Cloak and Dagger step out of the darkness and into the light! But will this pair of violent vigilantes be friends or foes for the spectacular Spider-Man? The young duo's war on drugs will put crime bosses Silvermane and the Kingpin in their sights - and the wall-crawler will be stuck in the middle! Then follow Tyrone Johnson and Tandy Bowen into their own uncanny adventures, and discover what set them on their dark path. Detective O'Reilly wants to arrest them, Father Delgado wants to reform them - but does anyone really understand them? Plus, after Spidey chaperones their fi rst meeting, Cloak and Dagger face a power struggle with the New Mutants!
COLLECTING: Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man (1976) #64, 69-70, 81-82, 94-96; Cloak and Dagger (1983) #1-4; Marvel Team-Up Annual #6; Marvel Fanfare (1982) #19; New Mutants (1983) #23-25.
Cloak and Dagger were never really heroes or villains, just victims that got powers. They were an odd duo that never seemed to fit into the mainstream Marvel universe. I enjoyed the different setting and tone to their stories. Good art. Recommended
I confess: I love older, obscure B-list characters (Iron Fist, Slapstick, Shang Chi, etc.). But Cloak and Dagger have always had a special place in my heart.
So I was pleased to see that they're beginning to reprint some of their old appearences and stories.
And, though dated in some respects, like the Heroes for Hire reprints, these titles still hold up as an enjoyable read, with a tiny bit of social commentary thrown in.
After watching the entire first season of TV's Cloak and dagger I thought I would check out the original comics to see how close it was to the source. Overall it's not too bad. They reversed the backgrounds of the two characters, changed their origin a bit and toned down their vigilante attitude quite a bit.
This graphic novel collects together the origin and early Cloak and Dagger stories from Spider Man comics and then from their own title comics later on. There is a great cast of other Marvel characters in these stories: Spiderman, The Punisher, The Kingpin, Black Cat, Prof X and The Answer to name but a few. Stories and art for most of these episodes was great. However, the last 50 or so pages were a story from The New Mutants featuring Cloak and Dagger. This really let the book down as this was terrible storytelling. Big blocks of dialogue taking up half the frame in many cases. The only plus point being it covered up a lot of the horrible amateurish artwork.
Would be 4 stars if the New Mutants story was cut. As it is it takes it down to a 3 or 3.5 for me.
This was a suggestion by a friend who nailed it! Over 400 pages of sheer awesomeness. I read it slow and savoured every page, every story, every bubble of conversation. I analyzed everything and found myself wanting more. The only part I had trouble with was how sexual they draw a 16 year old girl yet how manly they draw the 16 year old boy. However the story is fantastic. Dark and the light go together perfectly. Spidey is well done. So many classic characters and the artwork is truly one of a kind for its generation. I will be looking for more of them in other comics old and new. I love the battle between their vigilante desires and their desires to do what’s right, plus the torment of their past and how to handle each case. I know there is a show coming up for them and I’m already 80% sure I’ll hate it as the story looks like it’s not staying true to their roots in the comics, but I’d be interested in hearing why they are changing it up. We’ll see how it goes. But anyways I recommend this to anyone but especially with anyone who struggles with the dark and the light. Maybe you’ll find a kindred connection within these beautiful pages of shadows and light.
Finalmente li nesse encadernado uma origem mais completa da dupla de heróis urbanos da luz e da escuridão criados nos anos 80 na Marvel. Finalmente entendi porque a Marvel e a Hulu resolveram criar uma série com estes heróis de protagonistas, sendo que eles sempre tiveram uma trajetória errática de publicações na Marvel. Eu sempre lia esses personagens e achava eles bem rasos, que não eram bem explorados, ou simplesmente eram chatos mesmo. Entre as várias histórias que tem nesse encadernado, a única edição da história de origem dos dois daria para preencher uma série de televisão inteira, tão cheia de reviravoltas e nuances que ela apresenta. Não por acaso, essa era a criação favorita de Bill Mantlo, que morreu há poucos anos. Ele acreditava que esse era seu legado: criar um herói negro e uma heroína branca que representam os dois lados da mesma moeda, em que ao mesmo tempo um complementa e nutre o outro. Os desenhos dessa minissérie são feitos por Rick Leonardi, mas é o finalista Terry Austin que dá vida à eles, lembrando um Arthur Adams. Não é por acaso que com a saída de Mantlo, Austin adotou a série e se manteve nela até seus últimos suspiros, mesmo ela tendo encerrado e começado várias vezes. Realmente me deu vontade de ler mais histórias solo de Manto e Adaga. Mas hoje em dia, isso é artigo raro.
