Though they tended to target ordinary street criminals, they faced such diverse foes as Doctor Doom, the Beyonder, Vermin, the Zapper, the Disciplinarian, the Warlord of Kampuchea, Set, Mephisto, Thanos, the Assembly of Evil, Firebrand, and Lightmaster.Ĭloak & Dagger found sanctuary at the Holy Ghost Church with the sympathetic Father Francis Delgado, but over time, Delgado became romantically obsessed with Tandy. The duo eventually learned they were mutants themselves, and that Marshall's drug had awakened their latent powers. After ill-fated assassination attempts on the crimelords Silvermane and Kingpin, 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.Ĭloak & Dagger befriended the super-powered preteens Power Pack and twice aided the New Mutants, junior trainees of the X-Men. The two teens dubbed themselves Cloak & Dagger and declared war on drug crime.Ĭloak & Dagger started out as merciless vigilantes, killing Marshall despite the interference of Spider-Man, who saw the duo as misguided innocents and gradually became their friend. 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. 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. 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 become Mister Negative. Marshall was developing a new synthetic drug to replace heroin for the Maggia, testing it on runaway teens with fatal results. 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 chemist Dr. Feeling responsible for Billy's death and afraid of the police, Johnson ran away to New York City.Īrriving at Manhattan's Port Authority Bus Terminal, a penniless Tyrone considered robbing Tandy 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. 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. The thieves fled, and Billy ran as well, fearing that he and Tyrone might be wrongly suspected of the crime. When Tyrone was 17, he and Billy witnessed the robbery of a local store and the fatal shooting of its clerk. Raised in a poor South Boston 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.