Spider-Island: Cloak and Dagger #2 review

Cloak and Dagger 2

Writer- Nick Spencer

Art- Emma Rios

Colors-Javier Rodriguez

First I want to apologize for the lateness of my review. I have been very sick with mono. That’s right, mono, the ‘kissing disease’. That’s what happens when a girl tells you she has mono, but she’s hot so you make out with her anyways. Plus I’ve been trying to make it to class as much as possible, so there you go.

Plot:

The issue starts out with Tandy (Dagger) having a dream where she and Mr. Negative are together and have a child. They are at the supermarket when Tandy goes to buy a disembodied head. She goes to ask  a clerk the price. The clerk turns out to be Spider-Man! He tells her that she’s the one who killed him. Mr. Negative takes her to a special section of the store where he has a surprise for her: Lost of dead bodies! And her baby is rotting away. Then she wakes up.

She is being held in mystical chains that prevent her from using her powers. Negative has her, and also has Ty (Cloak) at his side, sans his cloak, which Negative has in his hands. The scene then cuts back to three hours ago, where Tandy is studying for a test, when her study partner turns into a giant spider and attacks her, for those of you that forgot this was a Spider-Island tie in. The whole college is filled with giant spiders,and Tandy fights her best, but in the end is overwhelmed and has to be saved by Negative and his Inner Demons.

Negative and his men go after Ty, and while he fights valiantly, he is overcome by sheer numbers after being distracted by Negative holding the unconscious body of Tandy. The scene cuts back to the present time where Negative is telling Tandy about the prophesy of her killing him. He than gives her some darkforce power and the issue is to be continued.

Commentary:

There are so many things I loved about this issue that I’m just going to start at the beginning. The dream Tandy has is awesome. First Mr. Negative in a Hawaiian shirt is pretty funny. I loved the cameo of Spidey as the store clerk too. This dream has a cool feel to it. It reminds me of an Ingmar Bergman film, which I’m sure was deliberate. You don’t see nods to artsy European directors in comics very often. The dream also works on another level. I’m pretty sure all the dead bodies are meant to represent her guilt over people she has killed. I remember, at least in the old Spectacular Spider-Man appearances, she was pretty apprehensive about killing, and was goaded into it by Cloak.

The scene with Tandy and her study partner is another great one. There is one panel where they are talking next to a mirror, and you see not only thier reflections, but the reflections of the word balloons as well. That’s a nice nod to the fact that it’s a comic book. Her study partner, Patrick, is dancing around on the ceiling Fred Astaire style, talking about how great it is to have spider powers, while Tandy tries to study the social contract. He then tries to ask her out, and he’s visibly nervous, and things aren’t helped by the fact that he’s starting to turn into a giant spider. The scene is great, because while he’s asking her out, he’s also busy stuffing an extra spider leg under his shirt, hoping she won’t notice. She doesn’t because she’s on the computer. The whole thing made for a great, awkward scene.

When Negative goes to save her, he makes a great Kafka reference which I appreciated, and seemed appropriate given all the human to spider transformations going on. The scene with Cloak defending himself against the Inner Demons is a great, dialogue less scene. The caption at the top reads Cloak gets beat up: a silent play in one act. I thought that was really cool, and I love how Nick Spencer is game to trying different things. Kind of a throw everything in and see what sticks, which really makes this series unique.

The final scene, the cliffhanger part, when Negative gives Tandy some darkforce power is great. They first have a talk about how Tandy is the one meant to kill him, but instead of avoiding it (Tandy recommends he watches Twelve Monkeys so he’ll know how to avoid this in the future) he welcomes the challenge. The image of Tandy with Dark force powers is a visually striking image. It’s her usual costume, but all black.

The art in the issue, as with everything I’ve seen out of Emma Rios, is amazing. I wish she could draw everything ever. Nick Spencer’s writing is as good as ever. I seriously think Jim Shooter, or someone who says there are no good writers in comics today, should check out the work of Spencer. Morning Glories continues to amaze me every month, and Iron Man 2.0 actually made me give a shit about James Rhodes, which is quite a feat in itself. This series is no exception. After Wacker teased that if sells and feed back is good enough this may become a monthly, I’ll be devastated, that’s right, devastated, if this doesn’t become a regular series. Or if the team of Spencer and Rios, plus great coloring by Javier Rodriguez, isn’t the team for the book. If these guys return, Marvel has at least one guaranteed buyer every month.

Overall:

This issue is as good as the last. I was worried. After last month’s amazing issue, I worried month two could only disappoint. It didn’t. 5/5