Cloak and Dagger: Lost and Found

Cloak and Dagger (Collected Editions) #3

by Bill Mantlo, Rick Leonardi (Illustrator), Terry Shoemaker (Illustrator)

Urban vigilantes Cloak and Dagger tackle drug dealers and police corruption! But as Cloak embraces his darkness, visiting terror on servants of sin, Dagger yearns for the light. Can these young heroes find their path together, or will all be lost? Father Delgado wants to rescue Dagger from Cloak's corrupting influence — and Spider-Man may come between them, too — but a tempting offer from the all-powerful Beyonder could transform the future of the dark-and-light duo! Detective O'Reilly's investigation leads to death and mayhem, while Cloak and Dagger embark on a globetrotting trip to destroy the drug trade! Plus: Dagger joins the circus, but the fun and games won't last long if Doctor Doom has his way! It's strange tales, spiritual struggles and unexpected family ties!

COLLECTING: Cloak and Dagger (1985) #1-11, material from Strange Tales (1987) #1-2.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Marvel, Comic Book, Superheroes

313 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 8, 2017

About the author

William Timothy Mantlo is an American comic book writer, primarily at Marvel Comics.
(source: Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Little Timmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cloak and Dagger seemed destined to be a B team superhero duo without a home. Marvel finally took a chance on them and gave them their own series in the mid 1980s. While is was a short run series it was a nice set of stories about this very street level set of heroes. Recommended

[Shadowdenizen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anither fun Cloak & Dagger compilation(following "Shadows and Light"). Here's hoping theres more C&D stuff to come to prepare for the upcoming show!

[Alice · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm so sorry to say this but this was such a drag.
I can't really blame anyone since I think the slowness is due to how comics were structured in the 80's, a long evolution awaits before autors will nail the fast-paced and direct narration comics are known for nowadays. It might even by my own preference and not due to the age of this piece, nonetheless, here are my thoughts.
It's common knowledge that a good narration is made up of showing, rather than telling. Even more so in comics where there is literal showing within the panels and telling would fill up pages and pages with dialogue bubbles. And yet this is what made up every single page of this volume, I don't even know how many times the cops explained the evil nature of vigilantes, or Mayhem introduced herself and explained her origin story to her victims. By issue #4 I was already tired of the yellow boxes used to point out Cloak's feeling.
In addition the plot really slows down once the duo leaves New York on their hunt for the drug dealers, the story took quite a turn with Clayton stepping between the pair and the appearance of Victor Von Doom (not sure how I feel about that) before finally reaching the resolution of the entire volume.
All in all, it's a good story: it fully explains the evolution of the two young superheroes and the birth of Mayhem. I enjoyed the depth given to the characters, especially thanks to Tandy's backstory and encounters with her past (not as much with Tyrone), I can barely criticize the content, I'm just really done with its form. Hopefully the 1990 version portrays the story better.

[Petergiaquinta · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pretty awful…simplistic and stereotypical, with Bill Mantlo's writing so wooden and hamfisted you just might want to stab yourself in the eardrums. How many times does the phrase "angel of light" or "demon of darkness" appear in the text? "Way too many" is the answer, and while I appreciate the way Mantlo wants to explore the effects of the drug trade on America's youth as our two teenage superheroes follow the traffickers from New York to Europe into Southeast Asia, it's just too repetitive and too heavy handed with its "after-school special" message, lacking the necessary grit to accurately depict this fallen world where law enforcement, parents, and the Church have failed the children they should be protecting.

But it's the lazy stereotypes driving the storyline that really make it painful to read. Tandy Bowen is the poor little rich girl and oh-so white who finds herself transformed into the purer than pure wielder of light. Tyrone Johnson (yeah, how's that for just about the most cliched name Mantlo could find) is the black hoodrat from the other side of the tracks, dark and brooding, and now transformed into some cloaked kind of monstrosity with a hunger for retribution. It's stupid lazy, but just by flipping the stereotypes (which wouldn't have demanded much in the way of mental gymnastics from Mantlo in 1982), the recent television series comes across as much improved and far less cliched. There, Tandy is a damaged, broken sociopath of a young woman, a liar and a thief preying on others with little about her character that could be considered pure. Tyrone, on the other hand, is the private school kid who has grown up with the structure of family and many of the good things in life that Tandy is missing, trying to find his way in this world of privilege that still discriminates against him as a young black man, but persevering to be a good student and a good son. The accident which brings these two together in the television show isn't some new drug created by a mad scientist and administered to the two teenage runaway guinea pigs by cartoonish drug traffickers, but an explosion caused by the Roxxon Corporation, only slightly less cliched, I suppose, but introduces the problems in a society where corporate greed is just as toxic to the world and the wellbeing of children as drugs run by the mafia.

