Ultimate Comics Spider-Man #24 – Review

By: Brian Michael Bendis (Writer), Dave Marquez (Art), Justin Ponsor (Colors), VC’s Cory Petit (Lettering)

Review: Miles Morales fans beware: there ain’t much of him to be seen this month. As you can tell from the cover (and last month’s last-page reveal), this issue is more an introduction to the Ultimate universe’s Cloak and Dagger, a fan-favourite team whose appearance has been loosely teased in the 1610 for years.

I have to admit, I’ve no great reverence for the characters personally. The last time I remember seeing them star in any comic of note was Civil War and that was in…whoa, 2006!? Color me old. Still, if there’s one thing the Ultimate universe could do with right now it’s new blood, and what better place to introduce it than the line’s flagship title.

Spider-Island: Cloak & Dagger #1 – Review

By: Nick Spencer (writer), Emma Rios (artist), Javier Rodriguez (colorist), Joe Caramagna (letterer), Alejandro Arbona (associate editor) & Stephen Wacker (senior editor)

The Story: The Spider-Island spotlight turns onto Cloak and Dagger.

What’s Good: Well, the Spider-Island “event” has 28 items on its checklist.  So, that means we’re getting some serious tie-in miniseries action.  Although we all love to bitch about event tie-ins, this one makes a lot of sense: Cloak and Dagger are characters with a definite cult following, but they’ve never been able to sustain an ongoing series and in this decrepit comic marketplace, if a new C&D ongoing were announced, we’d be lucky get to get 5 issues.  But, a few fans still care, so why not release a 3-issue miniseries in conjunction with an event wherein everyone in NYC get’s spider-powers?  Makes sense, right?
And, it seems like that is the essence of the miniseries.  I worried a little bit when I saw the solicit that this story would be about Dagger turning into some 8-legged spiderhorror, but it’s not that at all.  In this first issue, the linkage to SI is pretty minimal as the events of Amazing Spider-Man #667 are merely a backdrop for us to see what’s going one with our favorite anti-drug heroes.  Spencer does a really nice job of pacing the issue and working some humor into things as well (Cloak scolding Hawkeye for laziness when they want to be transported a mere two blocks).

Cloak and Dagger #1 – Review

by Stuart Moore (story), Mark Brooks (pencils, Walden Wong (inks), Emily Warren (colors) and Dave Sharpe (letters)

The Story: After the events of Dark X-Men, Cloak and Dagger must decide if they belong on Utopia with the X-Men.

What’s Good: We’ve been teased for about 25 years by the duo of Cloak and Dagger.  They were created in the 1980’s as super-powered heroes in the war on drugs, but it was never made clear if they were mutants or not.  They have failed (commercially) in a few attempts to give them their own ongoing series over the years, but had increased visibility over the last year as members of the Dark X-Men.  In this issue we do definitively learn that they are not mutants.  I liked the way this revelation was handled because it showed that even among the mutants, Cloak and Dagger just don’t really fit in.  They are kind of “other”.

I was also pleased for editorial reasons that C&D are not going to become X-Men.  The mutant roster is already so full that A-listers like Nightcrawler aren’t getting much to do. Two other cute story moments: Dr. Nemesis kicking butt while sneering at the bad guys’ technology, and Cloak suspecting Dagger of having an affair with the homosexual Anole (esp. Anole’s reaction).

As for the art, it is mostly a positive in this issue.  It’s a very bright and pretty book and I think Brooks nails the X-Men.  The cover is also really nice (if you care about that sort of thing).