'Cloak and Dagger' Showrunner Reveals Why They Changed Their Marvel Origin

Marvel's Cloak and Dagger will debut this Thursday on Freeform and showrunner Joe Pokaski is explaining why a major change was made to the origins of Tandy Bowen (Olivia Holt) and Ty Johnson (Aubrey Joseph).

Cloak and Dagger are among Marvel's most famous runaways (aside from The Runaways), but in the Freeform series, the teenagers' parents are still very much in the picture. Pokaski says this was done so that audiences can see and experience Tandy and Ty's home lives before they gained their powers rather than having to hear about second-hand and after the fact.

"It's funny, when you look at the old comics, they had those pages that were filled with way too many words and referenced their backstories where Tandy kind of ran away from a semi-abusive relationship, and Tyrone was living in Boston," Pokaski tells Slash Film. "They had these lives that we kind of skirt over in the comics and I thought showing their parents, showing where they came from in the long format felt the right thing to do to really understand them as human beings and also just to mess with their heads, because that's what parents are there for."

Marvel's Runaways on Hulu took a similar approach, keeping its cast of wayward children at home and in school throughout its first season. However, the first season's finale finally saw kids go on the run. Could Cloak and Dagger take a similar approach?

"I don't want to spoil anything but that's certainly an option that we always have in front of us and we always want to consider when the right time to do it is," Pokaski says.

Reviews are out for the first handful of episodes of Marvel's Cloak and Dagger and the series is receiving largely positive responses, including from ComicBook.com's own Charlie Ridgely:

"Where Cloak & Dagger really excels is in its ability to pay equal attention to the fantastical elements behind these powers, and the real situations facing our country. Issues like racial tension, social anxiety, bullying, police brutality, loss, homelessness -- all of these are tackled head first, putting Cloak & Dagger right alongside Black Lightning in terms of taking an exciting premise and inserting it flawlessly into the terrifying reality that so many of our young people face today. It's a remarkable blend of two very different worlds."

Marvel's Cloak and Dagger premieres Thursday, June 7th at 8 pm ET on Freeform.