Silk (Vol. 1), Issue #1

* Part 1 of 7 of the Life and Times of Cindy Moon storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Silk (Vol. 1), Issue #1!

Silk intrigues me because, based on what very little I’ve read, it appears to be a Spider-Man-like coming-of-age story? Only it’s a girl this time?

That’s all I’ve got. I don’t know anything else. And that may not even be accurate anyway! Let’s see…

Silk (Vol. 1), Issue #1 [April, 2015]
Written by: Robbie Thompson

As a teenager, Cindy Moon was bitten by the same spider that bit Peter Parker, giving her powers similar to those of the Amazing Spider-Man: powers of adhesion, a unique precognitive awareness of danger, and the ability to weave spider webs with her fingertips. She now swings through the skies of New York City as Silk.

Oh, ok, so it’s exactly like Spider-Man. Right down to the spider. Got it.

Oh, there’s more! Apparently, I should be reading this after some other storyline, because Silk was locked in a bunker as a safety measure to prevent her presence from being detected by spider-hunters and murderers! Spider-Man unwittingly opened the bunker, setting off the events of the Spider-Verse! Then she thwarted the spider-hunters, and now we’re back in New York!

OK, let’s get started proper now. Jesus.

“Finally,” Silk thinks, punching a face. “Finally, I’m in the game.”

She says she was locked in the bunker for ten years, which sounds like some Hitler shit to me. And now she’s free to do as she pleases, and that means punch alleged bad guys so that they don’t do bad things anymore. This guy is named Dragonclaw, which Silk says sounds like a Pokémon.

“So tell me, Pokémon-Dude, why’d you try to burn that delivery truck?”

“GAH!” he responds after Silk scratches his arm with her, uh, spider claws. Her spider-sense (Silky-Sense) starts a-tinglin’! It proves to be incredibly distracting. The matter at hand is important, but she’s hanging on by a literal thread and keeping her eyes closed. And that gives Dragonclaw plenty of time to attack! He chops her silky strand, sending her plummeting to the earth below.

Then Spider-Man grabs her out of the air and Dragonclaw is like “grrrr, you win again!” and leaves.

It’s me, your Friendly Neighborhood Sex Offender!

Spider-Man asks Silk out for a date, but she leaves before Spider-Man can finish his sentence. And good for her, because Peter Parker is supposed to be with MJ and Silk ain’t MJ. MJ has red hair! That’s the only difference. Also, super powers.

“Am I ok? Maybe I just need time to adjust to normal life,” Silk thinks, turning back into Cindy Moon. “Whatever normal life is, anyway.”

Flashback to an 18-year-old Cindy’s parents nagging her about shoving off to a hockey game in lieu of participating in an extra credit field trip. Plus, it’s not just a game! It’s a date with local stud Hector Cervantez, whom she has been seeing for six months, Mother! That’s like 15 years in teenage time. Her dad approves: “I like Hector. He’s got a wicked wrist shot.”

Mom doesn’t care. Dating? In Biden’s economy?? There’s a quick row that ends with Cindy telling her mom that she hates her before she drags her little brother off to his play-date.

Flashforward to now, where Cindy Moon arrives at (I think) her first day on the job at the Daily Bugle. After 10 years of isolation, this would put her at 28-years-old? I think? J. Jonah Jameson is a large butthead, as usual.

Cindy finds herself to be socially awkward, as 10 years of bunker life would make one. I don’t even have a bunker excuse for my social awkwardness. A woman invites her to a viewing party of a new show at a bar downtown, and Cindy is like “GO WITH YOUR LESBIAN CRUSH INSTEAD”. Very tactful.

J. Jonah Jameson perks up at Cindy’s pad and paper. “Analog! You’re not one of those millennial crybabies, are you? I like you, Analog! What have you got? Pitch me a story!”

She knows exactly what not to say, but she says it anyway. “How about… Silk.”

Killing it in the real world already! Kudos to you, Bunkerface.

Later, Cindy finds her pitched story on the big screen in the office. “SILK WEAVES WEBS AROUND WEB-HEAD” on the Fact Channel. Cindy didn’t get this job for the money, she got this job to use the channel’s resources to find her family. So far, she has found nothing. Nada. Zippo. They disappeared shortly after she started her bunker adventure and hasn’t heard word.

Flashback to Cindy taking her brother, Junior, to his playdate.

“You’re weird,” he says.

“No, I’m not. You’re weird,” she rebuts.

