Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger is coming to television, but not without some changes from the comic book source material.
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Cloak and Dagger is the story of two young people, one a white girl and the other a black boy, who have superpowers forced on them by an unwanted experiment. The powers play into the “opposites attract” themes of the concept, with Cloak possessing Darkforce powers and Dagger being powered by light.
While much of the setup of Cloak and Dagger was seen as progressive at the time, some fo the thematic typecasting that went into the main characters – the white girl being a shining beacon of hope while the black boy struggles with rage issues – hasn’t aged well. For that reason, showrunner Joe Pokowski tells Cinemablend that some changes needed to be made.
“Listen, I think the original stories were fantastic, but for the time while they were a little progressive; they were a little bit sexist and racist once you got into it,” Pokowski says. “What we tried to do was deconstruct it and really make it about Tandy and Tyrone, understanding who they were.
“Here’s the biggest hint I can give you, and hopefully I’m not giving anything away,” Pokowski continued. “When we talk about how sexist and racist the old versions were, it always drove me crazy, and it wasn’t really the original things, where people would be like, ‘Tyrone is about fear and Tandy is about hope.’ I never saw it that way. That felt very black and white in the wrong way. So the nature of their powers, from an emotional standpoint, is Tandy lives on the spectrum between cynicism and hope, and Tyrone lives on the spectrum between fear and bravery. So their first season stories are about Tandy trying to move from being a very cynical human being towards the light, and Tyrone trying to move from the fear that can cripple you to becoming a hero.”
Another change is in the setting. Cloak and Dagger are based in New York City in the Marvel Comics universe, but the television show moves their story to the less crowded setting of Marvel’s New Orleans.
“[Executive producer Jeph Loeb] had the great idea of moving it down to New Orleans,” Pokowski says. “I feel like New York is covered for superheroes. Hell’s Kitchen’s got like six of them. It’s like four blocks of a neighborhood. So I think moving it to New Orleans, but also taking some more time with the origin story and really investing in who this young woman is and who this young man is in today’s time, then bringing them together in a way that is rewarding.”
That change in location should help Cloak and Dagger avoid stumbling over any other Marvel heroes, though there is one Marvel crossover Pokowski would like to see that isn’t too far-fetched.
Marvel’s Cloak and Dagger premieres June 7th on Freeform.
