Cloak and Dagger: Lost and Found collects some early issues featuring the titular duo. The majority of the issues are from the early to mid-80s but they feel older; the writing style is incredibly stilted and expository. Each issue starts with an explanation of how the two teens came to be the vigilantes they currently are. While a brief introduction can be nice, these explanations start to feel ridiculous; by eight issues, the reader should at least be aware of who the main characters are. Instead, readers are given the origin story over and over again, nearly verbatim each time no matter how clunky it ends up sounding.

With names like Cloak and Dagger and a backstory involving chemical substances inducing super powers, it seems like the duo could easily be put into the plot of a stellar mystery or an intriguing scifi story; instead they are dropped into a rather mundane drug-running scenario dripping with an overly moralistic tone. A major supporting cast member is a priest and religious language pervades the text. Apparently either no one thought about or no one cared about the latent racism inherent in describing the white teen as "an angel of light" and the black teen as "a demon of darkness." In a similar vein, the book opens with the pair breaking up a ring of pimps exploiting under-aged girls; however, no one seems to see the irony in Dagger being an under-aged girl dressed in a skin-tight, upper torso revealing bodysuit who is constantly ogled at by grown men throughout the series, including by 'good guy' Peter Parker (who refers to Dagger as "a babe") and even by the priest. Meanwhile, Cloak and Dagger don't actually do a whole lot of good as superheroes, given that most of the crime they stop could easily be prevented by the police instead; more than once, they actively disrupt solid policework and cause more chaos.

The concept behind the characters (and their oft-repeated origin story) is rather interesting, but unfortunately the writing here fails spectacularly. Hopefully the recent TV series will generate renewed interest in the characters and they can have a decent reworking in comics. ( )