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CLOAK and DAGGER

The perfect duo of heroes as they were inseparable and need each other. Cloak draws his power from the Darkforce and Dagger generates power from the Lightforce she contains in her body. Together, they fight the evils that plague the area and protect civilians. They are definitely an interesting pair fighting crime as they go together like yin and yang.

Powers and Abilities

Cloak:

As a result of his exposure to an experimental drug, Cloak's body is a portal to the Darkforce Dimension, a world of strange ebony energy. Cloak is linked to a pocket realm of that dimension dominated by the Predator, which compels Cloak to absorb the life forces of other beings; but Dagger's light can temporarily satisfy this craving. When inverted by Mister Negative, Cloak draws his powers from the Lightforce, but they are otherwise identical. Cloak can channel Darkforce to create a field of darkness in his general vicinity, usually using his cloak as a focal point to manipulate this darkness, though it can spread well beyond the confines of his cloak. People enveloped by Cloak's darkness feel numbing cold and experience terrifying visions of their own greatest fears and nightmares. Overlong exposure to the darkness can drive people insane. Unprotected victims trapped in Cloak's dark realm are gradually drained of their life force, and presumably, die unless Cloak releases them. Dagger's light renders her largely immune to Cloak's darkness, and she can extend her light to protect others within Cloak's darkness if need be. Cloak can teleport by entering the Darkforce dimension, moving a short distance within it and emerging back on Earth a great distance from his point of origin. A span of miles on Earth can be traversed in only a few steps via shortcuts through the Darkforce. Cloak can teleport other persons or objects along with himself in this fashion, too, a feat usually reserved for Dagger since most beings cannot safely traverse the Darkforce. During Civil War, he teleported at least a hundred heroes and Thunderbolts from the Negative Zone to the middle of New York. This effort weakened him considerably, however. As Cloak, Tyrone is usually intangible, though he can solidify through an act of will, or by absorbing enough "light" to saturate his form temporarily. He can pass through objects and objects (such as bullets) pass through him. His intangibility makes him very hard to hit. On the rare occasions when he resumes human form, he usually reverts to his old stutter, which vanishes when he becomes Cloak. Tyrone's link to the Darkforce has been severed on several occasions, but he seems drawn to the darkness and vice versa, and he always regains his Cloak form eventually.

Dagger:

As a result of her exposure to experimental drugs, Dagger generates a form of 'living light' which is actually Lightforce. She produces much more than normal humans do but is usually conservative in the use of her powers. Overuse of her powers could be fatal. Dagger generates and stores this lifeforce energy automatically. If she goes for more than a week or so without using her powers she will become fevered and delirious, and eventually discharge her energy involuntarily. When inverted by Mister Negative, Dagger draws her powers from the Darkforce, but they are otherwise identical, save for her daggers causing additional pain. Tandy can form 6-inch 'light daggers' which she can throw from her fingertips. Her daggers may automatically form under certain conditions, such as another person in danger. The maximum effective range is unknown, but the daggers seem to weaken with further distance. Tandy has a limited ability to control their flight and reinforce them by compelling them to seek targets. They can track a being, but it is most effective when searching for Cloak. Those hit by these knives have their own lifeforce disrupted. Dagger can then drain a portion of their lifeforce; enough to kill if she wishes. Normally she chooses to leave them in a state of shock where they will see a vision of how their life might be different. The experience is powerful enough to make most individuals rethink their choices, although a hardened criminal or evil being is unlikely to change their ways. Tandy's energy can also 'purge' a person, removing toxins, drugs, and other malignant substances from their system. It also has the capacity to cure certain persons of drug addictions. Sometimes Tandy can redirect the daggers after they ricochet, other times the daggers are dispersed if they hit a non-living thing. She can project her lifeforce energy in a diffused manner, allowing her to illuminate dark areas as if by natural light. Tandy can also project her 'light' into Cloak's dimension to feed his 'hunger.' She is unharmed when traveling through his dimension and can pass this protection to others.

