CLOAK & DAGGER

CLOAK & DAGGER

Real Names: Tyrone Johnson (Cloak); Tandy Bowen (Dagger)

First Appearance: Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man (Vol. 1) #64, March 1982

Powers: Cloak and Dagger are humans with latent non-mutant power potential which has been altered significantly through several outside factors. Originally, Tyrone Johnson was to possess light energy powers and Tandy Bowen was to possess Darkforce manipulation powers. Their comparable latent potential would have triggered each other through close proximity if not for the intervention of the Fear-Lord known as D'Spayre. Planning a "long game" to harvest negative energy from the pair's life experiences, D'Spayre mystically (and covertly) suppressed their power manifestations from a distance, long enough for a pair of New York kidnappers to take the two young runaways to Ellis Island, where the criminal pharmacist Simon Marshall was testing a new form of synthetic heroin called D-Lite made from cheaper ingredients. All the other teenagers died from the injections, but Tyrone and Tandy survived and escaped into the water. As the drug interacted with their systems, D'Spayre allowed the pair's latent abilities to emerge, but with a twist: He imparted the both of them with a fraction of his own demonic essence, a Darksoul for Tyrone and a Lightsoul for Tandy, designed to act as psychic batteries and slowly accumulate negative emotional energy from them as time passed. These demonic souls also bonded the two together in an almost symbiotic relationship, and switched their powers to give Tandy the light powers and Tyrone the darkness powers. Eventually, D'Spayre returned to their lives to retrieve the demonic soul-parts, opening the floodgates so that the duo's unrestrained powers poured out from them uncontrollably. Only by sharing their darkness and light once more were Cloak and Dagger able to bring their powers back down to a manageable level.

Cloak's body opens up into an ebony void known as the Dark Dimension, connected to the very same Darkforce wielded by many other superhumans. This darkness naturally reaches out into our world through Cloak, consuming light as it expands. Ever since the first night his power manifested, Cloak has contained the darkness using a sheet of cloth that acts as his cloak. Tyrone's own body is virtually non-existent underneath the cloak, leaving his face as the only truly solid portion of his body. These changes to his physiology also gave Cloak excellent night vision and the ability to survive without rest or sustenance virtually indefinitely. Cloak's insubstantial nature makes him virtually impervious to harm, as bullets or other projectiles vanish into his ebony void. The Dark Dimension access way expands and contracts with the movement of his cloak, allowing Tyrone to reach out with the cloak and wrap it around people or objects to consume them into his void. Cloak can expand his gateway large enough to accommodate a speeding subway train, or even a jumbo jet. Objects retain their momentum while passing through the Dark Dimension, and so Cloak can swallow up a speeding car trying to ram him, and then expel it on the opposite side of his body going at the same velocity. Once inside his Dark Dimension, living people absorbed by Cloak are slowly drained of their life-energy. This metaphysical loss of energy is typically experienced by his victims as a sensation of bone-chilling cold, or hallucinations of their greatest fears or private hells. Spending a short period of time in Cloak's Dark Dimension will physically weaken an opponent and leave them in a state of shock, but spending too long inside the darkness can be lethal. Cloak experiences psychosomatic hunger pains if he does not "feed" light to his Dark Dimension every so often, at least once every 24 hours. Initially, Cloak believed that he himself was personally draining away the life-energy of his victims, like an energy vampire. He eventually learned, however, that the demonic Predator actually resided within his Dark Dimension, and it was this creature who fed off of the energies. Not a vampire, Cloak was in fact the gatekeeper preventing this demon from entering our world of light and consuming it totally. The nature of the Predator became convoluted as it became unclear as to whether the Predator merely an aspect of Cloak's Darksoul, or another demonic force somehow tied to his powers. Whatever the case, Tyrone frequently relies on "booster shots" of excess light from Dagger in order to keep his hunger under control. Cloak is also capable of teleportation through the Dark Dimension, by wrapping himself up inside his cloak, effectively turning inside-out. He can then travel several miles of distance in the real world while only moving a relatively short distance inside the Dark Dimension. Cloak can open small "windows" back into the real world before re-materializing, allowing him to observe his travel progress relative to the real world and travel inside buildings or locations he has never visited before. When Dagger travels with him, Tyrone and Tandy can actually "see" the living light inside other people through Cloak's windows, with the more pure or noble souls shining brighter than those of criminals or drug addicts.

