Issue(s): Cloak and Dagger #6, Cloak and Dagger #7, Cloak and Dagger #8
Cover Date: Aug-Nov 89
Title: "Agony is Ecstasy" / "Tyrone" / "Pink elephants on parade!"
Credits:
Terry Austin - Writer
Mike Vosburg - Penciler
Mike Vosburg & Barb Rausch / Mike Vosburg & Don Cameron - Inker
Marc McLaurin - Assistant Editor
Carl Potts - Editor

Review/plot:
Mike Vosburg is credited with "art" on all issues. Barb Rausch is credited with "backgrounds" for #6-7 and Don Cameron is credited with "backgrounds" for #8.

While Ecstasy continues to use Cloak's powers to consolidate her drug lord status...

...this book continues the interminable focus on Dagger's blindness therapy.

ALRIGHT! ALRIGHT! ENOUGH ALREADY! BRING BACK THE LITTLE PLANET HEAD DUDES ON MOTORCYCLES!

Nope:

Look, it's very nice that Terry Austin did his research here, and certainly no one can complain when Dagger starts fighting bad guys while blind. But how much of this can we take? If this were an indie romance comic or something, i could see this being part of a larger story, but it's not.

There are some other things going on in this book. Father Delgado moves back into the Holy Ghost church.

Mayhem makes a deal with Mr. Jip to get her humanity back.

Mr. Jip actually helps Dagger when she's nearly hit by traffic, but that's the last we see of him in this arc.

The Kingpin hires an agent called the Disciplinarian to kill Ecstacy. The guy has powers similar to the Foreigner that allow him to slow time.

It's pretty annoying to see that the Kingpin has a guy like that at his beck and call considering how whether or not the Kingpin has super-powered help on staff is usually a topic of discussion in the Spider- and Daredevil books.

Towards the end of issue #6, Dagger suddenly gets sick. It turns out that she's been building up too much light energy, storing it all for Cloak.

Father Bowen eventually has to lead her up to the roof to "release" it.

That attracts the attention of Ecstasy, who had just finished killing a different, non-superpowered, assassin working for the Kingpin.

The Kingpin is a real dick about that, too, cancelling the poor guy's death benefits.

Issue #6 ends with Dagger and Father Bowen walking into a bank that happens to be undergoing a hold-up.

I know i say something like this about nearly every issue of Cloak and Dagger under Austin, but issue #7 gets really weird. Dagger's bank robbers are led by a guy called the Crimson Daffodil, a play on the Scarlet Pimpernel.

He seems to have the power to charm one person at a time. He claims to detest violence and is trying to get through this robbery without his gunmen hurting anyone. He also develops an attraction to Dagger.

His arrival in this series, which was building towards the Dagger/Ecstasy confrontation, is another left field WTF moment.

Interspersed with all of that are scenes of Cloak living in a dream world, where he's married with kids and holding down a normal job as an auto mechanic, but everywhere he goes he keeps seeing Dagger.

I'm only including a couple of scans from issue #7 but realize that it's an entire issue of this. A non-action bank robbery/hostage scenario with the silly Crimson Daffodil interspersed with scenes from Cloak's dreams. This is a bi-monthly book.

Things finally come together for issue #8. Ecstasy seeks Dagger by going to the Holy Ghost, where the crazy Father Delgado gives away where she is.

The Disciplinarian follows, and shoots Delgado.

And Cloak wakes up from his dream and finds that he's floating in the Darkforce Dimension next to some packages of nutritional compounds and hallucinogenic drugs.

Ecstasy arrives at the bank robbery scene, and the Crimson Daffodil finds that his powers don't work on her, because to her, hate, pleasure and pain are all the same.

So then Dagger blasts her with help from Father Bowen, using a grid nomenclature that they've worked out.

And what happens next, well... oh dear. I don't think that should be in a code approved book.

But that burst of light also shows Cloak the way out. So he pops out at the same time the Disciplinarian shows up.

Crimson Daffodil has the Disciplinarian under control until blind Dagger accidentally blasts Daffy.

It turns out Dagger's light power is fast enough to negate the effects of the Disciplinarian, though.

And Cloak wrests control back from Ecstasy. We don't see exactly what happens.

As for the Daffodil's gunmen, a human Mayhem (Brigid O'Reilly) pops up to shoot them.

Crimson Daffodil then gives Dagger a kiss...

...and then flees, leaving her to wonder if she's been manipulated or not.

Even after all of this, Dagger is unable to tell Cloak that she loves him, despite her having come to that conclusion while they were separated.

The last four pages begin "sometime later" with Dagger continuing her training and Cloak receiving a taunting package of drugs from Ecstasy before a group of villains show up for Acts of Vengeance.

It's been a weeeird book since the start of Cloak and Dagger's new series. Not necessarily bad, but definitely not great, and hard to get a grip on.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Terry Austin couldn't be nice and leave us with a clean break in the Cloak and Dagger book for guest appearances. So Cloak and Dagger's appearances in Atlantis Attacks and a few other places takes place after they get back together in issue #8 but before the Acts of Vengeance prelude (which takes place "sometime later"). I'm therefore treating the last four pages of issue 8 as a flash-forward and not listing the Acts of Vengeance villains as characters appearing. Hydroman in particular has to have a few other appearances, all part of Acts of Vengeance, before he appears here.

References:

• Dagger thinks to herself that after she learned from Mr. Jip in Strange Tales #11 that Cloak may be immortal, she worried that one day she would die and no longer be able to keep Cloak's hunger in check. Instead, it was Cloak who (seemingly) died in Cloak and Dagger #4.
  
• A footnote tells us that we'll be able to see more of Mr. Jip and his macabre schemes in Uncanny X-Men annual #13 (which is written and drawn by Terry Austin and Mike Vosburg).

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Barb Rausch actually did work on quite a few romance-style comics.

What was it about Hydro-Man? He kept appearing in plenty of comics around this time even though he'd only appeared sparingly in his first several years as a villain. People even wrote in to the letters page about it.

Do you think Sandman's retirement plays a role? Seems like a lot of his gigs (Frightful Four, villain muscle) would have been obvious Sandman appearances in the past.