"My name is Cindy Moon. Intern by day. Super hero by night. Actually, I fight crime by day, too. And I also intern by night—you get the idea. Ten years ago, I got bit by a radioactive spider. See Previous, Re: Super Hero. Shortly after that fateful bite, I was locked inside a windowless bunker. For ten years. I did it to keep my family safe. To keep everyone safe. Safe from jerkstones like Morlun and his family. But now that threat is gone."
— Cindy Moon
Silk is a Marvel Comics superhero, first introduced into the Marvel Universe in 2014, at the start of The Amazing Spider-Man Vol. 3.
In the wake of the Spider-Verse event, in February 2015, Silk was given her own ongoing series, written by Robbie Thompson (known for his work on Supernatural). Initially running for seven issues, Silk, like many other titles, was put on hold for the massive Secret Wars (2015) event, but returned with a new volume during the All-New, All-Different Marvel initiative later that year.
In the second volume, Silk is working for Black Cat, or so it seems - as she is actually a mole for S.H.I.E.L.D. Her loyalties become increasingly strained by the deception. This volume ran for nineteen issues.
Silk has starred in the following comics
- Silk: The Life and Times of Cindy Moon (2015)
- Silk (vol. 2) (2015-2017)
- Amazing Spider-Man & Silk: The Spider(Fly) Effect (2016)
- Silk (2021), subtitled Threats and Menaces for the collected edition.
- Silk (2022), subtitled Age of the Witch for the collected edition.
- Silk (2023)
Tropes:
- All Therapists Are Muggles: Averted. At Mister Fantastic's recommendation, Cindy begins seeing Dr. Marie Porter, a shrink who specializes in helping people with secret identities. Marie is one of the few people Cindy genuinely trusts, and is on a very short list of characters who believe that Cindy can get her life in order.
- Alternate Universe Reed Richards Is Awesome: And in her case, very evil. Cindy Moon of Earth 65, AKA Gwen's earth, is a megalomaniac supervillain in control of SILK, an evil counterpart to SHIELD that's branched into other realities. She's a highly gifted scientist who never quite got over the fact she could have gotten powers, and instead built a multiverse-spanning criminal organisation. She lacks Cindy's social awkwardness due to not being in the bunker and was never separated from her family (but is now estranged thanks to her work and lack of care for them), and as such appears older despite being the same age.
- Beauty Is Never Tarnished:
- Averted after Cindy gets a beating at the hands of Black Cat and ends up with a black eye.
- Averted again when Cindy gets some bruises on her cheek after fighting Mattie Franklin.
- Butch Lesbian: Two of Cindy's co-workers
◊, Lola and Rafferty, are a lesbian couple. Lola is butch, short-haired, tomboyish, and slightly masculine-looking. Rafferty, on the other hand, is much more of a Lipstick Lesbian - long-haired, cute, blonde,and nerd-looking. - Can't Have Sex, Ever: Not Cindy herself, but her love interest, Hector/Spectro, due to being constantly phasing thanks to his ghost powers, can only be solid when actively attacking someone. In order to even hug Cindy, he had to tackle her to the ground (at her suggestion).
- Comedic Underwear Exposure: In a crossover time-travel adventure with Spider-Man, they accidentally prevent the event that will give them their powers, causing their powers to disappear. As Cindy uses her webs to make her costume, with no powers, her costume ceases to exist, right in the middle of a fight. Fortunately she's wearing underwear (and is thankful that its clean underwear too), but the scene plays as an embarrassing but funny circumstance, especially as they're visibly granny panties.
- Cool Big Sis:
- Aside from the usual sibling bickering, she was this towards her little brother, as seen in a flashback in Silk #1 here◊. The final arc of the first volume is about how Cindy searches for him and finally reunites with him again.
- Cindy herself gets one in the form of Mockingbird during their time working together for SHIELD, who despite being about the same age as her, Mockingbird's experience both as a superhero and a spy, and generally being a bit more together in her life, results in her both coming off as older and more mature, and becoming protective of Cindy, and going out of her way to help her out. For an example, she gives Cindy a house for her parents to live in for free (its one of her safehouses she maintains as a spy, but doesn't utilise often so its both a safe place for them to live in and fully paid for so they never have to pay rent).
