighting, and Dagger's combat techniques utilize her light powers and ballet dance training.

[edit] Other versions

[edit] Age of Apocalypse

Cloak and Dagger were members of Sinister's Six, who were brainwashed into fighting the X-Men. They were apparently killed in battle though this has yet to be confirmed.

[edit] House of M

Cloak appears as a member of the Underground Human Resistance led by Luke Cage, regarding Cage as a father figure.[27] Dagger does not appear with Cloak.

[edit] Marvel Team-Up: League of Losers

Dagger features in an arc of Robert Kirkman's Marvel Team-Up (vol. 3), featuring a group of C-list heroes dubbed "The League of Losers". A group of heroes including Darkhawk, Dagger, Araña, Gravity, X-23, Sleepwalker and Terror (although Araña dies along the way) go to the future to prevent the villain Chronok from stealing Reed Richards' time machine, Chronok having come to the present and already having killed all of Marvel's major heroes.

[edit] Marvel Zombies

In Ultimate Fantastic Four #23 Cloak is seen as one of the dozens of zombified heroes, all having gathered together to hunt down and eat the last four known unaffected people.

[edit] Spider-Ham

They appear as the duo Croak and Badger, a frog and a badger.

[edit] Ultimate Tandy Bowen

The Ultimate version of Tandy Bowen has made a cameo in Ultimate Spider-Man[28], running for and eventually succeeding in becoming school president. Ty Johnson has not made an appearance.

In an issue of Ultimate Spider-Man, when Ronin stumbles into a police station to provide evidence against the Kingpin, two women dressed as Cloak and Dagger are both in handcuffs for an unknown offense[29]. It is unknown if these women are the Ultimate Tandy Bowen and the Ultimate Cloak or merely part of a running gag in the Ultimate Spider-Man series in which hookers are frequently arrested in costumes resembling that of Earth-616 heroes.

[edit] Universe X

Ty Johnson is dead, but his cloak is still carried by Dagger. Mar-Vell is given the cloak by Dagger and uses it as a teleportation device and a gateway to the Realm of the Dead.

[edit] In other media

[edit] Film

Cloak and Dagger were chosen as one of the many properties in Marvel's new film deal with Paramount Pictures, along with Captain America, Nick Fury, Doctor Strange, Avengers, Hawkeye, Power Pack, Shang-Chi, and Black Panther.[30]

[edit] Video games

Cloak and Dagger both appear in the 1994 Spider-Man and Venom: Maximum Carnage video game, where they can be "summoned" by the player to harm all enemies on the screen.

[edit] Bibliography

  • Cloak and Dagger limited series #1-4 (October, 1983 — January, 1984)
  • Cloak and Dagger #1-11 (July, 1985 — March, 1987)
  • Strange Tales Vol. 2 #1-19 (April, 1987 — October, 1988)
  • Marvel Graphic Novel #34 (a.k.a. Cloak and Dagger: Predator and Prey) (June, 1988)
  • The Mutant Misadventures of Cloak and Dagger (re-titled Cloak and Dagger with #14 onward) #1-19 (October, 1988 — August, 1991)
  • Power Pack/Cloak and Dagger: Shelter From the Storm graphic novel (1989)
  • "Expressway to Hell" in Strange Tales: Dark Corners - (May 1998)

[edit] Creators

[edit] Writers

  • Bill Mantlo - Cloak and Dagger #1-4 (October 1983-January 1984); Cloak and Dagger (Vol. 2) #1-11 (July 1985-March 1987); Strange Tales (Vol. 2) #1-7 (April 1987-October 1987); "Predator and Prey" in Marvel Graphic Novel #34 (June 1988); Power Pack/Cloak and Dagger: Shelter From the Storm (1989)
  • Terry Austin - Strange Tales (Vol. 2) #8-19 (November 1987-October 1988); The Mutant Misadventures of Cloak and Dagger #1-13 (October 1988-August 1990)
  • Steve Gerber - Cloak and Dagger (Vol. 3) #14-16 (October 1990-February 1991)
  • Terry Kavanagh - Cloak and Dagger (Vol. 3) #16-19 (February 1991-August 1991)
  • Mike Baron - "Expressway to Hell" in Strange Tales: Dark Corners (May 1998)

