Detective Rebecca "Rusty" Nales

A sharp-eyed detective who's been walking the gritty streets of Marvel's Copper Age since her 1987 debut — crafted by Bill Mantlo and Bret Blevins in the pages of Strange Tales — Detective Rebecca "Rusty" Nales is one of those quietly essential supporting figures who gives a superhero universe its grounding sense of reality. Over a remarkable 34-year presence in Marvel's catalog, she's kept some genuinely compelling company, sharing pages with the likes of Cloak, Dagger, Tyrone Johnson, and Tandy Bowen across series including The Mutant Misadventures of Cloak and Dagger and beyond. She's the kind of character that dedicated readers come to treasure: not a headliner, but the human connective tissue that makes the world around those headliners feel lived-in and true. If you're diving into Marvel's Cloak and Dagger corner of the universe, Rusty Nales is absolutely worth tracking down.