Hey folks, how’s it going? Before we head into The Clone Conspiracy, we see the conclusion of Cindy’s quest to find her parents this issue. A story line twenty issues in the making, driving the entire series until now. What are some of your favorite slow burn arcs in comics?

Silk #13: Who Says You Can’t Go Home
Writer: Robbie Thompson
Artist: Tana Ford
Colorist: Ian Herring
Letterer: Travis Lanham
C.Artist: Helen Chen
Editors: Devin Lewis & Nick Lowe & Allison Stock
Editor-In-Chief: Axel Alonso

So What Is Next For You: Cindy Moon, Nari Moon, Rafferty, Lola, and David the Dragon fight against the Ash King and his army. David and Cindy’s friends are shot out of the sky, and the Ash King nearly kills her mother but together the Moons defeat him. His army was linked to his life force and they all die with the Ash King, leaving a clear path for the Moons to the castle where Albert Moon Sr. is being held captive. Cindy and her mom rescue him and they all return home to Earth. Cindy learns her parents were in The Negative Zone to develop a cure for her spider abilities, but her mother believes them to have been unsuccessful.

They all visit Albert Jr, reuniting the Moon family for the first time since Cindy went into the bunker. Bobbi Morse gives the Moons one of her safe houses for use and Cindy is offered a job with SHIELD once more, but she is uncertain what she wants to do next. The issue ends with Albert Sr. giving a still unnamed villain, the cure to Cindy’s powers.

It Feels Like I Am Due For Some Normal: I swear I never thought we were going to get to this point, but the question of what happened to Cindy’s family is finally answered. And we actually get a second happy ending in a row, with a long overdue Moon family reunion. Sure, sinister things continue to lurk under the surface, but this is well earned for Cindy. Despite all the happiness though, I think my favorite moment in the issue is when Cindy hesitates not once, but twice on what she is going to do in the future.

The entire Moon family has a very interesting future before them; Albert Sr. has his sinister plots while Albert Jr. has his recovery to finish. Her mother has spent years as a knight/defender and has a superhero for a daughter so hopefully we’ll see the two bleed together. Cindy’s hesitation rings very true to the Cindy Moon that Robbie Thompson has created; a little bit of normalcy in this bizarre issue. 

And this was a bizarre issue, playing into Robbie Thompson’s love of Tolkien. Tana Ford definitely rises to the occasion, even if she does not make this book a visual masterpiece. There’s a ton of Tolkien-esqe madness going on and I am of firm opinion that Ford needs to do a comic book about dragons. Her most remarkable feat this issue is Bobbi Morse does not look like garbage; Bobbi is easily the character Ford’s struggled with the most in the past.

Ranking Ford’s face, I would say they go: dragon face>female face>male face. Roughly one in five faces are off-putting this issue; when she started on Silk, she was striking about fifty fifty odds so this continues to improve. Ian Herring’s coloring is quite strong this issue. On top of all the usual tricks, he gives some strong color coordination between the two groups of fighters; the ladies atop David in the sky and the Moons on the ground.

I do have some complaints with moments in the story. Cindy is a battle trained superhero from New York, so why the hell does she leap in front of her mother instead of webbing up the bad guy…. like she literally does two panels later? That is just poorly thought out battle tactics by Robbie Thompson and it rips me out of the issue. I also hate it when writers use narration for one issue of an arc, but not the others; Thompson usually does this with final issues, as Cindy recaps events to Doctor Sinclair, while Hopeless has done it a couple times at the start of his. When a story goes longer than one issue, you should be writing with the arc in mind not just that issue. And finally, are we seriously about to do a ‘cure the spider-person/they lose their powers’ story line? Because Spider-Gwen is currently doing it and this story has been done to death in the Spider-Family. 

Verdict: Silk wraps up a story line I was expecting to go for another couple issues and it does not feel rushed. Perhaps this is because this was the story driving Silk up until this point, but I appreciate Robbie Thompson’s ability to wrap up an arc quickly, without a loss of quality. This story is another happy ending for Cindy, but it is well deserved. The future is uncertain for Cindy but it looks better than the past. I am excited to see what happens to the entire Moon family, not just Cindy (which means Lola and Rafferty can go away now). Hopefully Silk can throw some curve balls at us to keep us on our toes, going into The Clone Conspiracy. 

Pros:

• Happy Ending
• Future Possibilities
• Tolkien-Esqe Madness

Cons:

• The occasional off putting face
• Writing for the issue, not the arc

B+