Issue(s): Cloak and Dagger #9
Cover Date: Dec 89
Title: "To battle the Avengers"
Credits:
Terry Austin - Writer
Mike Vosburg - Penciler
Mike Vosburg & Don Cameron - Inker
Carl Potts - Editor

Review/plot:
Don Cameron is again credited with "backgrounds".

Due to all the stuff going on in the Cloak & Dagger book, i had to leave you guys with a cliffhanger at the end of issue #8 (with the idea that there was a long break towards the end of that issue where other Cloak & Dagger appearances had to occur). We're picking up on that now, which is part of Acts of Vengeance.

It turns out that the Jester - actually, this is a new one - is leading a group of villains for an attack on the Avengers, and he's trying to recruit Cloak & Dagger.

Doom provided some equipment, including the Cosmic Hulk Robot, and Jester then set about recruiting others. He tried for the Leader but got the Rock instead.

And the Jester is under the impression that Cloak & Dagger are villains.

Cloak & Dagger decide to go along with it for now.

The Avengers, meanwhile, are trying to manage public relations in light of the upcoming Superhero Registration Act.

The Jester has the Fenris twins infiltrate the meeting and stir up trouble (a footnote says that their ability to fan the flames of hatred was inherited from their father, Baron von Strucker), and then the fake Hulk attacks She-Hulk.

And so the somewhat strange fight is on.

Cloak and Dagger help the civilians at the forum escape.

They have to walk past the Predator demon that lives in Cloak's cloak.

After getting the civilians to safety, the Wasp and Cloak & Dagger returns to the fight. Wasp exposes the Jester...

...and Cloak and Dagger save Iron Man and Captain America from Hydroman.

Dagger has to go into Cloak to rescue Iron Man and Hydroman from Cloak's darkness. Thor, meanwhile, smashes Rock, temporarily freeing him from his exterior shell. But soon afterwards it reforms around him.

With the fight wrapped up, Cloak and Dagger leave without waiting around to be thanked by the Avengers.

I like the idea that Cloak & Dagger are unknown enough that someone like the Jester might mistake them for villains. The upper level Acts of Vengeance villains, especially the Kingpin and Dr. Doom, would know better, but it's not like the Jester was clearing the details of his mad plans with them. Beyond that, though, this issue is a little too frantic and zany for my tastes. It's one thing when we're getting stylized stories about Cloak & Dagger, but i like it less when the Avengers are involved.

Also in this issue, Father Bowen visits Father Delgado at the hospital...

...and then walks past a room where the X-Men are being kept?!

Another tease for next issue is about the Marked Man.

This is a $2.50 "giant-sized spectacular" issue, and it also contains some pin-ups.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 2 - a new Jester, god help us

Chronological Placement Considerations: Issue #8 actually ended on a cliffhanger that opens into this story. But prior to that cliffhanger there's a gap during which Dagger's Atlantis Attacks and Power Pack #53 appearances have to occur. The MCP have the Avengers here between Avengers #311-312, but i've pushed this later than Avengers #312 because Cloak & Dagger #10 suggests that the government started up the X-Force program (those dead X-Men seen here) because of Freedom Force's actions in #312. The Avengers will start to reference the events here beginning in Avengers #313, too, so it makes sense for this to take place later.

References:

• The Jester's conversation with Doom happened just before Doom's meeting with Typhoid Mary in Power Pack #53.
  

• Doom used the Cosmic Hulk Robot in Hulk #350.
  
• A lady whose child was saved by the Thing in Fantastic Four vs. the X-Men #3 speaks in favor of super-heroes at the Avengers' forum.
  
• At the end of the issue, Cloak reads Treasure Island to Dagger, having been taught to read by Julie Power circa Strange Tales #14.

Crossover: Acts of Vengeance

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

You know the title you're writing is in trouble when you ask what villains you get to use during Acts of Vengeance and the response includes Jester, the Fenris Twins, and that Rock guy Peter David forgot to kill off in Hulk.

The big question from this issue remains unanswered: how did the Jester know She-Hulk is ticklish? LOL!! (I do love the boxing glove that punches her in the face; very Three Stooges!)

This was the first Cloak & Dagger issue I had picked up since a Strange Tales issue. I was horrified at how bad the series had become.

According to Avenger Annual 19, this takes place at about the same time as Avengers 312.
Iron Man was almost defeated by HYDROMAN? That's gotta be embarrassing.

Why does She-Hulk think that Bruce should be dead? Sharon Venutra told her that Ben saw the Hulk alive in Fantastic Four 320.

Fnord, the problem with moving this long after Avengers 312 is that in Avengers Annual 19,Steve says that Freedom Force's arrival at Avengers Park took place "while many of us were so engaged" with the Jester's villains.

Thanks Michael. Seems like an impasse. Cloak & Dagger #10 says this issue takes place after Avengers #312 but Avengers annual #19 says it takes place during Avengers #312. For now i'll move it so that it's just after Avengers #312 and see if i can find a loophole when i get to the annual.

I've always thought it was rather odd that the only time Captain America ever encountered Baron Strucker's children the Fenris twins was during a guess appearance in Cloak & Dagger. Given all the times Cap fought Hydra you would think somehow or another he would have bumped into Fenris on more than one occasion.

Of course, that is not nearly as odd as Fenris never (as far as I know) ever actually meeting Nick Fury. It never made sense to me that Andrea & Andreas made their public debut in Uncanny X-Men #200 in order to attack Magneto, who had defeated their father once decades before, when it would have made much more sense for them to go after Fury, who was the Baron's long-time arch-nemesis and who at one point even killed him (before his inevitable resurrection a couple of decades later).

Who dis the second pin-up? It's nixe

Mark Texeira.