Silk #1 Review

Cindy Moon was bitten by the same radioactive spider that gave Peter Parker his powers, but has spent the ensuing years locked up in a bunker beneath the city.  Now, she’s out, but it’s turning out to be harder than she thought to rebuild her life.  Your Major Spoilers review of Silk #1 awaits!

SILK #1
Writer: Robbie Thompson
Artist: Stacey Lee
Colorist: Ian Herring
Letterer: VC’s Travis Lanham
Editor: Ellie Pyle & Nick Lowe
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Cover Price: $3.99

Previously in Silk:  Just like Peter Parker, Cindy Moon was bitten by a radioactive spider, and found her life forever changed.  Of course, where his led to spider-powers and a life trying to make up for great irresponsibility, hers led to a decade locked in a bunker, listening to pre-recorded messages from the man called Ezekiel, whose idea of protecting her was a life of imprisonment.  Cindy got out just in time for the giant crossover mess called Spider-Verse, and fought alongside dozens of other Spider-Totems before they banished the evil Inheritors.  Now, she’s rebuilding her life in the city, trying to deal with her strange connection (emotional/pheromonic/complicated) to Spidey and establishing herself as the new web-swinger in New York City…

THE SPIDER-MAN LIFE

When Cindy Moon first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man, I was a little bit bothered by her, finding the addition of yet another “one true love” to Peter Parker’s life to be unnecessary, and finding her coincidental origin/powers a bit contrived.  I am happy to say that, after Spider-Verse and this issue, I am 100% onboard with the Silk revolution, especially if we get more issues like this one.  We start with a nice sequence of Silk in action, half-heartedly trying to do Spider-quips during a battle with a low-level goon called Dragonclaw, before heading off to her new job at ‘FactChannel’, a tabloid news organization that has also hired J. Jonah Jameson in his post-mayoral return to civilian life.  There’s some wonderful echoes of the Parker/Jameson relationship in play throughout the sequence, and Cindy’s uncertainty in the brave new world makes for interesting stories.  Something weird is up with her powers, there’s still her “thing” with Spider-Man and a new, very familiar crime lord in the streets of New York, all of which makes for a fun read.

SUPER-CUTE ART

I really REALLY love Stacey Lee’s art on this book, a fun, angular style that reminds me of the ‘Spider-Man Loves Mary Jane’ series of a few years ago.  It has an anime feel without being super-weird, and even with some cartoonish aspects, all the characters feel real and expressive throughout.  The fight scenes are especially lovely, as Silk has her own moves and rhythm that aren’t just a female form pasted over Spider-Man layouts, and her additional powers are an interesting take on the idea of spider-powered heroes.  On the troubling side, Cindy is very reactive throughout this issue, and her major moments are all based on her interactions with the males in her life (Spider-Man, Jameson, her baby brother), but there’s still a lot going for our hero, and I’m willing to admit that my first impressions of Silk may have been entirely too negative.

THE BOTTOM LINE: A CHARMING START

In short, it’s a good-looking issue, with a nice story and a little bit of mystery in the final pages, making good use of her shared history with Spidey, but also trying to stretch her past being just a female Spider-Man character.  (This is good, since there are like ten of them now, and I think they’re all getting solo books.)  Silk #1 is, in many ways, a story that wouldn’t feel entirely out-of-place in a classic Spider-Man issue, with our hero struggling to get her lives together, and it looks really good in the doing, earning a well-deserved 3.5 out of 5 stars overall.  There may be a few wobbles, but this issue makes me want to read more about Cindy and her life, and that’s really what first issues are all about…