Name

Current Alias

Aliases

If you're g-g-gonna sacrifice anyone, sir... it should b-b-be us!

Early Life[]

Raised in a poor SouthBoston 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 toNew York City.

Tandy Bowen[]

Arriving atManhattan's Port Authority Bus Terminal, a penniless Tyrone considered robbingTandy Bowen, a rich girl who had also run away from home; yet when someone else robbed her first, Tyrone impulsively tackled the thief and returned Tandy's purse. The two teens became fast friends. When the naïve Tandy accepted an offer of shelter from some strange men, a wary Tyrone went along to protect her; however, the two teens were soon forcibly delivered to criminal chemistDr. Simon Marshall.^[6]

Kidnapping and Experiment[]

Marshall was developing anew synthetic drug to replace heroin for theMaggia, testing it on runaway teens with fatal results. Johnson and Bowen in some way survived the injections of the drug, and they fled, along with another prisoner, the Chinese human-carrier who would becomeMister Negative.^[7] During their escape, Tyrone found himself engulfed in darkness and seized by a strange hunger which eased in the presence of Tandy, who was glowing with a brilliant light. Trying to hide his newly shadowy appearance in a makeshift cloak, Tyrone began absorbing Marshall's thugs into his darkness while Tandy struck them down with daggers of light. The two teens dubbed themselves Cloak & Dagger and declared war on drug crime.

Cloak & Dagger[]

Cloak & Dagger started out as merciless vigilantes, killing Marshall despite the interference ofSpider-Man, who saw the duo as misguided innocents and gradually became their friend. After ill-fated assassination attempts on the crimelordsSilvermane andKingpin, 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 preteensPower Pack and twice aided theNew Mutants, junior trainees of theX-Men. The duo eventually learned they were mutants themselves, and that Marshall's drug had awakened their latent powers. Though they tended to target ordinary street criminals, they faced such diverse foes asDoctor Doom,the Beyonder,Vermin,the Zapper,the Disciplinarian,the Warlord of Kampuchea,Set,Mephisto,Thanos,the Assembly of Evil,Firebrand, andLightmaster.

Cloak & Dagger found sanctuary at theHoly Ghost Church with the sympathetic FatherFrancis 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, FatherMichael Bowen. Tandy'sfather, meanwhile, had become anIndian cult leader as the "Lord of Light". As 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 detectiveBrigid O'Reilly regarded the duo as a menace until they helped her capture serial poisonerDuane 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 vigilanteMayhem, often fighting crime alongside Cloak & Dagger. O'Reilly's former partner, police detectiveRebecca "Rusty" Nales, would become an ally to Cloak & Dagger as well.

Cloak continued to struggle with his power, and with the hungryPredator within his darkness. During a period when Cloak swore off consuming living beings, the Predator released the spirit of legendary killerJack 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 (Renée 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 toDoctor Strange. When the dream-demonNightmare 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 mysticMister Jip. Tyrone's willing resumption of his Cloak form estranged Dagger, who briefly worked with theBlack Cat before going back to Cloak, who had tried and failed to find a new partner inDazzler. By this time, Jip was trying to usurp Cloak's body with the aid of his agents,Night andDay. 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 youthAnna Johnson from cultists, only Anna herself was aware of the fact that she was Tyrone's long-lost sister. Tandy did stay in touch with her stepfatherPhilip, 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 drugD-Lite, a creation of the demonicD'Spayre, who fed 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, both Cloak and Dagger's powers were altered, though their original abilities reasserted themselves over time.^[8]

Cloak & Dagger were devoted to each other, but the lonely Dagger often wanted more from life. While on an international case, Tandy performed with Eurocirque as Lady Light and shared a romance with supposed FBI agentBill Clayton, who was exposed as a criminal but ultimately sacrificed himself to save Cloak & Dagger. Tandy found new friends in theNew Warriors, who teamed with Cloak, Dagger, and other heroes to defeat the shadow-lunaticDarkling. Around the same time, Cloak & Dagger teamed with Spider-Man and others to halt a murderous super-villain rampage led by superhuman serial killerCarnage; later, Dagger helped rescue the New Warriors from the supremely powerfulSphinx. 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 informalSecret Defenders group.