And transplanting the television series from New York City to New Orleans also opens up some doors for some fresher story writing missing in the comics. Cloak and Dagger's powers now play out against a historical cycle of light and darkness which goes back a millenium or more in the socio-geographical history of the land. There are patterns at work here which are replaying themselves, and the "magic" of the teens' powers is imbued with the voudon of New Orleans. Both Papa Legba and Baron Samedi play minor recurring roles in the tv series; the music of New Orleans comes into play, and the contemporary issues we are facing regarding the killing of young men of color are brought to the forefront in the television show, none of which come into the comics. Instead, despite Mantlo wanting to address real world problems in his script, it's Spider-Man, Dr. Doom, and the Beyonder who show up here. Spider-Man makes sense because Cloak and Dagger make their original appearances in his pages. But Doom makes for a super-odd cameo as our two young world traveling crime fighters find themselves in Latveria, something you'll never see in the television show. Even weirder is Cloak and Dagger crossing paths with the Beyonder on the streets of Manhattan's Lower East Side, although in a comic that deals with light and dark/good and evil, this meeting could have been really interesting. Unfortunately, things stayed dumb and simple, although the Beyonder did get himself high as hell before he went floating off on his merry way.

Listen, the tv show Cloak and Dagger isn’t great, but it towers over its hackneyed source material. If you're a fan of the show and would like to see where it came from, you'll be sadly disappointed by what you find here. C’mon Bill Mantlo, you weren’t trying very hard!

[Dallas Johnson · Rating 2 out of 5]

Don't get me wrong, the change in scenery is much appreciated in this book and it's got some amazing art work too!

But the way we'd explore something with Cloak and Dagger just for it constantly be dropped and moved on from felt so un-interesting.
Mantlo's interviews at the end made it feel all the more upsetting with how this series never became about helping runaway kids directly, like promised.
Everything was just some impersonal fight against sinners.

There are some neat expansions on how Cloak and Dagger's powers work, that are just explained out of nowhere time to time.

The direction of the detective was interesting, but the priest and Cloak characterizations were abysmall to experience.

Marvel's whole schtik is nuancing the concept of superheroes, so it's a shame to see how Tyrone is always seen as a "demon" and slandered ceaselessly and then does problematic things to warrant it sometimes?! Just feels like negative racial stereotyping constantly.

The best issue by far was the Doctor Doom crossover where we get Doctor Doom tackling the nuclear energy issues of our modern era! Doom's characterization is so masterful and fascinating!

There's a few other little interesting stories with Tandy's family, Spider-Man, and the Beyonder here too.

Overall this series felt like an anti-climactic wandering let down.

[Bryan House · Rating 5 out of 5]

Part of my research for Marvel Rivals

Very camp. Super fun read

[Cora · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars.
#1-11
This is one of the best Marvel comics this year. I enjoyed the depth to the characters, the amount of detail the story went into and I loved reading it.
The only bad points it has is that the hunting down drug dealers story dragged on a little longer than I expected it to but I liked the way the writers had a break from that storyline in #10 by having a well known villain.

Strange Tales - #1-2.
The storyline in these two issues was okay and explored Dagger's past with her father. These two issues felt short to me with each being 11 pages long. Also because it says "Clock and Dagger & Doctor Strange" on these issues, I thought they would have included the Doctor Strange part as well.

[Matt Aukamp · Rating 2 out of 5]

I bounced between 3 stars and 2 stars here, because Cloak and Dagger is just such a weird comic book. Mantlo seems to have wanted to use the heroes to make some broader points about the degradation of society but continuously confused himself with more and more complicated ethical politics. As a guy living in New York in the 1970-80s, you can see how he might have been overwhelmed by the ideas of the drug trade and violent crime and wanted to speak out against them in a meaningful way. He wanted to talk about how exploitative sex work, drug trafficking, and violent crime all created a "darkness" in society that was going unexamined by the people perpetrating it. Dagger creates light-knives that "purify" a person of drugs and "evil," temporarily, allowing them to see what "might have been." Cloak is a void of darkness that can suck the "light" out of people so they can see the ultimate ends of their "evil" ways. The two, working in tandem, can help a bad person see the error of their ways and put them back on track.