3.75 stars. Whaaaa Tandy is a Cleveland girl?? Kickass. Man it's been a long time since I've read 70's Spider-man. The drama, cheesiness, and subtle humor are pure nostalgia. I am very glad that in modern comics most of the male characters don't jizz over a female superhero anymore. Dagger is just trying to kick their ass and all they can think about is their own dagger, if yaknowwhatimean. Out of this compendium I enjoyed the Spectacular Spider-man comics the most, the Cloak and Dagger miniseries was alright with the final issue containing the origin story being the best, and the New Mutants last. In the end, I'm pretty damn excited to see how it's going to be adapted into a tv series.
I guess if I was going to "blame" someone for my love of comics, it would be Bill Mantlo.
As I mentioned in my reviewI guess if I was going to "blame" someone for my love of comics, it would be Bill Mantlo.
As I mentioned in my review of Rocket Raccoon and Groot, Mantlo's Rocket Raccoon limited series (published in 1985) was one of the first comics I ever read. Sure I didn't get the subtext of the Beatles song that inspired Mantlo to create the character (and as Beatles songs go, that one isn't that good) but when I was ten I don't think I cared about that. I just cared about what looked cool in the newsstand rack at my local convenience store. It turns out, however, that Rocket wasn't the only Bill Mantlo creation that caught my fancy back in 1985. In addition, another one of the first comics I ever read was Cloak and Dagger In 1985, they had begun an ongoing series (that only lasted 11 issues) but given that most of the comics on that rack numbered in the hundreds, I was more interested in issue #1--because even at age ten, I knew it was best to start with the beginning of a story rather than coming in in media res.
I had an expectation that I would run into that issue of Cloak and Dagger #1 as part of the Shadows and Light collection, but that ongoing series is contained in the next volume, not here. Instead what we get is the various sundry appearances of what Mantlo (in a Marvel Age article contained at the end of the volume) described as essentially throwaway characters who managed to gain traction through repeated appearances in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man until they got their own book (on a trial basis.) In addition they made appearances in a Marvel Team-Up annual as well as three issue arc in New Mutants where Chris Clermont followed up the story in the annual to make the character of Cloak and Dagger a going concern from then on out.
I think one problem with the characters of Cloak and Dagger as that they were ahead of their time. I recently read Runaways: The Complete Collection, vol. 1 in which Cloak and Dagger make a two issue appearance. No doubt, when Brian Vaughan wrote Runaways he felt he needed to make an homage to Marvel's original runaways. But the origins of Cloak and Dagger are darker than those of Vaughan's teenage heroes, who are effectively rebelling against their parents (for what it's worth.) Cloak and Dagger are two naive runaways who are exploited by criminals and experimented on by the mob who are trying to develop an addictive new street drug that ends up unlocking their powers. But their powers end up being complimentary and co-dependent. Cloak is ostensibly a hero, but he also is continually fighting the urge to feed on human life-force to sustain him. Dagger is able to provide a substitute, but it seems that she must feed Cloak, setting up a relationship between the two that is intimate and yet damaged (and for this volume I won't even go into the fact that Cloak is a black man and Dagger is a white woman--I'm sure that ruffled some feathers at the time, and hopefully was addressed more in the ongoing series than it did in the comics in this collection.) But given their origins and the nature of their relationship, Cloak and Dagger seems like it may have been more at home as a comic under something like the Vertigo imprint than under the normal banner of Marvel Comics. Yes, comics were tackling tougher issues by the time Cloak and Dagger got their own series, but the Comics Code Authority was still stamping their seal of approval on things in 1985, and it was right there on the cover of the book that was at my local newsstand in 1985. The stories that Cloak and Dagger were a part of only scratched the surface on the issues Cloak and Dagger confronted--teen drug abuse, human trafficking, etc. Perhaps the characters would have been better utilized if these issues could have been confronted head on uncomfortable as they are.
