Cloak and Dagger: Shades of Grey

Cloak and Dagger (Collected Editions) #7

by Dennis Hopeless, David Messina (Illustrations)

For years, Tyrone Johnson and Tandy Bowen waged a citywide war on drugs, organized crime and corporate greed as the inseparable duo Cloak and Dagger! Now, though, they have drifted apart – until a dangerous threat from their past resurfaces, forcing them to reunite and face their feelings! But there’s a greater danger to their relationship than any villain: mistrust. And things don’t get any better when Dagger begins investigating a series of murders, with victims who look like they’ve had the life sucked out of them. Ty must push his powers to the absolute limit to save hundreds of lives, while Tandy discovers the key to defeating their long-lost foe, the Gray! But it may come too late to save Cloak from being lost to the darkness forever…

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Marvel, Collections, Comic Book, Fantasy, Science Fiction

136 pages, Paperback

First published December 12, 2018

About the author

Dennis "Hopeless" Hallum is an American comics writer from Kansas City, Missouri who has written for Marvel Comics, Image Comics, Dark Horse Comics, Boom! Studios, Arcana Studio, and Oni Press.

See also under Dennis Hallum

Reviews

[Shadowdenizen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars. (But my opinuon may be biased, as I'm a long-time fan of this bombastic duo!)

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

About as good as a contemporary C&D story can be, I reckon. No slight intended to the writer and artists who put in good work here but the weight of their "War on Drugs" origins will always serve as a drag to me.

[˗ˏˋ janet ˊˎ˗ · Rating 3 out of 5]

it honestly hurts to see Tyrone and Tandy so at odds with each other like this but it was also fun to see the dynamic of their relationship change!

[Rachel · Rating 3 out of 5]

In this standalone story Tandy (aka Dagger) has taken a step away from Tyrone (aka Cloak), and both are working their own jobs. Their relationship has hit a low, and now a ghost has turned up to rock it even more. The story itself is a solid concept, but the pacing isn't always smooth enough to pull off the emotional beats. While the art is quite good, it doesn't quite convey the gracefulness or flexibility of Dagger, who is a dancer. Still, for newcomers to this heroic pair, this works as an introduction, because it outlines their beginning.

[Malum · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very slow, overly wordy (in fact, most of this is just people standing around and talking), and the villain was pretty lame. Worst of all, Cloak and Dagger are working independently for most of this, and when they are together all they do is argue constantly.

Overall, This felt like 10% story and 90% filler.

[Laura Lawson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good look at their complicated relationship and how they fit in as their are "grown-ups".

[Alex Sarll]

As the story opens, the duo, formerly both superhero and life partners, are sundered; Dagger is in LA, so fitting for her light powers, where she helps the police against superpowered threats. Cloak, as is his way, lurks in the shadows, watches her, though in theory he's working security for a rapper elsewhere. And then she finds a body whose drained state suggests it's spent too long in the Darkforce dimension within her ex's cloak... Although reading it when I did, the corpse's expression, the body "dried out like a hard sponge", not to mention the description of that dimension as "a nightmare realm of inescapable horror", suggest that maybe it was just the 2020s in there all along.

Obviously it's all misdirection; turns out that during their superpowered teen runaway days, there was a third person with them, one never mentioned until now - because retroactively inserting new characters into heroes' origins always goes so well (seriously, I'm struggling to think of a good one since Miller reworked Daredevil). And he's called...wait for it...Grey! Do you see? Because he's much less of a moral absolutist than Cloak and Dagger! And he has sort of fog-dream-mind-control powers?

I often like Hopeless' stuff, but this is one of the times his name is a gift to the critic, and the art team don't really capture the chiaroscuro possibilities of the three central characters and their powers. A few nice character moments sneak in, but too often it's like being awkwardly stuck with a bickering couple. And not even the hints at Grey as evil bisexual coming between them really did much for me. Tyrone and Tandy once more demonstrate themselves to be intriguing characters nobody really seems to know what to do with.

[Nicole Westen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Alice · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cloak and Dagger only ever works if the team is working together.
Which quickly sums up why this volume really didn't work: Tandy is keeping her distance from Tyrone, while he is slowly being eaten up by this darkness, so the only time they spend together is spent arguing. In addition, I could barely recognize the two protagonists. Unlike their usual selves, Dagger lacks her light and compassion and Cloak is a mopey sad mess.
The duo is actually pretty lame when you tear it apart.
Lastly, there was barely any plot to tie together the six issues and even the action was subpar.

