Review: ‘Silk’ #2 Presents A Spider-Man Like Story For The Modern Era

There are a ton of spider-related characters at this point within the Marvel Universe, each of them with their own unique traits, powers, and stories. Cindy Moon, the heroine Silk, is one of the newest and sadly one of the ones with the least exposure, but the new series with her headlining should change that. Hopefully rather quickly.

Maurene Goo really taps into the things that make Cindy different from Peter Parker/Spider-Man, as they share their powers from the same spider, and makes her a lot more fun, but still responsible. While Peter is surrounded by a lot of guilt and Parker luck misery, Cindy has steady relationships with her family (who are in on her identity) and a usual therapist (who also knows about Silk) and even a better relationship with her boss J. Jonah Jameson than Peter often has had over the years.

While journalism in modern times just became a sort of set-piece when it came to Peter’s life (the times he ended up back in that area) it’s really nicely fleshed out in Cindy’s book. As a journalism graduate, that is really nice to see. Also, the rapid-fire cat and spider quips within the issue brought some really genuine out-loud laughs.

Takeshi Miyazawa and Ian Herring are doing fantastic things on the art side. Miyazawa has such a fun and distinct style that is really great to see back on a Marvel book and it pairs so well with Herring’s colors. The action scenes just flow wonderfully and there is so much detail and emotion coming in every single panel. Even with the way Silk has a mask and there being creatures like a demon cat, you can fully sense their emotions in their faces and the ways they move.

Ariana Maher has gotten to work on quite a number of really popular or big debut books at Marvel and it’s easy to see why she is such a rising star for the publisher. Her style fits in so well with the fun and stylized art of the issue.

All of this really hits home something that stands out about this book that makes it work: the world of Cindy Moon is really fleshed out. There are times where many of the major usual books at the publisher, and across comics, can forget about the importance of building up the world and supporting cast. To make things more lived in around the character.

That’s not something forgotten here. There are characters that were just introduced within this series that already feel dynamic and complete, as if they have been around for at least the same amount of time that Cindy has been around, possibly even decades like Jonah.

At the same time, the sparse use of Spider-Man, one text message moment, is another great thing here. Often, it’s too easy for writers to rely on the cameos of bigger characters (especially if they are related in some way to the main character of the book) to ‘sell the book’ in a way. Peter has all his books and world, Cindy needs to and fully does stand on her own here. This is her adventure and her world, and it works.

Silk #2 is now on sale from Marvel Comics in print and digitally.