Since Marvel Television's announcement of the Cloak and Dagger series in 2016, many have wondered who/what Cloak and Dagger even is and how it fits into the Marvel Universe. Cloak and Dagger originally showed up as characters in a 1982 issue of The Amazing Spider-Man, after which it got a four-issue limited-series run that was successful enough to merit its own bi-monthly comic book series in 1985.
The series focuses on the stories of two runaways with troubled pasts who meet by chance and become a mutant crime-fighting duo. A guilt ridden Tyler "Ty" Johnson AKA Cloak, leaves home after his debilitating childhood stutter leaves him unable to save a friend from being shot by a cop. He meets up with lonely runaway Tandy Bowen who fled a cushy life in Ohio for a fresh start in New York City after years of neglect from her supermodel mother and the complete abandonment of her billionaire father. The pair meet by chance when Tyler rescues Tandy's purse from a would-be thief.
The two become fast friends before being lured into the home of the ethically twisted chemist Simon Marshall who has been experimenting on and subsequently murdering homeless people in an attempt to create a new drug. Drawn in by the promise of food and shelter, Ty and Tandy are given a lighter version of the drug so that, instead of killing them like it has all the others, it instead gives them superpowers.
Ty becomes able to manipulate a "dark dimension," harnessing its energy to enter it himself and become invisible, or trap others inside it, driving them to insanity, turning them evil, or even killing them. The energy even allows him to teleport. Tandy on the other hand becomes able to manipulate light energy in order to create--you guessed it--daggers, which can drain the recipient of their vitality, or cure their addictions. The light energy essentially represents life-force or vitality in that it can create energy and it can take it away.
Though the series is a part of the Marvel universe, don't expect any crossovers with other characters. Find out more details in our video about the show. Cloak and Dagger premiered on Freeform June 7.