Comic book review: Cloaks #1- Robin Hood meet One Direction, meet David Blaine, meet Occupy Wallstreet

Writer: Caleb Monroe
Artist: Mariano Navarro
Publisher: Boom Studios
Released: 4th September 2014

Cloaks #1 is a cute, fluffy, merry little waltz of a comic book, set on the streets of one of those big cities that you always see in comic books, with a young street magician protagonist and a couple of brief allusions to the criminal scumbags operating out of the financial district of the city.

The books begins with a funeral, but even the corpse is smiling, and when a street magician is intimidated by fat cops they come across as silly rather than as the menacing shoot you in the head for their own safety kind of coward, thug cops that have been causing so many problems in American cities like Ferguson, Missouri recently.

The main protagonist in ‘Cloaks’ is a cute boyband type who helps orphans and does magic tricks for free in the streets, organising his gigs via social-media. How does he make a living? It appears that he robs the rich to give to the poor, using his parkour skills (which are shown in the best panel of the book) and other street magic tricks to make his daring, and cinematic thefts.

I had problems rooting for this character, as he is a bit too cute, a bit too perfect, a bit too fluffy to come across as a real, flesh and blood person. He’s fantasy boyfriend material for young girls, so as an adult male it’s a bit difficult for me to get too excited about his adventures, even though I’m obviously in favour of Robin Hood type characters in my comic books, especially in this day and age of corporate, state sanctioned crime, with no consequences for rich criminals and massive consequences for anybody that doesn’t want to join their criminal control systems.

The book ends with a chase and the boy given an ultimation by what appears to be a gang of special agents. Who are they, are whom do they work for? Are they state sanctioned three letter (CIA, FBI) criminals, or people trying to do some good in the world? That’s the hook for the next issue, but is it enough for me? I’m not sure it is, but that’s not to say it’s a bad book, because it isn’t. The art is big, bold and colourful, the story is easy to follow and the tone of the writing is reader friendly, light and enjoyable. I’d recommend it to young female comic book fans, but for for an old git like myself it’s just a bit too light, a bit too unthreatening and a bit too cute, cuddly and fluffy for me to get terribly excited by it all.

Rating: 7/10