[edit] Art

  • Rick Leonardi - Cloak and Dagger #1-4 (October 1983-January 1984); Cloak and Dagger (Vol. 2) #1-4, 6 (July 1985-January 1986, May 1986); The Mutant Misadventures of Cloak and Dagger #12-13 (June 1990-August 1990); Cloak and Dagger (Vol. 3) #14-16 (October 1990-February 1991)
  • Terry Shoemaker - Cloak and Dagger #5 (March 1986)
  • Marc Silvestri - Cloak and Dagger #7 (July 1986)
  • Mike Mignola - Cloak and Dagger #8 (September 1986)
  • Art Adams - Cloak and Dagger #9 (November 1986)
  • Bret Blevins - Cloak and Dagger #10 (January 1987); Strange Tales (Vol. 2) #1-6, 8-10 (April 1987-September 1987, November 1987-January 1988)
  • June Brigman - Cloak and Dagger #11 (March 1987); Strange Tales (Vol. 2) #13-14, (April 1988-May 1988)
  • Larry Stroman - Cloak and Dagger #11 (March 1987); "Predator and Prey" in Marvel Graphic Novel #34 (June 1988)
  • Larry Alexander - Strange Tales (Vol. 2) #7 (October 1987)
  • Dan Lawless - Strange Tales (Vol. 2) #11, 15-18 (February 1988, June 1988-September 1988); The Mutant Misadventures of Cloak and Dagger #1-2 (October 1988-December 1988)
  • Whilce Portacio - Strange Tales (Vol. 2) #12 (March 1988)
  • Erik Larsen - Strange Tales (Vol. 2) #19 (October 1988)
  • Sal Velluto - Power Pack/Cloak and Dagger: Shelter From the Storm (1989)
  • Mike Vosburg - The Mutant Misadventures of Cloak and Dagger #3-11 (February 1989-April 1990)
  • Christopher Ivy - Cloak and Dagger (Vol. 3) #17, 19 (April 1991, August 1991)
  • Keith Williams - Cloak and Dagger (Vol. 3) #17 (April 1991)
  • David Ross - Cloak and Dagger (Vol. 3) #18 (June 1991)
  • Alexander Maleev - "Expressway to Hell" in Strange Tales: Dark Corners (May 1998)

[edit] References

  1. ^ Various Cloak and Dagger titles indexed on the. Grand Comics Database. Retrieved on 2007-06-29.
  2. ^ Spectacular Spider-Man #64
  3. ^ Spectacular Spider-Man #69-70
  4. ^ Spectacular Spider-Man #81-82
  5. ^ Marvel Team-Up Annual #6
  6. ^ Spectacular Spider-Man #94-96
  7. ^ Power Pack #7-8
  8. ^ Cloak and Dagger Vol. 2 #4
  9. ^ Cloak and Dagger Vol. 2 #5-6
  10. ^ Cloak and Dagger Vol. 2 #10
  11. ^ Doctor Strange Vol. 2 #78
  12. ^ Strange Tales Vol. 2 #3-7
  13. ^ Strange Tales Vol. 2 #9-11
  14. ^ Strange Tales Vol. 2 #13-14
  15. ^ Cloak and Dagger Vol. 3 #1
  16. ^ Cloak and Dagger Vol. 3 #9
  17. ^ Cloak and Dagger Vol. 3 #13
  18. ^ Cloak and Dagger Vol. 3 #16
  19. ^ Cloak and Dagger Vol. 3 #19
  20. ^ Infinity Gauntlet #1-4
  21. ^ The Runaways, Volume 2, Marvel Comics
  22. ^ Civil War #2 (Aug 2006) Marvel Comics
  23. ^ Civil War #3 (Sept 2006) Marvel Comics
  24. ^ Civil War #5 (Nov 2006) Marvel Comics
  25. ^ Civil War #6 (Dec 2006) Marvel Comics
  26. ^ Civil War #7 (Jan 2007) Marvel Comics
  27. ^ House of M: Avengers #4
  28. ^ Ultimate Spider-Man #87 (Dec 2005) Marvel Comics
  29. ^ Ultimate Spider-Man #110 (Sept 2007) Marvel Comics
  30. ^ Marvel Updates Its Film Slate. ComicBookMovie.com. Retrieved on 2007-05-22.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links