Silk #2 // Review
Cindy is in bed, but she’s not in bed. And she’s not in a detective noir thriller mystery either. (Not anymore.) Right now, she’s in the old west. She’s a fugitive from the law, but not really. Because she’s in bed, even though she’s not in Silk #2. Writer Emily Kim continues a cross-genre exploration with Marvel’s most interesting webslinger. Cindy is brought to the page by artist Ig Guara. Color accompanies Cindy through the talents of Ian Herring. The neurologically-induced virtual reality that Cindy’s going through might feel a bit weak in places, but it’s fun seeing Cindy go through her own kind of Westworld hell for a single issue.
Cindy’s been placed in a neural interface with weird action/adventure dream worlds by Saya Ishii. Saya has a serious vendetta against Cindy, and she’s determined to break her down psychologically. She’s hoping that she can do so...otherwise, she’ll have to resort to Plan B, which will be unfortunate for her. To complicate matters, Albert has shown up. Saya sees Albert as a loose end to be cleaned up. Precisely how she’s going to do that could have serious repercussions for Cindy.
Kim works with standard sci-fi tropes in a way that casts some light on Cindy’s psyche. The dramatic, emotional end of this story is absolutely crucial because without it, the overall premise feels weak and tedious. Heroes get trapped in virtual worlds...constantly. Innocent people in their lives will tend to be dragged along into danger. Villains will continue to be...villainous. All of this has been done before in one fashion or another. What’s distinct about Kim’s execution of the premise is the fact that it IS exploring Cindy’s personality in fascinating ways. The cowboy western setting is a fun exploration into who Cindy is from the inside.
Guara frames action and emotional drama from intriguing angles that amplify the overall sense of intensity about everything. Cindy remains remarkably expressive in costume with just her eyes alone. There’s a familiarity in her expressions as she navigates an old west that never really happened. She and her powers and capabilities fit the overall feeling of a cowboy western a LOT more than one might expect. It’s a fun action setting for her that allows Guara to explore a visual end of Silk that doesn’t often get explored by ANY superhero. The color in the issue is stylish. Herring works with a muted range of colors that seems to amplify the feeling of disorientation in the space between virtual and non-virtual worlds.
The genre-of-the-month format remains fresh in the second issue. It would be interesting to see Kim and Guara try something new...some sort of less traditional and cliched genre in an upcoming issue or two. As it is, it’s been fun watching Kim and Guara lay the groundwork for the series in a couple of well-established genres, but there is so much more that could be explored in the format that Kim has delivered in the first couple of issues of the series. Next up: Cindy engages in a little bit of swashbuckling as a pirate on the high seas.
