Strange Tales #4 (V2)

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The issue begins with several, teenage street kids thinking about messing around at the Holy Ghost Church. One of the kids warns that it’s a bad idea, because they’d heard that it was haunted after Father Francis Delgado was taken away due to a mental breakdown. (See the Marvel Graphic Novel #34 – Cloak & Dagger: Predator and Prey for more details). Several of the kids dismiss that the Church is haunted and pick up bottles to throw through the window; except the bottles never strike the window, but rather become absorbed into some sort of darkness; and in the shadows a figure speaks to them demanding who would seek to harm it’s home. The kids flee and it turns out to be Cloak speaking from the shrouds of his robes. Cloak teleports inside where Dagger is dancing around, emitting her light as she does, lost in thought of the days of her youth, when she was a ballerina dancer.

She spots Cloak watching her and feeds him with some of her light; which also helps calm her down. Cloak is suddenly burdened with immense pain and doubles over; only now he’s back to being Tyrone (with his stutter). He realizes that Tandy’s father (Lord of Light) must have altered how his body handles living light when he sacrificed himself (see Strange Tales (Volume 2) #2), and now when Dagger provides enough light, it feeds the Predator inside of him (for more information about the being known as The Predator that lives in the shadow of Cloak’s darkness, please see the Marvel Graphic Novel #34 – Cloak & Dagger: Predator and Prey).

Dagger then notes that her stepfather had sent her a bag of clothes and other necessities and within the bag, she finds credit cards. She’s happy that now they won’t have to steal and can purchase items (like food) on their credit card. At the store, things are going well, when suddenly Tyrone is overcome with the need to sleep – and he realizes, as Cloak his body never needed sleep – but suddenly, without the shadows of the Predator within him needing to be fed – all of that sleep catches up to him in a single moment, and Tyrone, in mid-stride, falls backwards and lapses into sleep in the middle of the store.

In the dream-state, Nightmare appears to Tyrone and disguises himself as a prisoner. Tyrone sees him and asks who he is; and Nightmare explains that he’s a prisoner, held captive by the Predator within Tyrone’s cloak – and that if he helps him get free, he will promise to provide wakefulness to Tyrone so he can enjoy the moments he is human. He goes on to explain the only one who can save him against the Predator is Doctor Stephen Strange – the Sorcerer Supreme.

He regains consciousness after agreeing to help, and Dagger is knelt over him. He stands and tells Tandy that he just passed out from being exhausted and hungry. They get in line to get food and he wonders if what he dreamed was a dream or was it a nightmare…?