Marvel's 'Runaways' sets up 'Cloak and Dagger' crossover by introducing Dark Dimension and Tyrone and Tandy as guides
Marvel's 'Runaways' Season 3 had the perfect set-up to introduce Tyrone Johnson and Tandy Bowen from 'Cloak and Dagger'. The cross over event sees Tyrone use his connection to the Dark Dimension to help Gert Yorkes, Nico Minoru, Karolina Dean, and Chase Stein save Alex Wilder.
He has been held captive by Morgan le Fay, who hopes to use Alex as a way of getting Nico to give up on her Staff of One. Morgan's aim is to bring the dark beings of Dark Dimension and the dimension that Nico and her friends are on together.
Morgan hopes to rule this brand new world that she would create with the support of the Staff of One. Of course, initially, Nico is unaware of how cruel Morgan's plans are.
She meets Morgan as someone who wants to tutor Nico in the art of witchcraft and is not hesitant to ask her for help because Nico doesn't know of another way to bring Alex back. However, once she realizes that Morgan has got her mother Tina Minoru committed to a psychic ward, she tries to roll back on her promise of giving Morgan her Staff in return for helping Alex.
The first time Nico and her friends had come in contact with the Dark Dimension where one's worst fears manifest itself and slowly eats away at an individual's memories is when Nico cast a spell, that she had heard from Morgan, to save herself and her friends from the Magistrate and his family.
Morgan's hold on Nico scares her friends, especially girlfriend Karoline, who is still reeling from her experience in the Dark Dimension. Now, we know how well-versed both Tandy and Tyrone are when it comes to navigating within the Dark Dimension, so when Nico tries to enter the dimension again to save Alex, they experience a disturbance which they are out to investigate.
While Tandy and Tyrone are from a different world in comparison to Nico, Alex, Chase, Gert, and Karolina, the common thread here is this dimension. With someone who understands darkness such as Tyrone, he and Tandy become the Runaways' guides in the other dimension.
The set up was quite smooth, and the parallels between Tandy, Tyrone and Nicole, Karoline; which was drawn at different points was also fascinating. Take, for instance, the moment that Tandy took Nico's hands in the dark dimension. She gets a look at Nico's hopes, that of being with Karolina in the end.
When Karolina and Nico's hands meet in this vision of Nico's hope, Tandy sees something she had initially experienced with Tyrone. A spark! Then, we also saw Nico use Tandy's Dagger to infuse it with her magic, which is a dark force to kill Morgan's vessel in the other dimension.
This fusing of the light and dark points and subverting the concept of what dark and light generally signify versus how it is interpreted in the show, reminds us a bit of the 'Cloak and Dagger' series.