Too Many People Slept on This Underrated Marvel Show With 87% on Rotten Tomatoes

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You’ve likely heard of Marvel Rivals, the third-person hero shooter that has taken the world by storm since it officially launched in December 2024. While the game features many well-known Marvel characters like The Hulk, Spider-Man, and Wolverine, it also has put the spotlight on lesser-known characters like Jeff the Land Shark, Squirrel Girl, and Luna Snow. Two breakout characters in the game are a famous Marvel duo, Cloak and Dagger. The two have become very popular among gamers and have put these heroes in the spotlight in a big way, with many curious to know more about these heroes.

It may then surprise many that Cloak and Dagger had their own adjacent MCU series, which was airing at the height of the MCU’s popularity. Cloak & Dagger debuted on ABC Freeform one month after Avengers: Infinity War hit theaters on June 7, 2018, and concluded its second and final season on May 30, 2019, just four weeks after Avengers: Endgame was released. Despite being part of the MCU and the two seasons earning a combined total of 84% on Rotten Tomatoes, many skipped the series or didn’t even know it existed. With Marvel Rivals putting Cloak & Dagger back in the spotlight, now is the perfect time to check out this underrated series on Disney+.

Cloak & Dagger Comic History and Road to the Silver Screen

Created by writer Bill Mantlo and artist Ed Hannigan, Cloak and Dagger first appeared in Peter Parker, the Spectacular Spider-Man #64 in March 1982. Real names Tyrone “Ty” Johnson (Cloak) and Tandy Bowen (Dagger), the duo were teenage runaways who were injected with synthetic heroin that gave them the twin superpowers of light and dark force control, eventually becoming superheroes. The characters were cult heroes, often bouncing around popular titles, but they were never one of Marvel’s heroes. Part of this was baked into the characters, as they had no ambitions to be the next big superhero or join a team like The Avengers or the Fantastic Four. They were just teenagers trying to find their place in the world.

Cloak and Dagger was actually one of the 10 properties put up as collateral when Marvel Studios took out its first loan with Meryll Lynch. The duo was also one of the first projects Marvel Studios considered for their film slate when they first began. The MCU eventually took off with Iron Man, and the focus began on The Avengers characters. Marvel began to expand into television, with characters like Daredevil, Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, The Runaways, the Inhumans, and Cloak and Dagger making their way to the small screen.

Cloak & Dagger debuted on ABC Freeform on June 7, 2018, with a two-episode season premiere that earned solid reviews and was renewed for Season 2, which aired just weeks before Avengers: Endgame hit theaters in April 2019. Johnson and Holt also voiced the characters in the animated Spider-Man series, which aired in October 2019, seemingly making them the go-to versions of the character. However, by this point, many of the greenlit Marvel live-action television series were being canceled as the new plan was to make a series for Disney+ that would have stronger overt connections to the MCU. Cloak & Dagger was officially canceled in October 2019, five months after it concluded its second season. While fans would not get a proper conclusion to the series, they would get to see Cloak & Dagger one last time as the two appeared in a crossover with another teen-centric Marvel series, The Runaways, which dropped its final season on December 13, 2019.

‘Cloak & Dagger’ Tackled Topical Themes Like Race, Class, and Child Homelessness

The MCU series makes a few key changes to Cloak and Dagger’s backstory, some of which would necessitate behind-the-scenes realities but also some that would improve the story. Despite Spider-Man being part of the MCU, the complicated rights issue around the character essentially ruled him out from being part of Cloak & Dagger. The series moved the duo from New York to New Orleans, expanding the scope of the Marvel Universe out of the highly populated New York City of heroes like The Defenders and most Avengers.

Cloak & Dagger also changes the duo’s origins, tying it in with the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe television series at the time, building off Roxxon’s development of Darkforce energy from Agent Carter and Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. into an accident that happened when Ty and Tandy were kids, bringing them together by fate. It also made a change to the duo’s backstory that would fundamentally alter the characters but improve the series for the better.