Because Cloak's darkness drains life-energy even while teleporting, only Dagger and anyone protected by Dagger's light can travel with him without being affected by the Dark Dimension. After several years, Cloak received a massive dosage of life-force from the Lord of Light, overriding his powers and returning him to normal Tyrone Johnson. Cloak and Dagger now found that he could remain in his normal state indefinitely with a sufficient source of living light that Dagger could provide. The problem was that all the lack of food and rest that Cloak was unaffected by left Tyrone considerably weakened and drained. Eventually, in a moment of weakness, he made a deal with Mister Jip and was transformed back into his "dark-self". Over the following months, Cloak began developing new powers as D'Spayre's machinations reached fruition. He began demonstrating true intangibility, allowing him to phase through solid walls and barriers, and the ability to float and glide on open air. Briefly, Cloak and Daggers' powers were supposedly changed so that Cloak could no longer teleport without Dagger being with him, but he overcame this limitation very quickly. It should be noted that, as Tyrone Johnson, he's somewhat timid with a debilitating speech impediment. As Cloak, he does not possess the stutter and has a more menacing and serious persona. For years, it was thought that Tyrone Johnson and Cloak were separate personalities, but it was later established that they are the same personality, but his transformations and the hunger that often comes with them do influence Cloak's behavior.

Dagger generates an excess quality and quantity of life-energy, which she manifests as "living light". The excess energy in Tandy's system augments her vitality, boosting her agility, balance, stamina and coordination to nearly superhuman levels. Dagger can release this light energy as a bright glow from all or parts of her body, but she typically uses her living light to generate semi-tangible light-knives in the palms of her hands. These daggers of light are throwing projectiles and, at least in her early years, Dagger could not "shoot" her energy knives -- she needed time and room in order to pull back her arm and hurl the daggers. Dagger's light-knives can be mentally guided from a distance towards specific targets, turning in mid-air and seeking them out. Their unique connection allows Dagger to send out daggers to find Cloak somewhere within an entire city, far outside of her line-of-sight. Tracking other targets is far more difficult, and she typically relies on her natural accuracy instead of this guidance ability. The daggers seem to possess a variable rate of substance, sometimes passing harmlessly through windows while other times ricocheting off of walls or chimneys. Regardless, her standard daggers have no physical effect on anything but living beings. On impact with a target, each dagger created a form of remote energy transference, taking some of Tandy's excessively pure life-energy and exchanging it for some of her victim's (usually) more polluted and impure life-energy. On most occasions, Dagger inherent purity could cleanse and neutralize any effect the impure light might have on her system, but the sudden surge of purity in a normal person typically created a metaphysical shock to their system. Victims have experienced pain, numbing cold and paralysis in the past. On the other hand, Dagger's light can also have a cleansing effect on any and all toxins in her target's system. If done forcefully with light-knives, the sudden and violent purging can add withdrawal symptoms and pains to the regular shock caused by the daggers. A more passive exposure to Dagger's light, through the light aura she produces from her skin, can removing the toxins without any pain while empathically inducing hope and relief in a person. Violent or passive, though, the purification process totally destroys any built-up resistances the person has to drugs they were using -- taking another dose, ever, will kill them. As an interesting side effect, Dagger's victims often actually turn into better people after exposure to her light, as the inherent purity of her life-energy affects every aspect of their being. Although not as problematic as Cloak's powers, Dagger's light can alter her mental state, causing her to grow more detached and distant from humanity once too much light is coursing through her system. Feeding Cloak her excess light allows Dagger to keep her personality and emotional state stability. After her powers began mutating, Dagger developed a secondary, electromagnetic form of light-daggers. These daggers could physically strike and injure targets, cut through wire or webbing, and induce electrical overloads when they struck mechanical systems. She also became capable of generating light-shields for protection, either as disks in front of her hands or a full-body protective aura.

In addition to their fluctuating power-sets, Tandy Bowen is a skilled dancer trained in ballet.