Cloaks #2
Boom! Studios
Words: Caleb Monroe
Pictures: Mariano Navarro

When you’re a super talented kid who is recruited by a covert operative team named CLOAKS, and the guy they bring in to help with that recruitment is the super talented kid’s former father figure whom he thought was dead and now, clearly isn’t… well, then you know things aren’t going to be exactly as they appear on the surface.  Welcome to issue two of Cloaks.

In the middle of Adams (our super talented kid from earlier) CLOAK training, he comes face to face, literally, with the whole reason he was recruited in the first place.  Of course, it doesn’t help that Evy (Adams first assignment, and the very cute girl he helped out at one of his shows in issue #1… see, nothing is what it seems!) was infiltrating the CLOAKS base when Adam ran into her.  When these two meet up later, Evy drops an info bomb on Adam to see which way he’s going to jump.  And as of now, we don’t know.  See?  Just when you think you’ve got it figured out, Wham! left turn.  Kudos to Caleb Monroe for keeping things moving.  And kudos as well to Mariano Navarro for some fantastic art.  There’s something about Mr. Navarro’s art that reminds me of old school John Byrne.  Now I’m sure there are folks out there much  more knowledgable about art and probably think I wouldn’t know a Monet from a girl named Mona (which I would, by the way… probably).  But there’s just something there that harkens me back to some John Byrne X-Men action.  I don’t know if even Mr. Navarro would agree with me or not, but I love me some old school John Byrne so I think it’s a good thing.

CLOAKS does have a lot of tropes that we’ve seen before.  Super smart/talented kid gets recruited by shadow organization.  His first assignment is a cute girl he probably has a crush on which can only lead to problems if he pursues her.  The Father figure he thaught was dead is back, which of course causes some rather blatant trust issues.   And of course, there’s spy stuff.  (I do like spy stuff.)  So is CLOAKS reinventing the spy comic?  Nope.  And it doesn’t matter.  Why?  Because CLOAKS is a fun yarn with an extremely likable main character and fantastic art.  I know what I’m getting with CLOAKS, and it has delivered every time, and I don’t anticipate that changing.  Besides, I truly want to see where Adam is going to end up at the end of this.

3.25 out of 5 Rabbits in a Hat