Cloak and Dagger were two heroes that showed up first in comics in 1982 and tangled with Spider-Man before becoming antiheroes in their own right. They were the opposite of each other, a perfect pairing of light and dark, but they also lived as tragic heroes, unable to completely control their powers.

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The mainstream audience got to know Cloak and Dagger thanks to the television show that aired on Freeform in 2018. While it only lasted two seasons, it garnered the characters some new life, and their comic book origins became a hot topic again. With almost 40 years in Marvel Comics, here is a look at 10 things fans need to know about Cloak and Dagger.

10 First Appearance

Cloak and Dagger from Absolute Carnage

Cloak and Dagger made their Marvel Comics debut in the pages of Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #64, in 1982. The duo, created by Bill Mantio and Ed Hannigan, made their first appearance by chasing down and killing a drug dealer, escaping Spider-Man, who tried to stop them.

Spider-Man tracks them down and tries to help them, but they lead more drug dealers to their deaths and escape the Web Crawler, saying their work was done, for now. The would mostly remain Spider-Man supporting characters at the start.

9 Cloak Was A Poor Teenage Runaway

Tyrone and Tandy on the Freeform Cloak and Dagger series.

Cloak's real name is Tyrone Johnson, a teen raised in a poor Boston neighborhood. When he was 17, he and a friend named Billy saw an armed robbery. They assumed the police would blame them if they were there, so they ran. However, the police stopped them, and when Tyrone's stuttering problem wouldn't allow him to explain what happened, the police officer shot and killed his friend. Tyrone grew fearful of the police and ran away to New York City.

8 Dagger Was A Rich Teenage Runaway

Cloak and Dagger In Front Of A Concrete Wall

Dagger's real name is Tandy Bowen, who was a rich girl from the suburbs of Cleveland. Tandy was angry that her father left her and her mother for India, and she refused to accept her new stepfather, who was kind but not a replacement for her dad.

When her mom neglected her, she started dating an older teenager, but after he left, Tandy was dejected and ran away from home for New York City. It was there that another runaway tried to rob her. That was Tyrone, and he stopped, and the two became friends.

7 Gained Their Powers Through Drugs

Cloak and Dagger attack

The reason for Cloak and Dagger killing drug dealers without mercy was due to the reason they even have powers. Once the two teens reached New York City as homeless runaways, some men offered them a place to stay.

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Unfortunately for them, these men worked for Simon Marshall, a scientist who developed a new synthetic drug to replace heroin. He tested it on runaways, and most of them died. Tandy and Tyrone didn't die and ended up with superpowers instead, running away. This caused them to declare war on drug crime.

6 Cloak's Powers

Cloak has the power of the Darkforce. As a result of the drug's side effects, Cloak's body is now a portal to the Darkforce Dimension, which is also where the Predator rules. Cloak is continuously compelled to kill people and absorb their life forces for the Predator. Anyone enveloped by Cloak's field of darkness grows cold and experiences visions of their greatest fears. If they remain for too long, they will go insane and eventually die.

5 Dagger's Powers

Cloak and Dagger X-Men

Dagger is the opposite of Cloak. She can generate a form of living light and is a Lightforce Generator. If she uses too much of her powers, her light daggers can prove deadly, so she stores the Lightforce and uses it to shoot 6-inch light daggers, which she can even control after they leave her hands. She can also detoxify anyone of drugs, poison, and more with her Lightforce. Finally, it is her Lightforce that can help quench Cloak's need to consume human life forces and keep him sane and on the level.

4 Mister Negative

Mister Negative in Spider-Man

Cloak and Dagger weren't the only people kidnapped and experimented on at the time of their escape. There was also a Chinese human-carrier who escaped with them. This was a man known as Martin Li, who later became the Spider-Man supervillain Mister Negative.

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Like Cloak and Dagger, Mister Negative survived the drug but ended up with superpowers, as well as a split personality — one good and the other evil. When it comes to Cloak and Dagger, Mister Negative also controls the Darforce and Lightforce and can invert their powers with a touch.

3 Befriended Young Hero Teams

As young antiheroes with nowhere to turn, Cloak and Dagger eventually found other young heroes they could confide in and trust. While they never got along with older heroes, they were able to work well with the children of Power Pack as well as with the New Mutants, the teenagers who would one day become full-fledged X-Men.

They also shared a strong connection to the teenage team, The Runaways. Their only other real confidant was Spider-Man, once he convinced them to trust him and allow him to help keep them safe from the authorities.

2 Mentor In The Church

Cloak and Dagger have a strong connection to the religious faith, similar to the ties Daredevil has to the church. The two teens knew what they were doing was wrong and knew they needed help. Furthermore, Cloak knew that the Darkforce threatened to consume him if he didn't keep it in check. As a result, they found sanctuary at the Holy Ghost Church and Father Francis Delgado. When he went insane, they found a new mentor in Father Michael Bowen, Tandy's uncle.

1 Mutants?

cloak and dagger hugging with Darkforce energy behind them

There have been different writers who have approached Cloak and Dagger over the years, and the questions arose about whether or not they were mutants. The drugs gave them their powers, but some writers believed that the drugs just unlocked and triggered their mutant abilities. In the pages of Cloak and Dagger Vol. 3 #19, the demon D'Spayre told them they were mutants whose powers were out of control because the drugs sped up their activation.

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