Spider-Man and Cloak and Dagger guest star as Dragon Man joins the team (sort of–Katie falls in love with him like he’s a puppy and keeps him in the basement).
But first, there’s a ton of character work as the Power family moves to NYC, the kids start at a new school and have to fit in, etc.
Dragon Man gets character work, too–for the first time, he is a character with a personality in a two-page wordless sequence that introduces him to the readers as a giant monster with a child-like brain.
Very, very well done work here. Realistic, sweet, with distinct characters who have depth…Just excellent. It’s not really worth summarizing, though, because it’s just middle school cliques and bullies, etc.
Super-storywise, the two boys are happy to be in the Big Apple, so they go out to find Spider-Man.
And the two girls are out on patrol and find Dragon Man, who is portrayed as “cute” rather than scary for the first time (this almost certainly was the inspiration for the youngest Runaway finding and befriending a Dinosaur in the wonderful Runaways comic of the early 2000s). They rescue Dragon Man from being a lab rat and hide him in the basement of their apartment building.
Ultimately, we find out that the scientist who created Dragon Man is being held hostage by some crooks who Cloak & Dagger have been stalking, and the kids team up with the Cloak and Dagger to save the scientist. So, Marvel’s pre-teens and teen heroes are all brought together.
It’s interesting especially that Cloak and Dagger, who have an extremely dark back story, are linked up with Marvel’s sweetest, least-pretentious book. Later, when sales flagged, all six of the characters would share a split-book.