Still, Cloak and Dagger have managed to stay popular (enough for there to be two seasons of a TV show) for the past forty years since Mantlo introduced them to the world. I think as a society were are now more willing to discuss the issues that put those kids in harm's way when they became Cloak and Dagger (sadly, the exploitation of children is as relevant now as it was then--hopefully acknowledging it makes a difference) but the fact that Mantlo did his small part to also bring it to the fore in the pages of Peter Parker is an idea that was totally ahead of its time. This volume shows the potential of a book like Cloak and Dagger, but it could be so much more.
Reprints Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #64, 69-70, 81-82, 94-96, Cloak and Dagger (Limited Series) #1-4, Marvel Team-Up (1) Annual #6, Marvel Fanfare (1) #19, and New Mutants (1) #23-25 (March 1982-March 1985). Tyrone Johnson and Tandy Bowen were young runaways when trouble found them. Picked up by criminals trying to create a new synthetic drug, Ty and Tandy find the drug creates a mutation in them and they become Cloak and Dagger. With vengeance on their mind, Cloak and Dagger are out to punish drug dealers, but encounters with Spider-Man, the Punisher, the New Mutants, and other crime-fighters, have Cloak and Dagger questioning their methods.
Written by Bill Mantlo, Al Milgrom, and Chris Claremont, Cloak and Dagger: Shadows and Light is a Marvel Comics superhero comic book collection. The series collections the first appearance of Cloak and Dagger in Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #64 (March 1982) and the following appearances with art by Ed Hannigan, Al Milgrom, Rick Leonardi, Ron Frenz, Bill Sienkiewicz, Tony Salmons, and Kerry Gammill . The issues in the collection were also collected as part of the Cloak and Dagger Omnibus, Cloak and Dagger: Crime and Punishment, Cloak and Dagger: Child of Darkness, Child of Light, The Punisher: Back to the War Omnibus, The Amazing Spider-Man: The Complete Alien Costume Saga—Book 1 and Book 2, and New Mutants Epic Collection: The Demon Bear Saga among others.
Cloak and Dagger were a big deal when I was starting to read comics. The war on drugs was raging in the 1980s, and Cloak and Dagger brought the war to comic books. Unlike characters like the Punisher who went after mob bosses and slaughtered them, Cloak and Dagger went after the dealers (which sometimes coincided with the mob bosses). Also unlike the Punisher, the characters seemed to evolve more in the course of this collection and change their methods.
Cloak and Dagger start out in Spectacular Spider-Man as essentially cold blooded killers out for revenge. They murder the people who attempted to kill them and killed all the children. Unlike Spider-Man who doesn’t cross the “kill” line, these characters do…and it feels rather harsh due to the age of Ty and Tandy. The storyline has them dispatch the men who “made” them rather quickly so it leaves the characters with no long term plan for their actions.
With revenge accomplished, the characters are left to grow and they are a bit inconsistent in their behavior. While they easily killed early on, they later bemoan their actions and work harder to purify drug users. Unfortunately in the 1980s, the vilification of drug users was greater, and the idea of addiction as a disease wasn’t as prevalent. It would have been interesting if there had been more exploration into the “cleaning” of the addicted and what that meant long term, but the comic was about the immediate action (like most comics of the time).
Cloak and Dagger is a fun throwback. It has that grim ’80s feels that dominated the comics, but it still feels a bit like a teen comic book like New Mutants or New Teen Titans. The issues in the collection mostly feature the characters as supporting roles in other comic book series and their characters and their actions aren’t quite as developed as a result (and I always found Cloak and Dagger’s powers rather ambiguous). Cloak and Dagger’s story continued in the launch of their own series. Cloak and Dagger: Shadows and Light was followed by Cloak and Dagger: Lost and Found.
