Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | RSS
In which Miles and his Doom voice return triumphant; we reach an understanding regarding Lila Cheney; Mob science is pretty shoddy; Magneto has fancy hair; New Mutants Xavier is Best Xavier; no one is more goth than Cloak and Dagger; and you can have Rachel’s Speed Racer references when you pry them from her cold, dead hands.
X-Plained:
- Spider-Man crossovers
- Cats
- Marvel Team-Up Annual #6
- New Mutants #22-25
- Phone calls with bears
- Glam day at the Hellfire Club
- Rahne’s fairytale
- Cloak & Dagger
- Drugs
- Eldritch curtains
- A seriously flawed evil plan
- Harry’s Hideaway
- The Sam and Dani Show
- Magneto’s hair
- Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch’s parentage
- Waiting for the T
- Whether Cloak and Dagger are mutants
- How to buy original art
NEXT WEEK: G. Willow Wilson!
You can find a visual companion to this episode on our blog!
Find us on iTunes or Stitcher!
Support us on Patreon!
Buy prints of this week’s illustration at our shop, or contact David Wynne for the original!
“Probably a Maximoff parent”?
“Probably a Lensherr offspring”?
‘techno-organic space teenager’ is the most compact description of Warlock that i have ever heard.
Another great episode – and another great explanation of some kinda-obscure characters I never really understood until this podcast.
I was introduced to Cloak and Dagger during the early-1990s marketing trainwreck that was Maximum Carnage, and they… really did not come off well in that.
Perhaps because no one came off well in that.
Oh, and if Miles didn’t Xplain Spider-Island to you off-panel, Rachel? You really should check it out if you’re a Spider-Man fan. The basic premise is that, all of a sudden, all of New York wakes up with Spider-Powers. Even some of the Superheroes, like Shiang-Chi, Hawkeye, and the Spider-Girl who was Arana.
The main story is pretty awesome – one that’s fun, enjoyable, and really easy to understand (though it does use continuity references to side-stories published in the other major Spider-ongoing, Venom, for backstory for a fight or two).
And the tie-ins are… surprisingly awesome. We have things like Hawkeye and the Avengers trying to keep things from spiraling more out of control than before – but he can’t hit a damned thing with his web-shooting… until he uses his bow to aim his arm. Cloak and Dagger fight Mister Negative, who has the ability to flip your mind and personality into your worst self – which for these two is more than metaphor. Shiang-Chi uses Spider-Powers and Kung-Fu in incredibly awesome ways.
It’s really the best Spider-story in a while (this was done in 2011), and really was the start of Dan Slott doing more wide-ranging Spider-Man stories… the most current of which is Spiderverse.
Where all the Spider-People of the Multiverse are being hunted down and… feasted upon. So there’s that.
I really like Ultimate Cloak and Dagger. Something about them being honor student lovers really grabs me. I guess they still live in a church, though they’re much less goth. And Dagger’s croch arrow isn’t a window!
I think that Rachel is pretty much spot-on per Professor X. I was introduced to the characters in the late 1970s and this period was pretty much where my vision of him was solidified. This is the Professor that Patrick Stewart portrays in the movies, effectively his best self. Stern, not always compassionate, but generally a good teacher and educator.
I remember thinking at the time that while Cloak and Dagger were conceptually cool, they felt awfully preachy and ‘after-school specialy’. They were another of one of those ‘suddenly they’re everywhere for a hot minute’ characters that was in Spiderman, New Mutants and elsewhere. But as Rachel mentions, they seemed less effective in their own title than as guest-stars elsewhere.
HI! I’m not sure if this is where I should be asking this, but please talk to G. Willow Wilson about Baby Shogo! He’s my favorite. Thank you! I love the podcast, by the way.
While I’m still trying to figure out how I found this by searching under tumblr tag “None More Goth” in an attempt to look up Baphomet from WicDiv, I don’t regret clicking the link. I saw Rahne’s name and went “My baby!” and clicked before even really checking out what was happening and that’s the story of my life. Rahne is forever my little love in the Marvel Universe. She’s my favorite, then Dani, Illyana and Kitty.
While you’re correct that most of the good Cloak & Dagger stories weren’t written by their creator, I would like to highly recommend two good runs in their own title.
Writer/inker Terry Austin (Strange Tales #8-19, Mutant Misadventures of Cloak and Dagger #1-13) was the first regular writer after Bill Mantlo. He did a fantastic job of developing the characters further and introducing a whole new range of elements to their world. One of the villains created in his run later turned up in an X-Men Annual.
Nick Spencer & Emma Rios’ work on Spider-Island: Cloak and Dagger #1-3 was intended as a backdoor pilot for a new series. They really got the characters in a way that nobody had for years and the lack of a follow-up series is one of Marvel’s greatest missed opportunities.