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Joe Pokaski on Bringing Joy to Cloak and Dagger, Runaways to Come, and Spider-Man for Season 7

Joe Pokaski ran a question and answer session after yesterday's screening of the first episode of Cloak and Dagger at the MCM London Comic Con. And I was in the room. It marked the show's European premiere and we were told that the Freeform-streaming show would air in the UK on Amazon Prime from the 9th of June.

Pokaski called the show the most European show from Marvel TV so far. How he felt like the kid in the room working on Heroes, but on Cloak and Dagger he had to be the adult.

Pokaski said there were some screaming matches over the littlest things, like logos of rock bands, but in general Marvel and Freeform let him get away with the wildest things, that he had put into the script just to see what they would allow.

He talked about how there is a slow burn of storytelling, of emotion and discovery that will lead to a need to save the city by episode 10. We need to know them by themselves, then together and then "it's off to the races". Just as ballet is a recurring visual note in the first episode, so he sees the way Cloak and Dagger are together, apart, circling each other mirrors that — it's the ballet of life that they and the production crew live in.

Pokaski talked about the change of origin from the comic book original version, that no one is injecting heroin in New Orleans these days, apparently, let alone getting powers that way. Drugs are a strong element in the first episode, but they are not the focus of power generation. Instead, the show origin ties into the Roxxon Corporation and both the origin and discovery of their powers tap into modern concerns — including those over armed police going after unarmed young black men, and of men who think that women owe them and wish to extract that price.

As well as Roxxon, Pokaski revealed he has secret plans to connect all of Marvel together and has included three or four things in the show that he didn't even tell Marvel about. We are told to watch again for the initials on the towels and names on gravestones, and rock music posters in bedrooms to come. He has a wall covered in images joined by strings over what he's like to see — there will be no other superheroes in season 1, but he wants to be including Spider-Man in year seven. But he'd like a Runaways crossover sooner than that, as they appeared together in their comics rather quickly.

And we are to look for different types of narrative from episode to episode — and while the flashbacks of the first episode with Cloak and Dagger as young children won't be revisited until episode 8, the actors playing them as children will return in episode 3.

There was something in the first episode I wanted to ask about, something that I hadn't seen in many Marvel TV shows, that despite the terrible things that happen to both characters, for Cloak at least, there is a moment of joy when he realises what he is doing — and what he can get away with.

Pokaski said he was keen to embrace the joy in having superpowers, even in what isn't the happiest role. And to look forward to a lot of smiling in episode 7.

I confess to thoroughly enjoying the first episode and will be looking to Amazon for more next month. I will try to write up why elsewhere…

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