Since she escaped the bunker and returned from the universe-hopping Spider-Verse her one mission has been to track down the missing members of her family. But her quest has taken her down a darker path than she ever expected, and now she’s found herself on the wrong side of the law, and in league with Marvel’s most ferocious feline, the Black Cat. What could have happened in the eight months since Secret Wars to get under her skin? Is there any redeeming her, or is she already lost?

Wait, Silk is a bad guy!? I didn’t read the solicit text above before reading Silk #1, so I missed the twist in this comic, which has a few. Writer Robbie Thompson takes Cindy Moon/Silk and gives her a nice space all her own in this new series.

The first half of Silk #1 feels like a classic Spider-Man story to me, more so than the current Spider-Man series that has been released. She’s swinging around, punching bad guys (still the Goblin Nation), and trying to balance her personal life during it all. Thompson does an excellent job of balancing all of that action while also catching up readers as to Cindy’s life. You could pick up this issue never having read a comic featuring Silk and be fully caught up. It’s actually really impressive to do all of that so smoothly while also setting up a new direction.

And boy is there a new direction. We have the solicit text above, but there’s so much more that I don’t want to spoil. I got to the “bad guy” reveal which caused me pause and I said “holy crap that’s cool,” but what comes after that has even more potential and answers questions I had while reading.

Thompson is helped by Stacey Lee whose style is really cool. Not quite sure how to describe it, but I’ll say Lee does an excellent job balancing the action with quieter moments in Cindy’s life. I enjoy the character design and Silk is handled in a way that her skin tight outfit doesn’t feel like it’s visually exploiting her body at all.

The comic’s first issue is a lot of fun. I want to see what happens next and Thompson has carved out a solid space for Silk that keeps her in a world that feels familiar for fans of the Spider family but also is unique enough to make it stand out. A great debut.

Story: Robbie Thompson Art: Stacey Lee
Story: 8.25 Art: 8 Overall: 8 Recommendation: Read

Marvel provided Graphic Policy with a FREE copy for review