However, Mantlo seems to get lost in his own anger. He continuously finds situations where certain "criminals" are "beyond redemption." It seems he then feels conflicted about his messaging, so he turns different characters (sometimes at random-unfortunately for consistent character development) into mouthpieces for alternate viewpoints. He'll have the "hero" making a deep and impassioned argument for why some random drug dealer is irredeemably evil, and then pit them against some random side character giving a weak argument for why all people are deserving of redemption. The result is that it is consistently unclear what the viewpoint of the book is. Did Mantlo believe in redemption and reformation? Or did Mantlo believe in an authoritarian police state?

To make matters worse, the racial implications are constant. Dagger, the creature of light, a woman so purely "good" that it radiates out of her, is a young beautiful white woman. Cloak, a Black man, is constantly characterized as a demon of darkness. A scary, violent ghoul obsessed with his mission and hungry to drain the souls of others. Other characters repeatedly accuse Cloak of manipulating Dagger (which his internal monologue sometimes confirms) to stay with him because he needs her and doesn't want to let her go. This often smacks of the racist "predatory Black man, stealing white women" trope that caused so much pain, death, and heartache in the century prior to this book. Almost exclusively white characters try to take Dagger back from Cloak and free her, only to fail when she either exerts her own will or is manipulated by Cloak once more.

Again, Mantlo seems to be aware of this and makes some really clumsy attempts at course-correcting throughout. Father Delgado, the biggest offender on this front, undergoes a change. When introduced in the previous series, he is a purely good character. Possibly a bit naive, he always wants what's best for the community and for Dagger. It's in the book, as the racist undertones become starker, that we find out that Father Delgado is plagued by his own pathos, both obsessed with the possible religious implications of Cloak's possession and his own sexual feelings towards Dagger - a 17-year-old girl. Is Father Delgado evil, and thus Cloak is being unfairly maligned? It's hard to tell!

On the "17-year-old girl" front, Dagger is one of the most sexually exploitative characters in comics and remains so. Her costume is a skin-tight dancer's outfit with cut-outs allowing us to see her cleavage, the tops of her breasts, and her belly button, with an arrow pointing straight to her crotch that cuts off just above her presumed pubic hair. Every male character --generally fully grown adults-- comments on her beauty. 75% of artists highlight her nipples, poking through the costume. Even if we take comic books to be a pageantry of exaggerated bodies and gender expression, this is a bit much. And this is from a comic where "pornographers" are routinely demonized and the first story is about sexually trafficked young girls being forced to be nude spectacles for the male gaze.

The problem is that, for all its contradictions, Cloak and Dagger is not a nuanced book. It's a book that makes a broad, sociologically naive statement in one issue, only to completely reverse its stance in the next (sometimes this happens panel-to-panel). It represents an unrealistically dark world and asks its readers to make moral judgments on characters who not only are unlikely to exist (not because they're superheroes, but because of their lack of nuanced 3-dimensionality) but change wildly throughout. Mantlo wanted to make a comic where two kids in a difficult situation learn and grow, shedding off naive assumptions about the world and growing into adults who make adult decisions in difficult situations, but the deeper I read, the more I grow concerned that Mantlo was never mature or well-informed enough to achieve that goal. I want to like these characters. I want to follow Mantlo on this journey where Cloak and Dagger do legitimately change their positions on important ethical issues, but the journey is rough and I'm not sure the destination is going to be any better.

[Alex Sarll]

