Cloak and Dagger first appeared in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spiderman in 1982 and got their own spinoff a short three years later. Though it was supposed to be a six-issue miniseries, its popularity turned it into an ongoing series that lasted for a number of years.
The characters came to the forefront of the Marvel Universe during Civil War when they joined Captain America’s anti-registration forces. That group used Cloak’s teleportation powers to get around and to avoid Iron Man’s pro-registration forces.
It surprised me that Hasbro packaged the figures separately. I’ve been seeing them separately for a while and refusing to buy them because having one didn’t make any sense. Unlike Batman and Robin and other super-duos, Cloak and Dagger are equals. They complement each other without either being relegated to being a sidekick. Cloak’s teleportation powers came with a dark-side, a need to feed on light energy from the people he’s teleporting. Dagger’s light knives sate him at no cost to her. I actually find them being separate to be frustrating enough that I’m dropping a star off on the packaging.
They were from the last line of Marvel Universe before Hasbro rebooted their 3 and ¾ inch figures to Avengers Infinite, and I miss the colorful packaging. I liked the Avengers Infinite boxes at first, but I’m kind of sick of everything trying to be dark and gritty. Toys should be fun, and the old Marvel Universe packaging certainly is.
Out of the box, Cloak is a much better looking figure than Dagger. That’s probably got a lot to do with him being a simpler character design. He wears all black with a black cloak while she’s much brighter and has the dagger cutout on her chest. Mistakes also show more clearly on white paint.
There are a few quality control smudges on Dagger. One is unfortunately placed, a flesh-colored chip where her nipple would be.
The paint on their faces is great, though. Dagger’s face paint is warrior like, and Cloak’s face is creepy, as it should be. He’s a teleportation vampire. He should be scary.
The figures are well articulated. Cloak’s got the standard Marvel Universe guy figure joints (head, shoulder, biceps, elbows, wrists, hips, double-knees, and feet). His cloak blocks his shoulder mobility to the point where I can only move his right arm. Dagger’s got the standard Marvel Universe girl figure joints (head, shoulders, elbows, wrists, double hips, double knees, and feet). Her hips only go out toward the sides though, which is frustrating.
Both sculpts are passable. Dagger has got magic hands, in a hexing pose. They’re likely left over from Scarlett Witch and other magic characters. Other than, they are pretty standard Marvel Universe sculpts. No cool texture work or anything like that.
Neither came with accessories, which I’m fine with. Neither character really has anything they could have. Maybe one of Dagger’s light daggers, though I’m fine without it. I think Hasbro’s plastic representation of psychic matter falls flat most of the time.
I’d recommend buying these if you’re a fan of the characters. They’re standard Marvel Universe figures, meaning they’re designed and executed competently but hard to get excited about or really comment on outside of that.
UPDATE: These figures are sold out at many retailers, but you can still find both the Marvel Legends Cloak and Marvel Legends Dagger figures on Amazon, and you can always teleport yourself over to eBay and see if you can score a sweet deal on these Marvel Universe Cloak and Dagger figures.
Sick
Yeah. It’s nice when companies dig deep and find some figures that we haven’t really seen before.