Silk #5 // Review
Cindy Moon had her age advanced by a 400-year-old Korean witch. Now the witch is looking like an attractive, young cosplayer, and Cindy looks like she's 80 years old. A frail body isn't going to stop her from confronting the witch in Silk #5. Writer Emily Kim wraps up a satisfying five-part story that is brought to the page by Takeshi Miyazawa and colorist Ian Herring. The conflict resolves with plenty of satisfying denouement. Kim's completed five-part story is constructed quite well. The writer's debut work for Marvel is well-balanced. With any luck, there will be more adventures with Emily and Cindy.
Cindy's body is scarcely holding up. She's the only hero in the room, though. J. Jonah Jameson may have taken her to the showdown, but he's scarcely in any kind of position to help defeat a being of immense magical power. It's up to an aging Silk to stand up to an ancient witch who wants to wipe out all of reality and replace it with an ancient home for her to rule over. Cindy might be falling apart, but she's got some personal psychological issues to work through before she can stand up to the ancient magic.
Kim has done a careful job of balancing the rhythm of the final issue in the current series. 13 pages of swiftly-moving action reach their climax, allowing for another 7 pages of epilogue. The clean motion of the action makes the opening 13 pages shoot by very quickly. Dialogue and the thought-heavy conclusion feels a bit weird with the series-closing adventure hitting the final issue right on the first panel. Still, Kim has done an admirable job of keeping Cindy engaging on a psychological level for the first four issues of the series, so there's a real payoff in being allowed to see how her outlook has changed with the conflict finally reaching its conclusion.
Miyazawa is allowed to contrast an aging version of Silk against the lithe, young heroine who meets the villain on her own terms. The atmosphere of the battle that dominates the issue isn't given much room to breathe, but that's because Miyazawa is unleashing the action on the page in very tight shots. Typically close-up shots of action can feel a bit overpowering and cramped, but Miyazawa has a gift for delivering kinetic aggression. The drama at chapter's end has to jump around a LOT to wrap up everything. This could have felt rushed, but Miyazawa's art and atmospheric depth by Herring's colors deliver a distinct reality to every single panel.
Silk has evolved quite a lot over her 36 total issues thus far. Each series has been built on the one before it thoughtfully, nuancedly by every creative team. There's a real sense of continuity for Cindy and her adventures. Robbie Thompson's run on the first few series got her up and running. Maurine Goo's approach for the last series was good. Still, Kim and Miyazawa have a kind of alchemical resonance that could serve Cindy well for the next few series of chance and circumstance allow them the opportunity.