Oh wow. Cloak and Dagger were among those characters who were part of the scenery when I was first getting into comics, so like Alpha Flight or the West Coast Avengers, they have a certain deep-rooted fascination despite my not being sure whether I read much or any of their stuff at the time. But this...this is like huffing the mid-eighties. The opening page is Times Square at its sleazy neon extreme; the first story sees our heroes (or are they?) busting out a bunch of girls from a peepshow, who *obviously* are all kidnapped, hooked on drugs by pimps and/or brutalised. The second issue, it's bored rich kids setting fires while their parents decadently party, and the minute Dagger walks in she's pushily propositioned by the lot of them, including (eighties bingo!) a pair of predatory lesbians. The cops are slobby and corrupt (except for one female detective, whose days are clearly numbered), and of course the protagonists got their powers from a crime syndicate testing addictive new variants of The Drugs. I could practically hear the theme from The Equalizer playing throughout. Of course, as a 1985 series, born on the cusp of the Bronze Age and the Dark, there's a weird tension between these more adult (or at least, desperately trying to seem that way) elements, and the hokeyness of the pre-Watchmen medium. It was standard back then for captions or creaky dialogue to remind readers of the leads' identity, powers and origin each issue, but I swear sometimes here it happens multiple times within a single issue, just in case the kids are all too distracted by the hyper-realistic graphics on the new NES to keep up. And of course, there's Cloak and Dagger themselves. Both runaways, but she's posh, blonde and has light powers; he's poor, black and has darkness powers. It's so thoroughly on the nose that you can quite understand the brief attempt made recently to mix things up by switching them over. The relationship between them was never intended to be healthy, but reads even more iffily now, with only her light able to allay his darkness and stop him from going full psycho, sucking the innocent-ish into the nightmare dimension within his cloak. And then you have the controlling figure of the priest at whose church they take sanctuary, forever trying to save Dagger from Cloak, unwilling to accept the possibility that there might be evil within his flock... The whole thing is problematic on pretty much every conceivable axis (let's not even go into the scene where Spidey shows up for a guest spot, removes his mask with nary a care, and snogs teenage Dagger), but the sheer fervor with which it takes on life at the bottom of the heap, its threats and temptations, has a real power. This is pretty much a type specimen for street-level superhero comics.

And then, as part of a Secret Wars II crossover, the all-powerful Beyonder turns up. Which at least provides a laugh when Dagger sees someone who looks like late-period Michael Jackson (though less pale) wandering blithely down a slum street, and says that he doesn't look like he does drugs. Thereafter things go a bit wonkier, not least when the pair are joined by a new chum, the undead-ish Mayhem, and suddenly decide they can abandon their debates about killing or not to leave her cheerfully slaughtering her way around the neighbourhood while they head off to stop the drug trade – at source! Inevitably, eighties comics do not get any less awkward once they head to foreign climes, and it's mere pages before one luckless goon, and arguably the series, have literally jumped the, or at least a, shark. The circus issue is lovely, true, but before long our heroes take a detour to Latveria and what had quite recently been a grim tale of vigilantism on the piers and backstreets of the Big Apple instead lays on the second most laboured Prometheus metaphors I saw yesterday as they confront a Doctor Doom bent on ending nuclear reactions around the globe with some special particles – and, Cold War notwithstanding, the daft buggers decide that they need to stop him rather than pat him on the back. The story ends with a Christmas story set in Bethlehem, a big showdown in the Golden Triangle and a reunion in India which...well, let's just say they're not the most postcolonial things I've ever read.

At times this feels like a prototype of the Ostrander/Mandrake Spectre run a few years later – a cloaked figure meting out harsh poetic justice, a church as recurring location, the tension between two halves of a whole, between justice and mercy. But if so, that learned an awful lot from this about how to balance the gritty realism with the high-level superheroics. And for all The Spectre's grand guignol tendencies, the fact that it's a comic about the literal Wrath of God, it also feels positively restrained and naturalistic in comparison.

[Mervi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Collects Cloak and Dagger maxiseries issues 1-11 (1985) and their part of Strange Tales issues 1 and 2.

Just like the first Cloak and Dagger collection, “Shadows and Light”, “Lost and found” is a perfect example of 1980s superhero comics. Compared to current comics, it’s very wordy. The pictures are explained and Mantlo also has lots of explanations about how Cloak feels. There are also some unfortunate stereotyping. But if you don’t mind that, it’s a very good read.

It starts right from the previous collection and has the same (small) cast of recurring characters. Cloak and Dagger break up a illicit porn shop. The police show up and the men who run the peep show, using mostly unwilling girls, tell detective Brigid O’Reilly that many of the cops in her precinct have been bribed. O’Reilly starts to look into it over several issues while tracking down a big drug shipment coming to New York. Also, father Delgado is increasingly obsessed with “saving” Dagger from Cloak.

Meanwhile, Dagger wants a normal life. When father Delgado tells Dagger that her mom and stepfather are in down, Dagger leaps to the chance to meeting them again. Unfortunately, she’s bitterly disappointed and becomes a bit disillusioned.

Issue seven takes our heroes out of America and to Europe where they’re tracking down the opium so that they can get to the source and shut it down. This takes them from Marseilles to Istanbul and takes the rest of the collection. They encounter various local gangsters and for a brief time Dagger even joins a circus and finds a little bit of happiness there.

