Publisher: Marvel
Writer: Stuart Moore
Artist: Mark Brooks
Cover: Mark Brooks
Spoilers!
“The Broken Church”: Cloak and Dagger are part of Marvel’s “very cool but under used” cast of characters, and that is a pretty long list if you ask me. I figured that with them joining the rest of the X-Men on Utopia that they would get a shot at being in the spotlight for a bit, or at least used in a few interesting stories. Well boo on me, because Dagger was used here and there and Cloak was mainly used as transport since he can teleport over great distances, but no stories that were of any significance and actually mattered were written with this duo, and that just didn’t make any sense to me.
Well, here we have Dagger trying to actually find a place to belong, having just found out the bad news that she’s not a mutant, and Cloak has been leaving for days at a time with no revelation as to where he’s been going. When he finally does appear while Dagger is asleep, she wakes up and they get into an argument and he vanishes again. He is back in his hometown of Boston, and he’s been spending time with an old friend, Tia, who seems to have an agenda. When men show up to take Cloak, she tries to let him know that they’re there to help him and he needs to leave the X-Men. Not falling for the trap, he tries to teleport away, but the men neutralize his powers and capture him.
After three more days of not seeing Cloak, Dagger goes to Cyclops who dismisses it as nothing more than a lover’s spat, and when she goes to Storm she is about to leave for a mission. So Dagger does what anyone else would do in her position when she’s living on an island populated by some of the most powerful mutants on the planet…she goes off by herself to try to save him!
Despite several flaws that I found in the story, it was still a decent read, and even though it’s a self-contained story, it does set up future plot elements surrounding Cloak and Dagger. I’m still not sold on why she went out to find Cloak by herself, when it’s obvious from the beginning of the book she’s established a pretty good rapport with some of the younger X-Men (despite beating them during a session in the Danger Room). I do think something could have been done that made more sense with other characters added that didn’t overshadow Cloak and Dagger’s involvement in the story. Brooks does a good job overall with the two, and shows that both are desperately still trying to find somewhere to belong and still haven’t found a place where they can be comfortable. However, I felt that there could have been more story allocated to these guys overall.
Mark Brooks being attached to this title was another reason I was eager to pick it up, because I really dig this guy’s style. It was like watching a well drawn cartoon on each page, and I’m sure that Walden Wong (Inks) and Emily Warren (Colors) had a big hand in that as well. I was also very happy that Mark/Emily did something that I don’t see enough of, and that is on every panel that had Storm, he made sure her eyebrows were WHITE! Now this may seem like a minor issue to some, but if a woman has thick, flowing, naturally white hair, then the eyebrows should match! I actually would think that artists that don’t do this are just ignorant or lazy.
This issue seems unfinished and more like a set up for something that’s on the horizon for this duo, and I’m just hoping that the next Cloak and Dagger series, if there is one, is handled a lot better than the ones in the past.
Infinite Speech
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Great review Speech. I was going to order this but wanted to save on cash so I let it go by. I’ll see if I can pick up a copy somewhere.
I would definitely collect an ongoing of this if Moore and Brooks were on it.
Awesome review! Like Billy, I wanted to get this but then decided to just save my money. I may go back and get it. I love Cloak & Dagger. I hope they can get an ongoing or a recurring role with somebody.
Secret Avengers, maybe?
I’m confused about one thing. Are C&D like an item or are they really good f@#$ buddies?
By having them feature in “Runaways”, it helped me be introduced to them b/c I wasn’t aware of them. I’ll definitely will try to pick this up knowing they’re in it; I <3 them both 🙂
JJ-I’m pretty sure they’re an item by now.
PP-I actually never immersed myself in Runaways but it did seem like a book that would naturally have Cloak and Dagger as part of the team.
I really liked this issue and was also disappointed to see Cloak and Dagger’s tenure with the X-Men come to such an abrupt halt.
Are you reading Wolverine Origins? Cloak’s appearance in the Ruby Tuesday story line was pretty cool.
I stayed away from it BECAUSE it featured Ruby Thurdsay lol isn’t Ruby TUESDAY a restaurant? lol