Swinging out of the pages of “Spider-Verse” and “Amazing Spider-Man” comes the brand new “Silk” from Robbie Thompson and Stacey Lee. Whether you’ve been following her story since her introduction in “Amazing Spider-Man” or are just finding out about her now, you’re probably wondering whether you should jump in on her solo series, right? Well, find out down below in our spoiler free review of “Silk” #1.
Written by Robbie Thompson
Illustrated by Stacey Lee
Cindy Moon exploded out of her bunker and into the Marvel Universe when we first learned that she had been bitten by that same radioactive spider in the first arc of AMAZING SPIDER-MAN. She then went on to save Peter Parker’s life (more than once!) and traverse the Spider-verse alongside Spider-Woman. Now, as SILK, Cindy is on her own in New York City, searching for her past, defining her own future, and webbing up wrong-doers along the way! Robbie Thompson (writer from TV’s Supernatural) fills this new ongoing series with his unique blend of antics and feels. Featuring stunning covers by Eisner Award winner Dave Johnson and interiors by future superstar Stacey Lee.
It should be noted before we get into this review that I haven’t read “Spider-Verse”. That means I’m coming into “Silk” #1 completely clean, as if I wandered into a comic shop and randomly grabbed the title off the shelf based on the admittedly awesome Dave Johnson cover, and therefore will be judging it primarily on how it works as a first issue for new readers. With that said, let’s get on to the review at hand.
It’s been something of a talking point in the comic book industry of late that, with the success of comic book film adaptations and the ease of access to digital comics, the audience for comics is now much larger than the previously assumed straight white guy demographic. Now, some publishers have turned into this development and fared rather well in this development and some… haven’t, either by mishap or by stubborn refusal to acknowledge the change. By and large, Marvel has been doing pretty well. “Silk” comes hot off the heels of “Spider-Woman” and just ahead of “Spider-Gwen” in an effort to launch more and more Spider-Man related series that are lead by more than just various clones and ripoffs of Peter Parker.
After Dan Slott and Humberto Ramos introduced Silk in the recent relaunch of “Amazing Spider-Man” and then weaved her story into the recently concluded “Spider-Verse”, it now comes time to integrate the character into the Marvel Universe as a whole courtesy of Robbie Thompson and Stacey Lee. This issue is a very quintessential first issue. It does what all first issues should do: it introduces the audience to the character quickly and cleanly, gives the audience the pertinent backstory to the character throughout the issue to give context to their actions as we explore their current living situation, before capping that off with a twist to intrigue the reader into coming back for more.
Now, let’s get the easy comparisons out of the way right off the bat. Yes, anyone reading “Batgirl” right now or even “Ms. Marvel” will find a lot of the same DNA in “Silk”. After all, it’s about a young woman and the trials and tribulations she goes through in order to prove herself as a superhero. However, where “Batgirl” had to bend over backwards to present the hip, modern take on the book, “Silk” comes out of the gate with a premise that makes that tone fit. Robbie Thompson ensures right off the bat that the audience knows (or remembers) that Silk spent ten years in an underground bunker and from there uses that to inform her personality, in that she’s a little behind the times, and the story as she tries to fit into the modern world, both as a superhero and in her secret identity, Cindy Moon.
We spend much of the issue with Cindy, more so than we do with Silk, as we follow her through her new job and new apartment and new friends in order to see try to create a life for herself outside of the bunker. We also get a glimpse of a couple of flashbacks to Cindy’s life before the bunker, showing a connection to her family that she clearly hasn’t seen in years. Thompson rapidly establishes that this connection to her family is what Cindy wants and immediately endears the reader to Cindy by establishing an emotional centre of the book early on. While it is a shame we don’t see more of Silk in this issue, how Thompson structures the issue to allow the reader to connect with Cindy and her motivation vastly outweighs that.
Continued belowThe key descriptor I would use for this issue is actually “cute”. And not in a derogatory way, either, but rather that both the writing and the artwork bring a sense of cuteness to the book. Obviously, that will likely turn away anyone looking for a grim and serious book, but they’re not the audience the book is aimed at anyway. Stacey Lee’s artwork contributes to this feeling a lot as she gives the book a very manga-like feel in the artwork filtered through an Alex Toth inspired style not unlike Becky Cloonan meets Chris Samnee.
A lot of the comedy of the issue, which I would also describe unironically as cute and also quirky, derives mostly from the expressiveness of Lee’s characters, giving them exagerrated reactions to the comedic beats in Thompson’s writing. A lot of the drama also comes from Lee’s art, as well, as we see in one of the flashbacks where Cindy has an argument with her parents. In this flashback, we see Lee’s storytelling ability really come into play as she knows exactly when to pull in on the character to emphasise Thompson’s writing and when to pull back to let the effect of the words lie. It’s said that the mark of a great filmmaker is being able to watch a film without sound off and still know what’s going on, well, Stacey Lee manages that effect with her artwork multiple times throughout this issue.
Though, for as well paced and structured as Stacey Lee’s art is, it comes to life thanks to Ian Herring’s colours. The palette for most of the book is pretty much what you’d expect from your standard Marvel Indie™ book, with a lot of light cool colours and dulled warm colours, but it works with Lee’s art as, as I’ve mentioned, the majority of the issue takes place out of costume. It evokes the exaggerated reality of the Marvel universe and nicely switches gears from predominantly cool colours when Cindy is out of costume to predominantly warm colours when she’s Silk in order to ramp up the excitement. On top of that, a nice touch is how the flashback sequences are filtered in a washed out, almost polaroid style, but a hint of red, like Silk’s scarf, is always present throughout. It’s a nice touch and shows that some amount of care went into this book.
Overall, this was a pretty solid first issue. The lack of actual Silk action is a major bummer as we really only see Cindy suit up a couple times in the issue and it’s over way too soon, but it seems that Stacey Lee is much more comfortable drawing the out of costume sequences than action scenes, anyway. Hopefully, the series will ramp up the action in coming issues, but for now this issue worked thanks to Robbie Thompson and Stacey Lee focusing their energy on creating a connection between Silk and the reader. While the last page hook wasn’t quite as grabbing as perhaps it needed to be, the establishment of Cindy’s quest to find her family and create a normal life for herself means that you want to keep reading in order to see her complete that as opposed to because some shocking character showed up on the last page. It’s almost like good characterisation trumps cheap tricks, huh?
Final Verdict: 7.1 – While this issue didn’t quite have the out of the gate spark that, say, “Ms. Marvel” had and maybe could have benefited from a little more excitement in the action, this is still worth a whirl just to get caught in Silk’s web.