On the long ship voyage to France they’re joined by another young stowaway, Bill Clayton. He’s enchanted by Dagger’s beauty and he tags along, claiming that he’ll be a good guide. He speaks many languages and does know a lot of about various European countries. But Cloak is unhappy; he knows that Bill wants Dagger for himself.

The last two issues, in the Strange Tales comics, are set in India.

Spider-Man guest stars in the third issue and the fourth issue is a part of the Secret Wars II cross-over with the Beyonder getting a small taste of New York’s criminal underworld. Unlike the vast majority of cross-overs, Beyonder’s guest stint isn’t too bad. Dagger and Cloak must explain to him a lot of things, like why he shouldn’t just kill the bad guys. This makes their mission more clear to themselves. They decide that they should give the criminals a second chance to repent and turn to the light. However, in practice, this doesn’t change their M.O. much.

During the first half of the series, there are subplots involving detective O’Reilly and father Delgado. However, these are quickly dropped without clousure when our heroes leave US. I suspect that since this maxiseries led to a bi-monthly series, the subplots continue there.

Overall, this was a good read with very down-to-earth heroes. It was great to see the heroes really trying to stop the drug trade rather than just fight the symptoms. On the other hand, there are some stereotypes which can be uncomfortable to modern readers. This story also deals with organizations which are supposed to be good for people and the society but are corrupt instead.

At the heart of the story is the relationship between Cloak and Dagger. As long as he has his powers, Cloak can’t lead a normal life. His darkness needs to devour life’s light; he needs Dagger’s light or he will succumb to the hunger and feeding so much from humans that he’ll kill them. He’s jealous of anything or anyone other who draw Dagger’s attention and can’t help but to delight in Dagger’s disappointment in her mother and later in other disappointments. Dagger wants a normal life. When Bill Clayton gives her a taste of it, she’s eager to grasp it. But sometimes she gets weary of seeing bad guys all the time and wants to really punish them. Some of the stories explore her past but Cloak’s past remains mostly a mystery.

Rick Leonardi is the artist for issue 1-4 and 6. The other issues all have different artists. However, they’re styles are surprisingly similar so the difference didn’t bother me too much.

[Brandt · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I was a kid, Cloak and Dagger was one of the first comics I had ever read. So when the pair showed up as I was reading the first volume of Brian Vaughan's Runaways , I went out in search of the first volume of the collected Cloak and Dagger , which featured the duo in the pages of Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man and the limited series that obviously was successful enough to warrant them getting their own monthly series, which is the content of this collection, along with assorted apocrypha that was published after the series was cancelled.

In my review for the first volume, I indicated that I thought that the creator of Cloak and Dagger, Bill Mantlo was likely ahead of his time when he came up with the duo. The origins of Cloak and Dagger are dark--they were both runaways exposed to an experimental drug by a cartel trying to find a new source of income. The drug usually killed the lab rats the cartel picked up off the street, but in the case of Cloak and Dagger the drug gave them powers which the duo use to fight drug dealers and to attempt to save exploited children. And in 1985, Mantlo had to deal with the Comics Code Authority, and as such he had to be very subtle about addressing the exploitation of children, even though it is addressed in the opening pages of Cloak and Dagger #1 contained in this volume. Yes, there were comics that were contemporaneous to this book that addressed more mature subject matter (notably Alan Moore's run on Swamp Thing ) but Marvel's editorial group didn't have anything like the burgeoning editorial group that would become Vertigo or the editors who fought for that freedom so that Moore could pull it off. So much about Cloak and Dagger screams for this book to be a mature readers title from the beginning and for the most part, I feel like Mantlo did the best he could given who he was working for, but this book could have been so much more. However, if Mantlo had been given the freedom Moore had gotten on Swamp Thing this book would have been a much more uncomfortable read, I believe. But I don't think Mantlo intended for Cloak and Dagger to be comfortable reading--his bosses just wouldn't let him go far enough.

As such, Cloak and Dagger are largely relegated to being B players in the Marvel universe, basically existing in orbit of Spider-Man, who they interact with from time to time. And while this can lead to good storytelling, it prohibits the great storytelling that these two characters seem to have the potential to carry.