Bloodthirsty fellow vigilante thePunisher had been both an ally and an enemy to Cloak & Dagger over the years. When Cloak went missing, 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 thePride tricked Cloak & Dagger into trying to retrieve their super-powered children. An encounter with these youngRunaways 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.

House of M & Civil War[]

During the House of M crisis,Cloak was among the heroes awakened byLayla Miller, being initially part ofLuke Cage'sHuman Resistance Movement.^[9]

More recently, orderlyReginald Mantz managed to replicate Cloak's powers with the drugMutant Growth Hormone. He then beat Dagger and left her hospitalized. TheRunaways and theNew Avengers found evidence of "Cloak" acting this way and confronted him; however, they eventually discovered the truth.^[10]

He acted as a teleporter and active element during theCivil War, among theSecret Avengers.^[11] He and Dagger were captured in a stratagem ofCaptain America to makeS.H.I.E.L.D. trust his circumstances allyWilson Fisk. They escaped, were recaptured, and freed for the final battle. As theNegative Zone Portal was closed, Tandy convinced Tyrone to open a portal toManhattan where the battle continued.^[12]

X-Men[]

At some point, Cloak and Dagger were active inColombia, destroying drug plantations. The Drug lord hiredIron Patriot via theH.A.M.M.E.R. to take them down. Instead, he recruited them into his ownX-Men and used them againstSan Francisco rioters andStephen Lang'sBio-sentinels.^[13]

WhenEmma Frost andNamor eventually revealed their true allegiance, they ask to Cloak and Dagger to stay back, and following the traitors on the newly build mutant-nation ofUtopia, were presented byCyclops as being part of his plan from the beginning, for them to be accepted in the community.^[14]

He later helpedWolverine deal withDaken andRomulus, banishing the latter into theDarkforce Dimension.^[15]

Spider-Island[]

Cloak and Dagger's powers were switched thanks to Mr. Negative during the events of Spider-Island: Cloak now provided the light, while Dagger provided the dark, and had to feed from Cloak's light energy to temporarily satisfy her cravings. To what extent their other powers have been exchanged has yet to be seen.^[16][17]

All-New, All-Different[]

Although Martin Li was arrested at some point, Cloak and Dagger have been usingShade patches, which dose them with a drug that stimulates the effects of Negative's touch, ensuring that their criminal personas will 'remain' loyal to him. Breaking him out of the prison ship where Li was being kept they restored him to Mister Negative to lead an assault onParker Industries inJapan. Although Peter was able to escape being corrupted by Negative thanks to Negative's prior corruption of Spider-Man, Cloak and Dagger managed to help Negative escape when Peter tracked them to hisHong Kong headquarters by secretly placing aSpider-Tracer on Cloak. Using this tracer, Peter was able to inject Cloak with a cure for Shade that he later used to cure Dagger, apparently restoring their original powers. Although Mister Negative had escaped, Cloak and Dagger decided to remain in Hong Kong to guard it from any future attacks.^[18]

Fall of X[]

After the fall ofKrakoa, Cloak and Dagger split up after a fight. While they were separate, Cloak was captured byDirector Vulture, who used technology he derived fromWarlock to brainwash him into becoming aHound. He converted Dagger, and they capturedKurt Wagner alongsideFeral. Cloak went afterMystique on his own, but she briefly killed him and the duo escaped. He returned to the others as they tookReaper,Animax, andFatale to become Hounds too.^[19]

Blood Hunt[]

• Living Portal: Due to exposure of an experimental drug, Cloak's body has become a portal to theDarkforce Dimension, a world that can only be described as umbral energy known as Darkforce. Cloak’s portal is specifically linked to a pocket realm of the “Darkforce Dimension” that is controlled by a demonic entity known as the Predator, which compels Cloak to absorb the life force of other beings.