- Aside from the usual sibling bickering, she was this towards her little brother, as seen in a flashback in Silk #1 here
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: In her solo series by Robbie Thompson, her spider powers and the circumstances surrounding how she got them are written like an extended metaphor for a social or learning disability. Cindy was raised by two deeply loving parents, but when she got her powers, she and they were horrified and wanted nothing more than for her to go back to being a normal girl. Their fear allowed Ezekiel Sims to persuade them to lock away their teenage daughter in a bunker for over a decade. She isn't very adept at social cues, and at first cannot understand why Peter Parker doesn't want to lean into their Fantastic Arousal. Most other superheroes treat her as younger than she is and find her either endearing or aggravating, which translates to Cindy as condescension or fuel for her own self-loathing. She regularly worries that she'll never be a properly functioning adult on behalf of her circumstances, and in most issues, the only person she can confide in is her therapist. At the end of Thompson's run on the character, she accepts that these things will always be a part of her, but she owes it to herself to be comfortable in her own skin, in the company of people who care about her, such as Lola, Rafferty, Albert, and her parents, found at last, who apologize profusely for letting Ezekiel put her in that bunker.
- Hartman Hips: As seen in the cover above, Cindy tends to be depicted with impressive hips and rear, just like Spider-Gwen and Jessica Drew.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Subverted for Silk, who is probably the only Spider-Hero other than the aforementioned alternate universe Spider-Girl to be liked by J. Jonah Jameson from the start. JJJ is a fan of Cindy Moon's alter ego and also acts as a bit of a Parental Substitute for her. Which makes things interesting once Cindy starts working as the The Mole and tries to actively ruin her reputation and be labeled a menace to strengthen the facade. Instead, Jonah begins coming up with a number of excuses for her villainous behavior, refusing to believe Silk has actually gone bad. Later on, Cindy ends up devastated when an actually evil version of her from Spider-Gwen's dimension shows up to commit a major crime spree, causing Jameson to finally lose faith in her.
- Important Haircut: Near the end of her first character arc in her solo comic, Cindy is in a fight with Black Cat that ends with the theif dangling her by her hair over a long drop. After a moment of existential anguish over the source of the fight itself, she cuts off her own hair to escape. From this moment forward, she begins to move past her reliance on Spider-Man & make her own decisions about her life, including later working with Black Cat in order to find information on her family. Subsequently, she's kept her hair short even as enough time's passed for it to have grown.
- Lipstick Lesbian: Two of Cindy's co-workers◊, Lola and Rafferty, are a lesbian couple and perhaps one of the most blatant examples of these. Rafferty is long-haired and cute, blonde,and nerd-looking. Her girlfriend Lola is more of a Butch Lesbian.
- Male Gaze: More than a few times, covers and panels have framed her backside front and centre.
- Most Common Superpower: Surprisingly averted, much like fellow Spider-person Spider-Gwen, Cindy is typically drawn with a modest bust, which tends to make her appear younger. Generally, much like other Spider-women, fanservice with her tends to be more centred on her backside.
- No Social Skills: As noted, Cindy has trouble reading social ques or even just understanding social norms, and as a result can come off as immature, invasive, or otherwise uninformed. She's aware of this and deeply self-conscious of it, but fortunately it works in her favour as it makes her endearing to others.
- Older Than They Look: Downplayed, but due to Cindy both being quite short and her poor social skills, she often comes off as a woman barely out of her teens. She's actually about the same age as Peter Parker and Bobbi Morse, which as of 2023 would make her canonically at least 30note .
- Recycled Title: As of August 2023, all of Cindy's solo series were initially published as simply Silk. Most were subsequently given a subtitle for their collected edition.
- Retronym: As of August 2023, all of Cindy's solo series use the same title, simply Silk. When later republished as collected editions, series-specific subtitles are added to most of them, to help differentiate - so her first ongoing series became Silk: The Life and Times of Cindy Moon and the 2022 limited series became Silk: Age of the Witch, for example.
- Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: With Spider-Gwen. Though allies, they're the two Spider-folk most likely to bicker and argue, and Gwen still hasn't forgotten how Cindy acted during Spider-Verse. What's not helping matters is Cindy's Alternate Universe counterpart from Gwen's world is an outright supervillain.