This tome has over 400 pages and collects the first appearances of Cloak and Dagger, mostly in the pages of Spider-Man, and their first miniseries. These are very 1980s comics. Most of them are very verbose and as much as I adore Chris Claremont’s writing, he’s one of the worst offenders, although the Spider-Man writers aren’t far behind. These Spider-Man issues (specifically the last ones 94-96 were some of the first superhero comics I ever read so it’s hard for me to be objective about them. :) Their TV-show isn’t on Netflix here and I haven’t seen it.
Cloak and Dagger first appear in the collection’s first comic: mysterious figures who are threatening a man’s life. However, rather quickly Spider-Man finds out that they aren’t really criminals. Rather, they’re a pair of teenagers who got their powers from synthetic drugs and now they want revenge against all drug dealers and also to help runaways who are exploited. I’m sure some readers find this too heavy-handed but I quite liked the theme.
The pair’s powers have changed a bit, depending on the story. In the first story, Dagger’s “daggers of light” kill the drug dealers. But later they purge the drugs out of the bodies of anyone who is hit. They’re also described as cold but in one story her light gave warmth. Cloak’s darkness is always cold and makes anyone caught in it weak. Later, it’s revealed that the darkness craves light and that Dagger’s light can feed it. But if Dagger’s light isn’t available, the darkness will want to feed on the light of humans (life). Cloak must constantly fight against it. While Dagger is a less tragic figure, she’s still a teenager who wants a normal life, which she can never have. In these stories at least, they aren’t portrayed as lovers but considering that they’re both 16, that wouldn’t have been appropriate for a Spider-Man comic (and I’m sure the racial issue also prevented that, too).
Most of the stories focus on C&D going after drug dealers or trying to save kids from them. But the last story appeared in New Mutants and is different from the others. However, all of them (except for the miniseries of course) have long-running subplots which aren’t resolved here. Debra’s subplot is especially cringe-worthy as she’s constantly crying when thinking about Peter. She knows that he’s Spider-Man and cries when she thinks of the dangers he’s facing. If that doesn’t bother you, this is an excellent collection of the beginning of Cloak and Dagger and a very good showcase of 80s comics.
Capa y Puñal son dos adolescentes que, tras ser usados como sujetos de experimentación, desarrollan superpoderes. Capa tiene el poder de las sombras y la oscuridad y es capaz de envolver y tragarse a sus enemigos. Puñal tiene el poder de la luz y es capaz de lanzar dagas de luz que pueden herir o sanar según su voluntad.
Capa y Puñal nacen de una época de EEUU, a principio de los años 80, donde la droga alcanzó la categoría de epidemia al abaratarse un 80% el precio de la cocaína, lo que facilitó su acceso a todo tipo de personas. En este contexto, Capa y Puñal tendrán una misión principal que será la de erradicar el tráfico de drogas atacando a camellos y narcotraficantes y purificando los cuerpos de los drogadictos para liberarles de su dependencia.
No deja de ser irónico que dos personajes como Capa y Puñal, que son luz y oscuridad y, por tanto, totalmente dependientes el uno del otro, se dediquen a liberar a otros de su dependencia.
Su primera aparición será en "The Spectacular Spider-Man" donde harán algunas apariciones más como personajes secundarios que luchan con/contra Spider-Man en función de las circunstancias.
En contraste con los cómic de Spider-Man, cuando aparecen Capa y Puñal se "ensombrece" la ciudad. Aparece más basura en los dibujos, pintadas, mobiliario urbano destrozado y, en definitiva, una ciudad en decadencia que muestra lo peor de la sociedad. Ese contraste con los típicos cómics de Spider-Man llama mucho la atención y ayuda a entender la crisis social a la que la ciudad se está viendo sometida por las drogas.
A parte de las drogas también se abarcan temas incómodos como el trato denigrante a los inmigrantes, la prostitución, o el asesinato por el simple placer de poder hacerlo, dejando ver el lado más inhumano de la especie humana.