Bio

For Cloak, he was raised in a poor South Boston neighborhood, Tyrone Johnson was a good student despite his chronic stutter, a disability he struggled to master with the support of his best friend, Billy. When Tyrone was 17, he and Billy witnessed the robbery of a local store and the fatal shooting of its clerk. The thieves fled, and Billy ran as well, fearing that he and Tyrone might be wrongly suspected of the crime. When a policeman ordered Billy to stop, Tyrone tried to proclaim Billy's innocence, but his stuttering made it impossible to speak clearly, and the officer shot Billy dead. Feeling responsible for Billy's death and afraid of the police, Johnson ran away to New York City. Dagger was born in Shaker Heights, Ohio, an affluent suburb of Cleveland. Bowen's mother, Melissa, was a celebrated and self-centered model who had become rich not only from her own career but also from receiving her previous husband's estate. Tandy's father had left for India seeking "spiritual rebirth." Subsequently, Melissa married Phillip Carlisle. Although kind, Tandy was still hurt by her father's leaving and did not accept Phillip. Her mother also neglected her. Feeling unloved, Tandy turned for affection to an older teenager named Rob Daltry. But when he left for college shortly thereafter, the despondent Tandy left home on a bus for New York City. While there, a man tried to rob her but was stopped by the homeless Tyrone Johnson. She bought him food and the two became friends.

Dr. Simon Marshall and his men rounded up runaways, offering them food and shelter. Naive, Tandy agreed, and Tyrone went with her, suspecting things were not right. There, they were knocked unconscious and injected with a designer drug the Maggia wished to use as a replacement for heroin. Because of latent mutant genetic factors and some magical interference by D'Spayre, Tyrone and Tandy survived while the others died due to the drugs' effects. They escaped, along with another prisoner, the Chinese human-carrier who would become Mister Negative, jumping into the river, and both began manifesting superhuman powers. They discovered Tandy could keep Tyrone in check. Marshall's men attacked but were consumed by Cloak's hunger then hit with Dagger's light daggers.

Cloak & Dagger started out as merciless vigilantes, killing Marshall despite the interference of Spider-Man, who saw the duo as misguided innocents and gradually became their friend. After ill-fated assassination attempts on the crimelords Silvermane and Kingpin, Dagger became less ruthless and tried to steer Cloak in a similar direction; however, since his power compelled him to consume living beings, Cloak found it more difficult to follow this gentler path, even though Dagger's light could satisfy his hunger temporarily.

Cloak & Dagger befriended the super-powered preteens Power Pack and twice aided the New Mutants, junior trainees of the X-Men. The duo eventually learned they were mutants themselves, and that Marshall's drug had awakened their latent powers. Though they tend to target ordinary street criminals, they have faced such diverse foes as Doctor Doom, the Beyonder, Vermin, the Zapper, the Disciplinarian, the Warlord of Kampuchea, Set, Mephisto, Thanos, the Assembly of Evil, Firebrand, and Lightmaster.

Cloak & Dagger found sanctuary at the Holy Ghost Church with the sympathetic Father Francis Delgado, but over time, Delgado became romantically obsessed with Tandy. Regarding Cloak as a demonic influence, Delgado tried and failed to split up the duo, going mad in the process. After Delgado was institutionalized, Cloak & Dagger found a new mentor in Tandy's uncle, Father Michael Bowen. Tandy's father, meanwhile, had become a cult leader as the Lord of Light in India. A "light vampire" who fed on others' life force, he clashed with Cloak and Dagger until he realized what he had become and tried to atone by hurling himself into Cloak's ebony abyss.

Police detective Brigid O'Reilly regarded the duo as a menace until they helped her capture serial poisoner Duane Hellman and told her of their origins. Later, when O'Reilly was betrayed and left for dead by corrupt cops, Cloak & Dagger used their powers to save her life, but the experience mutated Brigid's body and warped her mind. She became the vicious superhuman vigilante Mayhem, often fighting crime alongside Cloak & Dagger. O'Reilly's former partner, police detective Rebecca "Rusty" Nales, would become an ally to Cloak & Dagger as well.

Cloak continued to struggle with his power, and with the hungry Predator within his darkness. During a period when Cloak swore off consuming living beings, the Predator released the spirit of legendary killer Jack the Ripper to torment Cloak; however, when Jack betrayed the Predator in search of personal power, Cloak absorbed the madman and the Predator consumed Jack again. The drug-dealing crime boss Ecstasy (Renee Deladier) twice stole Cloak's powers for herself, largely because the Predator preferred the more ruthless Deladier as a host body. Cloak regained his powers both times, thanks in part to Doctor Strange. When the dream-demon Nightmare targeted Cloak, Tyrone prevailed with the aid of Dr. Strange and Dagger, who even managed to nullify Cloak's darkness altogether for a time; however, Tyrone feared that Dagger could only relate to him as Cloak, and he was soon manipulated into reclaiming his dark powers by the malevolent mystic Mister Jip. Tyrone's willing resumption of his Cloak form estranged Dagger, who briefly worked with the Black Cat before going back to Cloak, who had tried and failed to find a new partner in Dazzler. By this time, Jip was trying to usurp Cloak's body with the aid of his agents, Night and Day. Dagger defeated them all with the aid of the Predator, and the partners were reunited. Jip would continue to hound them, striking Dagger blind for a time, using the mad Delgado as a pawn, temporarily corrupting Dagger through the power of Night, and killing both Delgado and Father Bowen by mystically usurping their bodies. Cloak and Dagger would thwart Jip's plots again and again.