[Fizzgig76 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reprints Cloak and Dagger (1) #1-11 and Strange Tales (2) #1-2 (June 1985-May 1987). Cloak and Dagger begin to question their quest to fight drug dealers and mob bosses that prey on children and the innocent. An encounter with the Beyonder shows the danger behind their powers, but the goal of stopping a dealer that brings in drugs to New York sends Cloak and Dagger on a worldwide adventure that could test their partnership and their feelings.

Written by Bill Mantlo, Cloak and Dagger: Lost and Found is a Marvel Comics comic book collection. Following Cloak and Dagger: Shadows and Light, the series features art by Rick Leonardi, Terry Shoemaker, Marc Silvestri, Mike Mignola, Arthur Adams, Bret Blevins, June Brigman, and Larry Stroman. Not included is the Doctor Strange portion of Strange Tales (2) #1-2.

Cloak and Dagger is comic of the period. The war on drugs was big in the 1980s and New York City was kind of the cesspool of runaways, drugs, and crime in many people’s minds. The city was a big, dark, dangerous place and a character with the power of light and a character with the power of darkness were perfect for the time.

The series is rooted in this time period as well as the characters. You have some debate about the morality of drug use (it was seen as less of a disease then and more of a rabbit hole affliction). Cloak and Dagger are pretty judgmental and “calmed” a bit by their encounter with the Beyonder in a Secret Wars II crossover…they get less ruthless and more compassionate.

The characters are kind of all over the place. Cloak is sometimes painted as manipulating monster but later in the collection, he is more of the compassionate one at points. Dagger sometimes is a bit flighty, but sometimes she’s completely on point. This is almost something you’d expect from multiple writers, but Mantlo writes the whole collection so it seems a bit odd.

In addition to the consistencies in the characters, there is still the issue of “what are Cloak and Dagger’s powers?” I have always found them really hard to nail down. Dagger’s light daggers don’t necessarily purify people but they sometimes paralyze people. Cloak’s powers let people see the darkness inside of them and consumes the light…I guess. It has always been a bit vague on how they work, and sometimes this is used to the writers’ advantage when people use the characters.

Cloak and Dagger is a fun little title, but it is probably a harder title to digest for younger readers. The “dark ’80s” were never quite as dark at Marvel as they were at DC with things like Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns, but the characters of Cloak and Dagger try to find a happy medium between the Punisher and Spider-Man. In ’80s fashion, you get the origin told almost every issue, and the title is much wordier than many contemporary books. Cloak and Dagger: Lost and Found is followed by Cloak and Dagger: Predator and Prey.

[Michael Emond · Rating 2 out of 5]

There are two issues in here (8 and 9) drawn by Mike Mignola and Art Adams which are worth a look. These are both two of my fav artists and they are at the prime of their careers here. The other art by Rick Leonardo (inked by the genius Terry Austin) is also great.
What lets this collection down and explains why these 80's characters never really "hit" with the fans is the two leads of the book - Cloak and Dagger and their interaction with each other AND the premise AND their supporting cast. Basically - everything :).
First, Cloak and Dagger...their powers....could be interesting but...all we have is Dagger can fire light daggers and Cloak can teleport with his cape and teleport things and people into his cape. So, not great. Good for one-shot guest stars but as heroes of their own title - nothing is ever done with their powers to make them interesting. Also, the two leads never really develop into three dimensional characters. They are always Cloak and Dagger (no secret identities). Cloak is painted as kinda mean and evil forcing Dagger to stay with him, Dagger is painted as naive and optimistic. But really - after 11 issues they don't evolve into interesting characters. And instead of a nice friendship (which is the direction I would have gone) we get moody Cloak becoming creepily protective of Dagger. They aren't friends...they are co-dependents.
The premise of the stories is Cloak and Dagger are chasing down a drug shipment across countries to its source. No cool villains, no cool twists, and some abandoned ideas (Dagger's step-father trying to reconnect with her).
The side characters are also duds. We get a creepy priest who wants to free Dagger from Cloak because he thinks Cloak is a devil (a little racist, if you ask me) and a weird stowaway who is trying to steal Dagger away from Cloak cause she is pretty. That seems to be a running theme - Get pretty blonde Dagger away from moody Cloak. Not the best premise for a book. We also get a police chief who is the only honest person on the force...that might have been neat but she dies quickly and becomes a stupid character called Mayhem.
So, in summary - the dynamics between the lead characters sucks, there are no key villains developed for Cloak and Dagger to fight, the stories are forgettable and the supporting characters add nothing to the book. No wonder this series failed after 11 issues. In the 80's it felt like so many of the newly developed heroes of Marvel were doomed to be forgotten in history - Dazzler, Power Pack, Squadron Supreme and Cloak and Dagger.

