Thanks to the monthly format of most comics, one of the strangest trends in comics is the rushed final issue.  While the creative team has a bigger story to tell for the series main characters, an editorial decision is made elsewhere to cancel the series and what is left is a final issue that has an entire story arc (or more) worth of developments instead crammed into 20 or so pages of panels.  The reasons for the cancellation of the series are usually poor sales, but sometimes in the case of Silk it is something else, and that is in this case the tie-in to Secret Wars.  While Secret Wars has drawn in most of the main characters into its huge crossover, it has left a few others alone, with their ongoing series somewhat untouched, except by the final end of the Earth, and this has been the case with Silk as well.

This issue tells the story of Silk’s and the Earth’s final hours.  Still dutifully responding to her job as a journalist even as the world is falling down around her, she is given an “assignment” by J. Jonah Jameson to go find her brother, or at least the person that might be her brother.  She has to make her way through apocalyptic New York City, saving people along the way, unaware that anyone that she saves is getting only a few extra hours of life, not a few extra decades.  This does allow the creative team to highlight her character, and she is soon thrown into the situation which the series seemed to be poised to answer over the course of a long run, not rushed into this final issue, the location of her family.

Unfortunately but also predictably, the story ends up missing its mark because of it.  The rushed nature of the story detracts already from what has come before, but the tie-in to Secret Wars makes it all the worse as the story is chaotic and unordered.  In effect the lasting legacy of this final issue is almost to erase all of the good that was done in this short lives series with this character.  She could have used a better send-off, and while she will presumably return in the new Marvel Universe, her handling here is maybe not the best bellwether for her return as this ends up being a rushed mess that does little good and unfortunately leaves the new series on a low note.

Story: Robbie Thompson Art: Tana Ford
Story: 5.5 Art: 5.5 Overall: 5.5 Recommendation: Pass