Though Cloak & Dagger once rescued homeless youth Anna Johnson from cultists, only Anna herself was aware of the fact that she is Tyrone's long-lost sister. Tandy did stay in touch with her stepfather Philip, who persisted in offering Tandy moral and financial support. He even moved to New York City to be near her, caring for her during her temporary blindness, and the two gradually developed a real father-daughter relationship. Sadly, he was killed by an overdose of the designer drug D-Lite, a creation of the demonic D'Spayre, who feeds on human misery. D'Spayre revealed that he had helped create Cloak & Dagger, whose mutant powers would have been quite different had they developed normally. Apparently, their mutant powers would have activated naturally through contact between Tandy and Tyrone; but D'Spayre inhibited this reaction, allowing Marshall's drug to trigger their powers instead. D'Spayre also secretly placed two aspects of his own power--one light, one dark--within the teens, reshaping their mutant powers. These dark and light forms were meant to act as storage batteries for D'Spayre, accumulating pain and suffering he could tap for future use. He had selected Tyrone and Tandy as host bodies since he thought mutants were especially prone to suffering. When D'Spayre tried to reclaim the light and dark forms for himself, Cloak & Dagger resisted, and D'Spayre was seemingly destroyed. In the process, Cloak's and Dagger's powers were altered, though their original abilities reasserted themselves over time.

Cloak & Dagger are devoted to each other, but the lonely Dagger often wants more from life. While on an international case, Tandy performed with Eurocirque as Lady Light and shared a romance with supposed FBI agent Bill Clayton, who was exposed as a criminal but ultimately sacrificed himself to save Cloak & Dagger. Tandy found new friends in the New Warriors, who teamed with Cloak, Dagger and other heroes to defeat the shadow-lunatic Darkling. Around the same time, Cloak & Dagger teamed with Spider-Man and others to halt a murderous super-villain rampage led by superhuman serial killer Carnage; later, Dagger helped rescue the New Warriors from the supremely powerful Sphinx. She accepted an offer of New Warriors membership, though Cloak declined to join. Serving as a Warriors reservist, Dagger also undertook a single mission with the informal Secret Defenders group.

Bloodthirsty fellow vigilante the Punisher has been both an ally and an enemy to Cloak & Dagger over the years. When Cloak went missing recently, Dagger helped form the unofficial "Marvel Knights" alliance with the Punisher and other vigilantes and joined most of the other Knights in hunting the rogue Punisher after he left. Meanwhile, a Nightmare-manipulated Cloak embarked on a mad quest to consume all lawbreakers, absorbing the Punisher and many others until Dagger teamed with Dr. Strange to purge Cloak's corrupting darkness and rescue his victims. In the process, Cloak reverted to his human form as Tyrone Johnson, though this condition would prove temporary. Shortly thereafter, the Marvel Knights disbanded.

More recently, the secret criminal group known as the Pride tricked Cloak & Dagger into trying to retrieve their super-powered children. An encounter with these young Runaways soon convinced Cloak & Dagger of The Pride's true nature, but before they could act on this knowledge, the villains erased the duo's memories of The Pride. Cloak & Dagger continued to roam the mean streets, bringing the light of hope to the innocent and dark justice to the guilty.

Significance

Cloak and Dagger are definitely a great pair of superheroes that are inseparable to each other and clearly need more popularity, as they are underrated, to say the least. They have also crossed into the X-Men, Luke Cage’s Avengers and others. The pair have also gotten their own show on Hulu and interestingly, they decided to twist the story as Tandy is homeless and Tyrone lives a comfortable suburban life. I feel like their story is definitely so good and interchangeable that anything can happen and it's amazing that though they’ve had their ups and downs, they’re still together and strong as one with the power of two, perfectly in sync.

References:

https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Tyrone_Johnson_(Earth-616)

https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Tandy_Bowen_(Earth-616)

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