Capa y Puñal no dejan de ser dos adolescentes a los que les han arrebatado la libertad y que se impondrán a sí mismos la difícil misión de erradicar la droga de su ciudad mientras van descubriendo sus poderes y limitaciones y van modelando su moral para evolucionar de unos personajes que inicialmente se mueven por venganza a unos personajes que se mueven por justicia.
El estilo de dibujo es el típico de cómic americano de superheroes y usan colores muy oscuros contrastando mucho con Puñal, que viste de blanco y tiene un brillo refulgente.
Sin duda unos personajes de Marvel menos conocidos pero muy interesantes y con muchísimos flecos y transfondo detrás de los mismos. Muy recomendable para personas mayores de 15 años que disfruten con los cómics o novelas gráficas de superheroes.
Most of my recollection of this comic book title was the influence held over a pubescent me by Marvel’s barest attempt at a costume on Dagger. Since this title is getting adapted for television, I figured this assembly was worth a read. Now that I am done, I am not sure I can agree with that prior optimistic assessment. The one real saving grace was the final New Mutants storyline. The writing in this was great, and the art was bleak in a Sandman sort of way. If you pick this up at all, I would skip straight to the end and just read these three issues.
In the middle of reading, I set this aside for a bit, as the Punisher sequence left a bad taste in my mouth. Frank Castle was presented really far off from his core (shooting at people committing misdemeanors like traffic violations - this is just ridiculous in a Big Shot from The Tick sort of fashion). Many of the storylines read like a DARE comic. Characters were flat. The priest was particularly flaccid, and he had so much promise since this book really had a look and feel like Moore’s Swamp Thing run. The detective almost has nuance and depth, but all we received was inconsistency. With the format of this compilation we also got repetition, where we were re-introduced to the characters and their origins in storyline after storyline. Here’s hoping that the adaptation of this title gets even half the magic they pulled out for the previously D-List Guardians of the Galaxy.
Cloak and Dagger were always interesting characters to me in passing, and this collection of their early-eighties stories finally gave me a chance to get to know them better. I'm not sure they were worth the wait.
They're compelling, at least in small doses, but their characterizations are also really, really narrow. He hungers, she supports, they fight crime. They do almost nothing else -- a fact that they notice and lament -- so they don't have the rich lives and supporting cast of Peter Parker or Bruce Wayne. There's a reason they're supporting characters in Spider-Man's book and not vice versa.
Chris Claremont adds some context to them in the New Mutants stories that finish out the collection, recasting them slightly as victims of possession, obsessed with their vigilantism because of the nature of the powers attached to them. It's a revision that keeps the strengths of Bill Mantlo and Ed Hannigan's original ideas while giving Tyrone and Tandy a path to grow into protagonists with more dimensions. But in this era at least, the characters work better as the victims of cautionary tales and not the protagonists of heroic tales.
(As a side note, the take on drugs in the early eighties now reads as tooth-grindingly simplistic. Just Say No, indeed . . . )
"THE DARKNESS AND LIGHT ARE ALIKE... I AM FEARFULLY AND WONDERFULLY MADE." - Psalm 139:14
This book has three main sections: First, The Spider-man stories, in which Cloak & Dagger first appear, were my favorite. Total spider-bias. I just love me some web-head. Next, Cloak & Dagger get their own four-issue limited series. It was okay. But not nearly as entertaining as every other issue in this book. Finally, while I didn't enjoy the art in New Mutants (including the Marvel Team-Up and Marvel Fanfare issues), which somehow complemented the story well, I thoroughly enjoyed the storytelling. It focused largely on Professor X helping our protagonists to understand their powers. I'm cheap, so I usually wouldn't pay full price for some characters that I was completely ignorant of. But, as I found this book at Ollie's Bargain Outlet for $6.99 (retail $34.99), it was worth what I paid. If you can find this on clearance, go for it. Otherwise, I would only recommend this to Cloak & Dagger fans (Would they be called Cloakies or Daggerheads?). Four stars... mostly for the Spider-man stories.
