Silk #1 is the strongest of the Spider-Female debuts in my opinion, taking a character who was in desperate need of a direction in life and giving her a decent one with some strong characterization. Does she escape the sophomore slump?

Silk #2: Chasing Threads

Writer: Robbie Thompson

Artist: Stacey Lee

Colorist: Ian Herring

Letterer: Travis Lanham

Cover Artist: Dave Johnson

Editors: Devin Lewis & Ellie Pyle & Nick Lowe

Editor-In-Chief: Axel Alonso

I’m Back to Square One: Intern by day, Super-heroine by night, Cindy Moon continues searching for her family. She comes across numerous dead ends, suspecting Ezekiel Sim’s hand in her family’s disappearance.

Whilst searching for traces of her family in her old neighbourhood and reminiscing about her last days with her old boyfriend, Hector, she comes across an old re-purposed SHIELD tentacle-bot that went rogue. She fights it into the sewers and puts it down.

When she climbs out, she is confronted by Hector and his finacee; thankfully the sewer muck covers her Silk suit. Hector reveals he went searching for her, but Cindy successfully lies herself out of the awkward situation and returns home.

From a distance, two silhouetted figures comment on how magnificent Silk has become and take her blood off of the defeated bot.

The issue ends with Cindy and Hector crossing paths again, this time in their costumed identities.

Thoughts: My first thought after reading this is thank God Cindy isn’t wearing her original Silk costume in this issue; imagine how much that would suck in the sewer fight scene.

However, there’s a lot of negative to follow that. This issue is largely set-up and convenient happenings, the second of which was my biggest picking point with the first issue. Is a lot of what happens here necessary? Yes, it is. Could it have been executed better? Definitely. This issue is almost entirely exposition, except for the random robot which just feels like a cash in on the “Hail Hydra” phase (All New Hawkeye and All New Captain America are others that fall into this phase too, but Hydra at least serves some purpose to the story, unlike what happens here.) It’s lazy storytelling, it feels unnecessary to have our Asian super-heroine fight a tentacle creature,  and then it’s explained away as a SHIELD bot, even though it’s clearly designed with Hydra in mind? Yeah, no. You can do better than that, Robbie Thompson. 

Also, we get randomly introduced to Tamara Pearson, Ezekiel’s assistant. Why? It doesn’t make sense, how does Cindy know of her existence if she’s found no physical trace of Ezekiel’s presence? She is introduced here, illogically and in a story-breaking way, for no other reason then she’s probably a character Cindy will cross paths with to find her family. Pretty sure Tammy will be one of our two mystery figures; speaking of, I really hope the other is Jackal, they seem pretty intent on getting Cindy’s blood this issue. 

Also, I really hope next issue Hector is like, “I know you’re Silk, Cindy, because I ran into you wearing your suit and no amount of sewer muck is going to make me dumb enough to not recognize it when I’ve fought you twice in it already.” The art definitely makes it seem like anyone with half a brain could figure it out and I really hope the reasons Hector didn’t bring it up is because of his fiancee and the fact he’s a super-villain. Because he comes off pretty likable so far and I don’t want to see him pull a Peter Parker and become a complete idiot. I also am pretty sure he’ll bite it before the arc’s over, so prove me wrong here, Thompson.

Cindy is more hit and miss here with her humor; while the first issue was hitting the mark around 80% of the time, it’s more 50/50 here. I’m getting too much telling and not enough showing here, especially with her ‘off powers’ which doesn’t come up at all except in a dialogue recap at the end. Also, what the hell is going on with everyone’s Spider-Sense? Is it gone? It seems like Slott is the only one who wants to play by the rule he admittedly made, but you know what Spider-Writers? When the main Spider-Book establishes a rule, even one that dumb, you play by it.

Thankfully, the art team swings in to save the day. Cindy Moon is probably the cutest super-heroine out there and the art team goes out of their way to make sure that’s the case here. Body language and facial expressions are in full force here and the action is still really easy to follow. That might be because a lot of backgrounds are pretty barren in this issue, but Stacey Lee mixes it up frequently enough with detailed backgrounds that it isn’t that noticeable and it does help the action scenes flow well.

My moment of the issue is credited to Ian Herring, who takes Cindy’s moment of triumph against the bot and casts it as a very dark moment.

Verdict: This issue isn’t bad, it has its moments, but just isn’t up to snuff compared to what we’ve been seeing from most of the Spider-Man titles lately. I think it’s a hump that will be easily jumped next time around, although Thompson’s reliance on convenience is starting to wear on me. Next issue will feature Black Cat and hopefully a strong exchange between Cindy and Hector about their secret identities.

Pros: 

• Art team carries the issue
• Solid characterization 

Cons: 

• Too convenient 
• Too much exposition
• Forced to ‘Hail Hydra’
• Humor is hit and miss
• Told not shown
• Tamara Pearson

C-