Oh look,  two fight with Black Cat in one week. 

That’s also two for Silk now.  WIll Black Cat help Silk out more than she did Spider-Gwen? Will Silk hold her own this time round? 

Silk #5: Sidekicks & Sacrifice

Writer: Robbie Thompson

Artist: Stacey Lee

Colorist: Ian Herring

C.Artist: Dave Johnson 

Letterer: Travis Lanham

Editors: Devin Lewis & Ellie Pyle & Nick Lowe

Editor-I-C: Axel Alonso

Recap: The issue opens with Melvin Porter’s daughter being kidnapped by Black Cat.

We then cut to Cindy at work on a slow day. Jameson discovers her searching for her family and promises to use old connections from when he was the mayor to help her. Someone tells Jonah about Marie Porter’s kidnapping and Cindy recognizes the last name.

She suits up as Silk and finds Melvin suited up as well, but instead of fighting the two team up to take the fight to Black Cat. They are outnumbered drastically, but Silk reveals she brought back-up; The Amazing Spider-Man. While Melvin and Spidey fight the bad guys, Silk is able to use her Silk-Sense to find Marie.

Black Cat arrives with a high tech firing squad. Melvin is injured and Silk sends Spidey with the Porters to get them to safety. Cindy is quickly taken down, but Cat’s tech blows up, taking out her team and herself.

When Cindy comes to, she’s being held captive by the man who gave Felicia her tech. As he prepares her for surgery, he reveals his loyalties don’t lie with Black Cat; they lie with the people who have her family.

Thoughts: Now that is what I’m talking about. Everything about this issue rocked. My hat is off to Robbie Thompson, Stacey Lee and Ian Herring.

I haven’t liked 616 Jonah this much in a long time. It was a great scene, opening with Cindy deciding to lie to him only to tell the truth instead. Thompson’s writing for Cindy’s inner dialogue is as sharp as ever, both funny and self critiquing. I love that Jonah’s relationship with Cindy is different than Peter’s; he’s still Jonah but way less antagonistic. Jonah is exactly the push the family storyline needs to get going. Although he’s not the only thing that is going to give it a push this issue. I’m not sure how safe Cindy is post Secret Wars, so I like that Thompson is going for all loose ends.

How great is it that Cindy avoids the intended fight and goes  nearly almost straight to a team up with Calvin Porter, who Spidey dubs Dragon-Man. It gives some weight to last issue three’s ending that Calvin would trust her. Also, Spidey steals the show in his brief appearance, bickering with Silk about villain team ups and kicking some butt. This team up is a highlight of the series.

The fight allows Stacy Lee to deliver. Her Spidey comes off fluid and she’s great at emoting through the mask. And the Silk Fingers are as cool as ever. This time she uses them to make her hands into large fists, Sandman style.

And even during the slower scenes, there were moments of excitement, such as Cindy frantically trying to close a computer window. Emoting remains a strong point of her art, it’s nice to have her back again. 

Ian Herring’s soft colors really gives the book an animated quality. A perfect compliment to Lee’s artwork. In battle, he uses yellow for speed and red for power (as per usual), so Spider-Man’s movement is yellow and Cindy breaking the door is in red. 

Silk is full on hero here. She now has a new ability, somehow related to her Spider-Sense, that allows her to find the missing child. I’m dubbing it Silk Sense for now, because it isn’t really clear what it is. Her scene with Marie is great though, as is her self sacrifice, sending the better hero to protect the Porters. She gets taken down pretty quickly, showing she isn’t the best hero around. But Felicia calls her B-List for the moment, and I feel she’s earned it, for the moment.

And then the ending. Where we learn that Felicia’s tech guy, who we saw back in issue one and sporadically since, is working for some big bad who has Cindy’s family. Solid twist, stakes are pretty much as high as they’ve ever been, as she finds herself strapped to a table with surgical tools next to her.

Verdict: If the next two issues are anywhere near as good as this, Silk will at least go out on a high note, or be a book to be excited for, come relaunch. This is the Spider-Female title to beat right now. Although I do still have 2 Spider-Woman to read, so Jess might take it.

A+