In the comics, Tyrone Ty Johnson (Cloak) comes from a struggling family, while Tandy Bowen (Dagger) is a rich girl from a high-class family who runs away because her mother hardly notices her. While the first scene of the series shows the duo as kids setting up that initial dynamic, the flashforward eight years later to the present day shows their roles flipped because of the accident that will give them their powers. Tandy’s family life went downhill following her dad’s death from the accident, and her mother is a drug addict living in a trailer park, so she now lives in an abandoned church and is hustling money. Meanwhile, Tyrone’s parents are successful, and he is attending private school, seemingly having a well-off life. Even the incident where the two discover their shared power connections, Tandy trying to steal Tyrone’s wallet, is an inverse of how the two met in the comics when Tyrone considers stealing Tandy’s purse.

Changing the backgrounds behind the two characters helps the series avoid falling into harmful racial stereotypes, like characterizing the young Black kid as a criminal and the white girl as being inherently wealthy. Series showrunner Joe Pokaski broke down the change, saying, “I think the original stories were fantastic, but for the time, while they were a little progressive, they were a little bit sexist and racist once you got into it, for now. What we tried to do was deconstruct it and make it about Tandy and Tyrone, understand who they were.”

Flipping the expectations of Ty and Tandy’s characterization, along with the post-Hurricane Katrina New Orleans setting, established that Cloak & Dagger was a series that wanted to tell a superhero story within a socially conscious and grounded tale. While oftentimes the words “grounded” might make a superhero fan’s eyes roll because a lot of the time, particularly in television, that is code for cheapening out (looking at you, Iron Fist), Cloak & Dagger’sgritty aesthetic here is not a performative one but one that feels authentic to the world of the characters.

These characters and their conflicts are far removed from the gloss and shine of the world of Iron Man, Thor, or even Ant-Man. That not only works to allow the series to be a standalone entry and can exist as a Schrödinger’s canon (it is canon if you want, canon when you don’t), but it also makes Cloak and Dagger more impressive heroes, because they have to do this on their own as the Avengers aren’t coming to fix any problems.

There have been many superhero projects centered on young heroes, but Cloak & Dagger separated itself from Spider-Man or Young Justice by removing many of its fantastical elements apart from the series and keeping the larger Marvel Universe to a bare minimum but also really zeroing in on the issues that relate to teenagers. This series was less interested in catering to older adult Marvel fans and more focused on being authentic to its target demographic of teenagers and young adults, fitting for characters who don’t even want to be Avengers but want just to be themselves. Yet that authenticity and clear creative vision makes Cloak & Dagger a series that can stand on its own and appeal to even older fans who might be outside the target demo.

Freeform, the network that broadcast Cloak & Dagger, was a network that looked to tap into a teenage audience and become the go-to for millennial television series. It looked to give a voice to its target demographic and tackle stories dealing with social issues the audience would face. Through the lens of teenage angst series that dealt with child neglect, family loss, drugs, and race, these are not problems they can just punch away and vanquish.

Cloak & Dagger makes a clear distinction between what a young white woman and a young Black man can and cannot get away with based on their race, gender, and class. The series tapped into anxiety at the time, knowing how much symbolism seeing a young Black man like Tyrone wearing his signature hooded cloak and having a sense of power could hold for viewers. It was a bit of escapist fantasy that also shone a lot on topical issues. The sad thing is that Cloak & Dagger is just as relevant in 2025 as it was in 2018 when it first debuted.

Can Stand Toe to Toe With the Disney+ MCU Series and the Feature Films

What made Cloak & Dagger so special compared to many other superhero television at the time (and even today) was that it had a cinematic flair to it. Much of this can be attributed to the pilot for Cloak & Dagger being directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood, best known for her films Love & Basketball and The Woman King. Prince-Bythewood has had a passion for comic books, having directed the 2020 hit Netflix film The Old Guard, an adaptation of the graphic novel series of the same name. She also spent years trying to make a Black Cat / Silver Sable-led movie titled Silver & Black for Sony Pictures, though it never came to fruition. Bythewood sets the visual tone and tenor for Cloak & Dagger that is carried through for the reason of the season.