When asked if she really hates Mom, Cindy makes a troubled face but stays silent. Then they both say they love each other. Junior calls Cindy a weirdo again. It’s very touching. Too bad Junior was MURDERED or something. Who knows?! We gotta figure this shit out!

But, between work and crimefighting, there’s not much room for family-finding. And with her Silky-Sense all out of whack, giving her made-up problems or tiny, trivial issues. A college kid crying because her friends ditched her. That kind of thing. Not exactly worth kicking someone’s ass to hell and back over. “I prefer it when my Silk-Sense just finds me stuff to punch.”

Silk finds Dragonclaw walking around again, so a fight ensues. He’s got blaster-palms. She’s got a silk shield, which she whips at his face like she’s Captain Dumbfuck America. Then she uppercuts him “gently”, and by “gently” I mean “enough to send him flying 70 feet high and then straight into a dumpster! “Please don’t be dead. Please don’t be dead,” she says as she checks up on Dumpsterclaw.

The Dragonclaw suit is an empty shell. Dude’s gone.

Oh well. Mission accomplished, sorta! And there’s security cam footage to send over to Fact Channel, which is not the Daily Bugle as I had originally assumed. I gotta keep up with these newfangled 2010s comics.

If this apartment’s a-rockin’, don’t come a-knockin’!

Cindy decides to move out of her apartment since having a roommate after 10 years of alone time blows chunks.

Flashback to Hector Cervantez, who arrives at the Moon home with a little gift. He’s not planning on playing in the hockey game after all, because there’s something much more important going on today! Like a colonoscopy! Barring that, it’s the six month anniversary! He bought her an ankle bracelet with a moon pendant. “A moon for my Moon,” he says dopily. She blushes.

Flashforward to Silk sitting atop a building roof, giving Spider-Man an old ringy-dingy on the phone. He’s busy though, but he’ll make time.

“Spider-Man and I had a thing. It was… weird. And awesome. But now… I’m not sure what we are. Friends? Charter members of the spider-bite club? I don’t know. I just know he knows about this stuff. Spider-bite club stuff.”

She asks how he deals with his Spidey-Sense. It’s like a constant din of harsh noise. So much quieter in the bunker. It’s almost like she misses the alone time, the peace and quiet, the 10 years of bunking it up. Spider-Man merely tells her that the city is loud, but the pizza is good. Does that help?

“You’re gonna be okay, Cin. You just need time. … Wanna come over?”

“Yes. No.” *click*

Snubbed again! The life of a Spider-type Man.

Meanwhile, in a bar, a drunk young man is watching Silk footage and laughing. Then he gets sad again. Another man puts his hand on his shoulder. “Boss will see you now.”

The drunk young man is out-of-costume Dragonclaw, and the boss is not happy with him.

Now it’s into the torture chamber with you! An eight foot by six foot room playing Anne Murray over the intercom.

His boss is a white-haired woman with a black eyemask who I think might be Black Cat. She sends Dragonclaw to “the shop”. And she needs to learn everything there is to learn about Silk post haste!

Cindy, having moved out of a comfortable apartment with, like, a kitchen and a bathroom, finds herself in her bunker. “Say what you want about this dump. It is quiet.”

She turns on the TV and finds the face of Ezekiel Sims, the man who convinced her to stay in the bunker for ten years “with nothing but his prerecorded messages to keep me company”.

Dragonclaw, in the shop, which is manned by an individual who fancies himself as The Repairman. He looks like Carl from Aqua Teen Hunger Force and he holds a crowbar menacingly. Black Cat wants Dragonclaw to get the full makeover, which Mr. Repairman seems very pleased to do. He motions the poor sap to a very dirty dentist chair with chains and limb straps. “I have to warn you, my methods are… extreme.”

“Look… I really need this gig.”

“That’s the spirit. Now, how do you feel about being an actual dragon?”

In the bunker, Cindy sets up some electricity and gets a Fact Channel work laptop plugged in. Apparently, a nameless “private contractor” set the bunker up with unlimited juice until the end of time, so that’s a sweet deal. “So, I guess I’m back. Back in the place where I was locked away for ten years.” Yeah, yeah. We get it. A decade in captivity. Cry me a river.

So she thinks Ezekiel is still alive somewhere, buried in one of his endless, faceless companies. And he knows what happened to her family.

“I’ll find you guys,” she thinks, setting up a collage of photos, newspaper clippings, and papers. “I promise.”