I am not sure why this even deserves the second star? Maybe for Tandy's makeover. I am not saying I like it, but at least it matches her unlikely personality change.

[Adam Barrett · Rating 2 out of 5]

This isn't really that good. Dagger is angry and bitter throughout, Cloak is indecisive. It's tiring. The antagonist is Grey, an old acquaintance. He works through dreams and visions, which in this case leads to lazy and unclear writing.

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

The concept that the writer had for this story was an interesting one, but the execution didn't excite me as much. The most obvious problem with it was the villain, since we're never given a coherent explanation for how he apparently came back from being dead. If he wasn't dead in the first place, then a lot of what we've been told about Cloak's powers for all these years was wrong, so it would be nice to know more about what the heck was going on.
The breakup of the two, by itself, was interesting, but the way both of them acted was just too toxic. They both know that Tandy's light powers are what keeps Ty alive and sane, so they pretty much have to stay at least a little bit connected. Her new relationship with the police detective would have been interesting, but we never really saw that develop.

[Jen · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

I want to say I liked this better. . . . I know it is a weird thing and no one knock me about this please, but I wish this story had been written by a woman. Tandy/Dagger is the main character in this story and I just feel that I would have liked her more, maybe felt that she was more authentic. There is something off and fake about the way she is characterized. Oh and some of the art that is specifically focused on her body was unnecessarily detailed.
The villain wasn't explained real great either, especially if he has technically been around for like ten years but no one has ever seen/heard of him.

[Kristin · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5
The book starts with Tandy and Ty suddenly split up and has them spend the six issues either separated or sniping, with nowhere near enough plot to make it bearable. They encounter the villain, he screws with their heads, they escape, lather, rinse, roll your eyes, and repeat. It also retcons there origin to include a third teen whose powers make him gray, just to be extra lazy about C&D's existing dark/light power metaphor.

A rare misfire from Hopeless, who is my second favorite superhero writer next to Tom Taylor.

[Sean · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved the idea of another new look into Cloak & Dagger but this fell short. Tandy lacked all sense of herself here. She had no empathy and was cruel. Ty seemed pathetic and misguided. The plot is fine except the cliched long lost villain tied to their past. The art was hit or miss from page to page. Overall, a miss.

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

Love the characters

Never saw them as brats. Self-obsessed. Only talking in declaratives and proclaiming "how it is" at length. This seemed like a template or writing exercise for piecing together a generic script for a nighttime teen drama. It gave me a headache.
The art even drew them with bratty micro-expressions. No wonder I got a headache.

[Sesana · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe not the best introduction to Cloak and Dagger? Sure, I've heard of them, but this is the first time I've one of their own books, and I think that maybe missing all that emotional background kept this from entirely landing for me.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read. I haven't read a lot of Cloak and Dagger, and while this seems like a more modern version (with more strife between the two), it definitely captured my interested and had me turning the pages.

[Zach Castinado · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is really good at making the reality of Ty and Tandy’s relationship clear. Their lives are difficult to manage and this time they’ve got more to lose. A good read but I’m definitely missing the more collaborative aspect of their relationship, nonetheless I enjoyed the book.

[Christy · Rating 5 out of 5]

That ending just left me gutted.

[Daniel Butcher · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good Cloak and Dagger story...definitely a new place for them.

[Tim Galbraith · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good lesson about not living in the past dressed up as a Cloak and Dagger story about them drifting apart from what they once had.

[Nicole Brown · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great comic with a neat idea of breaking up the couple that really works.

https://nicolewbrown.blogspot.com/202...

[Willow · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really solid story, but definitely not Hopeless's best, and the art felt a bit awkward at points.

[Captain Jack · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great

Wonderful and human story about super humans. Love the design of the characters and the contrasting light and dark artwork

[ella]

"Cloak & Dagger. That's two words and a squiggle that don't mean much of anything on their own. But together... look out." ❤️

[Chandler · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything I could want from a cloak and dagger book. Really juicy exes having to work together story. Pretty good art too.

[Honora Quinn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was a big fan of the Cloak and Dagger show and this was my first trip into the comics. And I loved it. The creative team broke them apart just to show them how much they needed the other in the face of an enemy from the past.

2nd read
I feel like this was wonderfully well done, the writer truly knew how to get in each of there heads and weave together a story. Cloak and Dagger have been a team for decades in comics so seeing them broken and pieced back together as a team (but not completely) was interesting. It showed an almost unhealthy co-dependent relationship and both of them knew it, taking time apart but all the while knowing that they desperately still needed the other.