• Darkforce Manipulation: Cloak can channel Darkforce to create a field of darkness around his general area. Usually Tyrone uses his cloak as the focal point for this manipulation of darkness, though it can spread well beyond the confines of his cloak. People who become enveloped by Cloak's darkness tend to feel a numbing cold and experience terrifying visions of their own greatest fears and nightmares. Continuous exposure to the darkness can even drive people insane and any unprotected victims trapped in Cloak's dark realm are gradually drained of their life force, and presumably die unless Cloak releases them. On occasions when Cloak needs to physically touch something he is often seen forming a body out of his darkforce as a solid construct. However, on the rare occasions when he resumes a non-powered physical form, he usually reverts to his old stutter, which vanishes when he becomes Cloak again.

• Teleportation: Cloak can teleport by entering his Darkforce portal, moving a short distance within it and then emerging back on Earth a quite a 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 also teleport other people or objects along with himself in this fashion, too, though this is usually reserved for Dagger since most beings cannot safely traverse the Darkforce. However, during the first Civil War, he teleported at least a hundred heroes and Thunderbolts from the Negative Zone to the skyline of Manhattan. Performing such a feat drained him considerably.

• Intangibility: 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. As such he can pass through objects and objects (such as bullets) pass through him. His intangibility makes him quite hard to hit.

• Cloak Manipulation: Via unknown means Tyrone has occasionally been seen using his cloak to stretch out and pull enemies or allies into his portal. This is best seen when he performed a mass teleport of at least a hundred heroes and Thunderbolts from the Negative Zone to the skyline of Manhattan during the first Civil War event.

• Lightforce (formerly): When he was inverted byMister Negative, the source of Cloak's powers changed from Darkforce toLightforce, but otherwise they were identical.^[21]

• Cloak's Cloak: His cloak, which apparently has existed on other beings with similar powers.^[22]

• Cloak had two sisters and one brother. One was his twin sister Anna, who was presumably separated at birth from Tyrone since he didn't recognize her when they met as adults.^[23] Anna knew Tyrone was her twin brother but chose not to let Tyrone know this.^[8] Another unnamed sister died from a drug overdose after she was introduced to drugs by their brother Otis.^[24]

• Themutant status of Cloak and Dagger are very controversial, and has moved over the years:
  • Cloak speculated thatLeech having no effect on his powers was because he and Dagger weren't mutants.^[25]
  • Cloak and Dagger Vol 3 stated them to be mutants, and was full-titled"The Mutant Misadventures of Cloak and Dagger".^[8]
  • TheCivil War: Battle Damage Report stated that the drug giving them powers in fact triggered latent mutant powers, but that they were science- and magic-based mutates.^[12]
  • WhenNorman Osborn came to recruit them for hisX-Men, they stated they weren't mutants (to what Osborn replied they might as well be).^[13]
  • Dagger was 'confirmed' byDoctor Nemesis as NOT beingmutant, with noX-Gene and no readings onCerebro, but also no altered DNA helix or hereditary markers, her powers being solely based on the drug she and Cloak had been injected with.
    • Dagger mentioned that there was other more extensive tests that could be done on their bone marrow to indicate if they possess anX-Gene, which was suggested byBeast, but Nemesis insisted in the fact she wasn't a mutant no matter what.^[26]
  • It was stated bySteve Rogers that it was now confirmed that both of them weren't mutants but altered humans.^[27]
  • Cloak and Dagger were stated to be mutants inMarvel Fact Files #19.

• TheByan'Nantandu referred to Cloak as theDarkforce portal guardian of Sector AEN-ZIOB³, which includes the planetEarth, suggesting that there may be other guardians in other parts of the universe.^[22]
• Cloak is in a romantic relationship withDagger.^[28]
  • Cloak and Dagger (Vol. 5) previously depicted them as exes who had entered and ended a relationship off-panel, andCloak and Dagger: Negative Exposure - Marvel Digital Original #2–3 had them get back together and break up with their respective partners. This was apparently retconned inSavage Avengers (Vol. 2) #1, where they were shown as not having been together before and having broken up with their respective partners for different reasons.

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