The individual parts of “Spider-Women” read like one story, so here’s a link to reviews for part one and part two.

“Two kids of people have secret elevators. Pop Stars and Super Villains… Please be a Pop Star.”

Spider-Woman Part 3

Writer: Robbie Thompson

Artist: Tana Ford

Colorist: Ian Herring

Letterer: Travis Lanham

Cover Artist: Yasmine Putri

Editors: Devin Lewis & Kathleen Wisneski

Executive Editor: Nick Lowe

Editor-In-Chief: Axel Alonso

Recap: Cindy Moon ditches Gwen and Jessica, in hopes of finding her family’s Earth 65 counterparts. She finds them but learns that she is estranged from her family on this Earth. In this world her brother, Albert is an early college graduate and her mother resents her for running from her family. Cindy apologizes on behalf of her other self and is able to have a happy reunion with Albert. She seeks out her other self and discovers she is rich, likes the cold, and has a secret elevator in her penthouse suite. Cindy learns her other self is the head of S.I.L.K. She meets Earth 65’s Otto Octavius (and his singing pet octopus) and learns Jessica Drew of Earth 65 is an agent of S.I.L.K. She discovers a super computer linked to her voice, but it locks up when she refers to agent Drew as a girl. She discovers a flash drive labelled “Spider-Women” and then calls Jessica Drew. Jessica sends Gwen to help Cindy, while she goes after her Earth 65 counterpart to get their dimensional watch back. Cindy takes the fight to S.I.L.K on her own, but is taken down by a hybrid of Otto and his octopus.

“Oil spills, stocks plummeting? Great. I’m a Super-Villain.”

Thoughts: There is really two parts to this issue, what Cindy is up to during the seventh issue of Spider-Gwen, the first 15 pages of this issue, and then a brief period after that of 4 pages. So let’s look at the first fifteen, because I feel very differently about the two halves. Cindy Moon is impulsive, as we have seen multiple times in the past, so of course she jumps at a chance to see her family again, consequences be damned. There’s an on-going theme of Cindy running away from things and this is a good example of her running away from her responsibility, which is a good distinguishing feature from characters like Peter and Gwen who are driven by their guilt. Cool thing we learn this issue is Cindy can make her Silk outfit out of webs now. Does it make a lick of sense? Not really, but it is still kinda cool.

The actual encounter with her family goes down various ways. The argument can be made that Cindy’s family is better off without her, as they seem to be together and doing quite well. In both worlds, Cindy finds herself separated from her family, although in Earth 65 it appears to be by choice. There is clear resentment from her mother, her brother is happy to see her, and her father hovers in the middle. The scene with Albert is the highlight of the issue. Throughout the entire family sequence, Tana Ford shines. She has gotta really good at cleaning up her faces and making them convey the emotions she wants them to.

After the family visit, Cindy invades her counterpart’s life. In my first read through, I thought Earth 65 Cindy might be disfigured (I was picturing her being Raoul Silva to Cindy’s James Bond) but everyone responds to Cindy as if she looks identical to her counterpart. Regardless, I like the comparison. In this world, I’m assuming S.I.L.K. is an off-shoot of S.H.I.E.L.D or its equivalent to Hydra from the MCU. So in this universe, Cindy betrays S.H.I.E.L.D, while in Earth Prime she is loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D (at least for the moment.) This makes for a fun journey for Cindy, who could either renew her faith in S.H.I.E.L.D. or lose it. I’m also curious about the acknowledgment that this Cindy likes the cold and what the grander consequence of that is.

S.I.L.K itself is interesting. It is amusing that Jessica Drew’s male Earth 65 counterpart works for S.I.L.K, while Jessica herself has a history with Hydra where she declined to work for them. You also get the feeling that Earth 65 Otto is in love with his Cindy Moon, because he is clearly hurt when Cindy gives him the cold shoulder. I’m willing to bet the next issue of Spider-Gwen will be action heavy as she fights her Doctor Octopus alongside Cindy. And in the S.I.L.K scenes, Tana Ford shines once again. She is much better at positioning the ‘camera’ of her panels, giving us more dynamic poses and surroundings.

It is when this issue returns back to the main event that it starts to fall apart. The continuity of this issue and Spider-Gwen‘s does not match up. In this issue, Cindy calls Jessica when she and Gwen are talking to Reed Richards; in Spider-Gwen, she calls Jessica when she is talking with George Stacy. In this issue, she is sitting in front of a locked computer with a different image than the one in Spider-Gwen; Spider-Gwen also has added defeated goons around her. Cindy does get the location of Jessica Drew’s counterpart before it locks up, which makes Jessica going after him make sense; in Spider-Gwen, Cindy is sitting in front of a screen of a male Jessica Drew which does not exist in Silk. Some time does pass during the phone call, so it is possible Cindy relocates and views the flash drive on another computer, but there is still visual continuity error and we should not have to work to have this make sense.

I do really like that the child Reed Richards character crosses over between issues, because I think he is a fun character. But, I feel like if you were going to go the child route, you should have just used Valeria Richards (she also fits the female theme of the event better than Reed.) After a brief interlude with the other characters, we return to Cindy going on a rampage against S.I.L.K. Ian Herring brings in his familiar colors and Tana Ford delivers some amazing panels. I love how much she is growing as an artist on this series.

Verdict: Another solid issue of Silk, that is both enhanced by the “Spider-Women” crossover and derailed by it. The alternate life style of Earth 65 Cindy mirrors Earth Prime’s Cindy in interesting ways, but the continuity of the event does not line up. Still, there is far more hits than misses this issue and Tana Ford carries the issue through even the weaker moments. This event is shaping up nicely so far, Spider-Gwen is my favorite issue so far, and I am excited for the next issue when Dennis Hopeless takes the reigns. 

B- 

Here is Part Four