The series features plenty of hand-held camera work, providing scenes with an intimate feel. The colored pallet is washed out and muted, one that oppresses the heroes. It also highlights the character’s powers, where Dagger’s light illuminates so brightly it often overtakes the scene, and Cloak’s dark force powers absorb all sense of space around him. Despite being a superhero series on Freeform, it is an incredible-looking show that looks more tactile and stylistic than some of its big-budget counterparts. Cloak & Dagger on a television budget looks more like a movie than the overt CGI in Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania or Thor: Love and Thunder.

Aubrey Joseph and Olivia Holt’s performances as Cloak and Dagger, respectively, make the series worth watching. Aubrey Johnson brings a quiet intensity to Cloak, a very vulnerable young man who feels like he always needs to control himself and who can also be laid back and compassionate, making him feel like a fully realized character. Olivia Holt’s Dagger has a dry wit, masking years of pain and suffering. She gives the character a likable charm, similar to a Han Solo figure. Like the best MCU characters, they feel well-defined with rich inner lives that make the audience want to know more about them and follow them into future stories.

The chemistry the two have together is where the series truly shines. Cloak and Dagger’s romantic relationship in the comic has always been complex, with some fans preferring them as lifelong platonic friends while others like the symbolism of their love story. The series walks a fine line between pleasing both sides of the fandom as the series lets them start out as strangers who slowly have to get to know each other. This blossoms into a friendship, but the seeds of a romantic connection exist.

The scripts and actors work well to sell a slow-burn romance that feels tailor-made for the teenage demographic but also natural to the characters. There is something ironic that, despite being a series about adolescent heroes airing on a network focused on teen entertainment, the dynamic between Cloak and Dagger feels like a more mature romance than the cinematic MCU films.

It has been six years since Cloak & Dagger concluded its run, and there is a good chance many MCU fans might not have ever watched it. It may be because they didn’t have access to Freeform when it was airing, but there is a good chance many audiences dismissed it. Some fans might not have considered it worthy of consideration because they didn’t think it was going to connect to the broader Marvel Cinematic Universe stories like Avengers: Infinity War, Ant-Man and the Wasp, Captain Marvel, and Avengers: Endgame.

Others might have written it off as a teen series and not as serious as the other Marvel television series at the time, like Daredevil or Jessica Jones, despite Cloak & Dagger having a lot in common with those series tonally and stylistically. Yet a series of connections or lack thereof to the larger MCU should not be what motivates someone to watch a series; it should be the desire to have a great story told and become compelled by interesting characters.

Interested in the characters after playing Marvel Rivals? Cloak & Dagger is a great way to learn more about these two popular playable heroes. Are you watching Olivia Holt’s new horror-comedy Heart Eyes, which opened a week before the MCU’s Captain America: Brave New World? See Olivia Holt’s underrated MCU role. Are you a fan of popular romance novels on TikTok that deal with topics like young love, enemies to friends, and then romantic partners? Cloak & Dagger is the MCU series you didn’t know you wanted. Feeling worn out by the MCU? Cloak & Dagger is a largely self-contained story that tackles topical issues and uses a fantastical device to put a mirror up to society that feels just as relevant today as it did in 2018.

Saying Cloak & Dagger is worth your time more than Secret Invasion doesn’t say much, but Cloak & Dagger clears Disney+ MCU series like Moon Knight, Loki, and Hawkeye and stands up with some of the best, like WandaVision, Agatha All Along, and Ms. Marvel. Cloak & Dagger provides a story about two teens from vastly different worlds, feeling lost and hopeless, who find purpose and the ability to change their world through one another in a story that captures the Marvel ethos of being the world outside our window and that world needs heroes like Cloak and Dagger. Cloak and Dagger is streaming on Hulu.

“}]] The characters have reached a new level of popularity thanks to ‘Marvel Rivals.’  Read More