MUTANT MISADVENTURES OF CLOAK AND DAGGER #12 (1990)
by Terry Austin & Rick Leonardi
After the first glimpse of the 90s in Acts of Vengeance and What If?, we return to the proper Doctor Doom retrospective with what I assume few people expected: a second encounter with Cloak & Dagger.
And yes, that mouthful really is the complete name of the series.
Before we tackle Doom, a member of the cast needs some introduction: Brigid O’Reilly, who used to be the supervillain Mayhem until she was cured by the new nemesis of Cloak & Dagger, the horrifying Mr. Jip.
The price was having one of her eyes removed and replaced with a mystical eye that Mr. Jip can use to spy on Cloak & Dagger. And THE EYE TALKS.
Mr. Jip is a sorcerer, so he strikes a deal with Doom (living in a castle “somewhere in Europe” since he’s still in exile). He also takes with him his assistant, the stripperific Night.
Doom is still considering the possibility to use Dagger to power his devices, something he thinks might be easier now that Dagger is blind due to plot shenanigans.
But why would Doom care for this creep? Because believe it or not, Mr. Jip claims to have been the very first disciple of the Ancient One, a.k.a. Doctor Strange’s mentor.
Except Mr. Jip turned out to be just a liiiiitle obsessed with dark magic, turning himself into some kind of mystical vampire…
…who looks absolutely disgusting.
Cloak and Brigid will continue to search for Mr. Jip, while Dagger is going to Europe to get her sight restored… except the man accompanying her is actually Mr. Jip under mystical disguise.
He even murders Dagger’s priest uncle, though he’ll later turn out to be okay.
Rick Leonardi’s artwork is the highlight of this part of the series. I especially enjoyed the scene where Cloak and Brigid are at the North Pole (just go with it).
And after a few subplots, we end the first part with Doom waiting for Mr. Jip to deliver Dagger.
MUTANT MISADVENTURES OF CLOAK AND DAGGER #12 (1990)
by Terry Austin & Rick Leonardi
Even the cover is baffled by Doom being here.
Mr. Jip is already weird enough, especially as the nemesis of a couple of street heroes like Cloak & Dagger, but what’s even weirder is that he has a high-tech base on the magnetic North Pole.
Hilariously, the blind Dagger is completely oblivious to the fact that her plane is full of Doom robots (not Doombots!) and that Mr. Jip is right next to her.
However she’s not a complete idiot and eventually realizes she’s been kidnapped.
Mr. Jip then uses his incredible mystical abilities to… knock her out with a fire extinguisher.
While this is going on, Doom is much more interested in reading. That’s actually the payment Mr. Jip wants: a book of evil magic evilness.
To be used for evil purposes.
Too bad Cloak has sensed Dagger is in danger, so he teleports to the airport and proceeds to absorb THE ENTIRE PLANE inside his cloak!!!
Okay, that was just AWESOME. And what’s worse, in this period the shadow dimension accessed by Cloak has a demon infestation!
While the demons deal with the robots, Cloak proceeds to rescue Dagger.
And Cloak does not f##k around!!!
Mr. Jip does, however, have one bargaining chip left.
Turns out Mr. Jip had blinded Dagger by using some of the dark energy of his assistant Night, which he now removes.
Cloak, buddy, I really like you but WTF did you expect by striking a deal with Mr. Jip? He lives for this kind of crap!!!
However Mr. Jip’s habit of betraying everyone ends up biting him, because Night is just done with him and gives Brigid a shadow bullet that should be able to kill Mr. Jip.
Except it’s yet another trick: Night knew that Brigid was under Mr. Jip’s control thanks to that freaky eye thing, so she actually gives the bullet to another supporting character… who then kills Mr. Jip.
I think Mr. Jip is still dead, but considering he’s a centuries old magic vampire you never know.
After wrapping up a few subplots, we end with Doctor Doom receiving the news that Mr. Jip has died… and he doesn’t give a crap about it.
I love that epilogue. Understand that this is a culmination of A LOT of very, VERY long subplots for Cloak & Dagger, plus it’s the death of their most dangerous and insidious foe… and it’s barely a footnote for Doctor Doom. Makes sense, considering he probably has at least five master plans running concurrently at any given time.
Doom significance: 0/10
I mean, by definition it shouldn’t matter.
Silver Age-ness: 3/10
This time Dagger is not as much as a doormat as she can sometimes be, but that scene about her being oblivious to the kidnapping is quite Silver Age.
Does it stand the test of time? 7/10
I had to skip some plots that would make sense only to regular Cloak & Dagger readers, but overall it was surprisingly enjoyable. This era of C&D is wild and frankly all over the place: for a couple of street heroes, it’s amazing how much they keep dealing with bizarre magic stuff.
It’s not without problems: Dagger is a very passive character most of the time, Cloak fluctuates between stoic badass and screaming drama queen… but the manic energy keeps things entertaining and enjoyable througout this two-parter.
It was a Doombot all along
Considering his deal revolves around a mystic book, and how little time he actually spends on this, I’m willing to bet this is the real Doctor Doom.
Take over the world : 21
Sure it’s a backup plan at most, but it’s still technically another attempt.
Crazy tech
We don’t actually get to see it, but whatever machine Doom wanted to be powered up by Dagger sounds interesting.