If you care to read Cloak and Dagger's origins and everything about how they started, I would recommend!
There's some neat crossovers with Spider-Man, the character whose book they originated from, as well as Punisher and the New Mutants here!
You do get loads of interruptions with what Peter Parker is doing, but at least they are really great highs in Peter Parker's history!
Cloak and Dagger have elements that are fascinating and intriguing start off here, but man oh man, you are going to get some real repetitive loops with them.
The New Mutants crossover is a real highlight, both because I'm a huge New Mutants fan and it was a treat to revisit, but also the way Claremont gives so many fresh explorations to Cloak and Dagger really does make it a necessary crossover in every way!
I've never read any of the original Cloak and Dagger material. I only know them from slight appearances here and there from the last 20 years in other titles. I picked this book up because it's basically a Spider-man collection disguised as a Cloak and Dagger book and it gave me the chance to see these Spidey issues in color reprints.
I had no idea that Cloak and Dagger where so bloody and vicious. They're basically teen-age versions of the Punisher only with slightly different targets. They kill a bunch of bad and bad-ish people. And Spidey is sort of cool with it cuz Jeez and Heck - they're only kids! --Very weird Spidey! You usually put people in jail for picking pockets, not letting murderers slide because they're kind of cute. -- Dark Age of Comics indeedy!
This graphic novel was a lot of fun. There was a mix of a few early retro lines of comics including Spider-man and The New Mutants. I loved getting to read some retro Marvel and getting an early introduction to Cloak and Dagger. There is something special about this era of comics for sure, especially getting to read about obscure characters like Cloak and Dagger. I plan to read Spider Island and Runaways and Reversals, then I'm off to explore some New Mutants, Venom, and some X-force.
Cloak and Dagger are super interesting characters, with a lot more to offer than is shown in these first appearances. A lot of these early stories are about 1980s moral crime panic and based around misunderstanding of the drug and prostitution worlds of 1980s New York... like a lot of "edgier" comics at the time, kind of ascribing cartoonist motives to villains.
And of course outright stating that Dagger, one of the most objectified female characters in comics, is 16...
BUT there is some good stuff in here about the relationship between Ty and Tandy and the world's reactions to their seemingly codependent dynamic. Its a very interesting start.
I had forgotten how many appearances Cloak and Dagger made back in the day in Spider-Man starring books. The best part of this collection is, of course, the four issue mini series starring C&D. This really helped to flesh the characters out beyond their early roles of just "vengeance deliverers against those who stalked helpless kids".
I love Cloak and Dagger! This is a great collection of their earliest appearances, and is a solid read for any fan. The only downside is that at this point, the characters are almost 40 years old and some of the stories show their age a little. Aside from that, these are great! Huge appearances from Spidey and the New Mutants too.
Cloak and Dagger give each other balance. They are light and darkness and therefore can only work together as an undividable team. This first volume introduces the reader to their powers, background story and mission. I am excited to read later issues featuring the duo.
This volume seems to have most of their early comics collected in one place. As always there were the annoying “check out this other random issue!” boxes pointing towards comics I’ll never read. Also, damn if these older comics don’t have a racism problem.
Son varias historias en las cuales Capa y Puñal tiene un papel casi secundario en la mayoría de ellas. Aún así, en la minisérie exclusiva si se llevan el protagonismo que se merecen. No luchan contra nadie en especial, ni ocurre nada interesante en general, son historias para conocer el inicio de los personajes, sus personalidades y eso. He de decir que todavía no sé qué hace puñal exactamente, a veces mata, a veces cura, a veces hace daño, pero siempre lanza los mismos ataques. Lo mejor, que sean personajes oscuros. Después de ver 100 películas de Marvel donde siempre gana el amor y la amistad, está bien ver cómo unos personajes no quieren sus poderes, matan a gente sin piedad, e incluso llegan a luchar contra adicciones igual que la gente contra la que lucha. Me apunto los personajes para leer cosas más actuales de ellos.