Thoughts

In what is not an entirely unexpected turn of events, Cloak and Dagger decide to help the New Mutants – bringing the curse of their powers back on themselves and saving the kids from their fate.

You have to wade through a lot of Cloak moaning first, as he refuses to accept he’s any good. This begins to grate very quickly into this issue – its so obvious that he’s going to do the right thing that his complaining – and his “oh, I’m so useless” stance before he gets there just seems to be hammering home the same point over and over again.

It also renders the dynamic between the two just less interesting. Dagger is perfect, and kind and an insanely pretty partner who just wants to help her man. And he just moans. We can only read into this that Dagger loves Cloak because the story has her tell us this. There’s nothing that gives a hint as to the chemistry they might have. I want more on how they might support each other – not pretty girl fix damaged loser.

You also get the impression with this issue that deadlines might have been looming. Some of the art is great – and you can tell Sienkiewicz loves drawing Cloak and Dagger, but elsewhere – oh dear.

It’s an underwhelming end to the story – especially as Rahne and Roberto just go back to exactly what they were with seemingly no character development. There’s some nice stuff for Illyana to do. Claremont is clearly enjoying this character by now, and the storytelling opportunities she affords to take tales in whole new occult directions. And Illyana gets to develop more in this, the character seems richer by the end of the tale in a way that just makes the reader want to know loads more.

Fun Panel

Sienkiewicz really is in his element with Cloak and Dagger. Indeed I’m genuinely surprised he never got a good run on them in maybe their own title. His dark, inventive, surreal skills is perfect for their powerset.