[Jordan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had never been interested in Cloak and Dagger, but an issue of it came up in an X-Men: Inferno crossover omnibus I'm reading (god I'm such a dork.) Anyway, when I researched and found that there's an extremely small amount of Cloak & Dagger comics that have been made (I mean compared to the 100s of X-Men, Spider-Man, etc) I figured why not read them all?

This one comes after the first C&D four-issue miniseries. I enjoyed this. I liked the grittiness of it, I liked the strange dependent relationship Cloak and Dagger have with each other. Cloak's posessiveness of her and jealousy and guilt and shame and etc. He's an interesting character. Dagger's innocence and desire to be normal and wanting to kind of escape Cloak but also feeling bad for him. I also liked the character of the priest who seems normal at first but soon it seems apparent he's kind of in love or in awe of Dagger and her angelic light, as much as he hates and fears Cloak. Kind of creepy and interesting but done in a subtle and non-judgmental way. Looking forward to more.

[Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this. A good series and a great introduction to the characters. I particularly liked the issue with Dr. Doom where he had created a machine that would take all nuclear power.
Cloak and Dagger were faced with the decision of letting him destroy all the nuclear weapons or stopping him from erasing all the scientific advancements.It seems like the author, Bill Mantlo, had fun writing this. I love all the alliteration and description the narration. Here's a couple quotes I picked out:

"At that moment, a shadow separates itself from the somber shroud of night and disgorges a dazzling dancer onto the warehouse roof"

"Dagger's light-knives fly, her own shining soul made manifest and sent shimmering forth...to pierce and penetrate and infuse with purity those whose souls are polluted by evil."

I also liked that each issue had a different, cool logo on the title page.

[Mr. Stick · Rating 3 out of 5]

"MAN IS EVER IN CONFLICT, FORCED TO CHOOSE BETWEEN LIVING PURE AND LIVING ON SIN, BETWEEN GOOD AND EVIL... BETWEEN THE LIGHT OF SALVATION AND THE ABUSS OF DARKNESS."
- Last panel of Cloak and Dagger issue #6.

Cloak and Dagger, seeking vengeance on the drug traffickers whose experimental narcotics gave them powers, are on the trail of anyone intent on exploiting the innocent. Now, they're backtracking the drug money overseas, from gunrunnners to terrorists to opium farmers. They even have a VERY interesting encounter with Doctor Doom.

While I didn't enjoy this as much as the first book, which contained several issues of Spectacular Spider-Man, this delves deeper into the psyches (or maybe just the psychosis) of Tandy and Tyrone.

Not exciting but also not boring. Three stars.

[Crazed8J8 · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 rounded up
I love Cloak and Dagger, they are a great team, and are always fun to read. After reading this collection, though, I think they are more of a great side-character team than a solo-story team.
This collection had solid writing, but the story got a little old (they fight drugs, Cloak is more violent, Dagger regrets their "war" and tries to leave, reconciles with Cloak, and all is right again...same thing over and over and over.) Thus, it took me a long time to read!
A variety of artists contribute to this run, and Mayhem is a neat character, and look forward to reading more of her in the future.
Overall, a good run, solid art (even Blevins, who tends to draw characters younger than they are).
Will move on to their next collection...

[Mikal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Does not age well

This series was one of my favorites as a kid. The characters of Cloak and Dagger remain compelling, the fundamental struggle of light and darkness, the fundamental need of the one for the other. Unfortunately, the story arrives in a context loaded with unconscious stereotypes and subtext that make it difficult to absorb. Most of this I missed when I was younger but stands out starkly now.

[Tass · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nice introduction to the duo. The relationship between Cloak and Dagger is an interesting one...the way they depend, support and ultimately hurt each other throughout. I'm still undecided about Cloak though, he sure had some creepy moments. Would love to find out more about his true motives and delve deeper into their partnership.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very much a product of its time. From the very, very 80s anti-drug crusade of the main plot to the overly simplistic "peace in the middle east" Christmas story near the end, there is a LOT of outdated style and content here. That isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the comics medium has evolved a lot in the last 40 years, and it shows.

[mel · Rating 2 out of 5]

only read the 1985 run, that was the hardest run of a comic to get through it just DRAGGED for no reason and the conflict between cloak & dagger is getting way too repetitive with no proper resolution