Silk #2

Writer – Robbie Thompson
Artist – Stacey Lee
Colours – Ian Herring

Cindy Moon, or Silk as she is known to the world at large, which really only means some people in New York, is missing her family all the while she is battling a killer robot.  She can find no trace of them, almost as if they never existed and it bothers her to say the least.  To make things just a little bit worse, she runs into the first love of her life, Hector, who obviously still loves her even though he is engaged to be married, and also while she is covered in sewage.  Robbie Thompson is slowly turning Silk into one of the very best titles that Marvel manages to put out and he does so through good, simple storytelling.  Everyone has felt what Cindy has felt, being alone and frustrated, and Thompson nails those emotions right on the head making Cindy one of the most relatable characters from the publisher at the moment.  You understand what she is going through, maybe not the battling of killer robots, but everything else.  Thompson also manages to strike a nice balance between that with a good dose of light-hearted humour and while Cindy has elicited some chuckles here and there, when she meets her ex-boyfriend it is pretty funny and you feel sorry for her and how it all went down.  What is good about it though is that it looks like her supporting cast is about to go up by one because we most likely have not seen the last of him though she might wish it to be so.  Complimenting this humour are the very expressive pencils by Stacey Lee, whose Manga-inspired work is a perfect fit for our hero.  This book is actually not left on a cliff-hanger though it does show us those mysterious men once again who have been watching Silk in her bunker, which is actually a little creepy.  One of the best things about this book is the fact that, so far, each issue has been a standalone story giving you everything you need to know about our heroine and being able to enjoy the book for what it is without having to purchase six issues to get the complete story.  Silk is an excellent book and well worth your time if you are looking for something nice and light and more importantly, fun to read.

4 out of 5

The New 52 Futures End #46

Writer – Brian Azzarello, Jeff Lemire, Dan Jurgens, Keith Giffen
Artist – Scot Eaton
Inker – Scott Hanna
Colours – Hi-Fi

If you want to blame anyone for spoilers to this issue, blame DC as the cover is pretty self-explanatory.  Sure, you can hope that maybe Terry McGinnis is just sleeping a little awkwardly or that perhaps he simply fainted, but the only person you would be fooling is yourself.  So this is the vaunted issue where the Batman from Beyond passes away while saving the day.  The only problem with the whole thing is that you do not really see what happens.  There he is battling the Joker/Batman cyborg, it cuts to his boots where you see a couple drops of blood, then cuts away to silhouette and then a bunch of panels later, the man is dead.  For all that buildup, it was a pretty lousy way to go.  It calls back to the time when the Martian Manhunter was killed during Final Crisis which was an incredible letdown.  For a character that was supposed to be the main figure of the series, going back to Terry McGinnis, they could have shown us how he died to lend it a little more meaning, to resonate and sink in a little deeper.  This was disappointing and a huge step down for the series that was finally shaping up to be pretty good.  While the rest of the book was fairly entertaining, to cheap out on a moment as big as this should have been, was a crime to those who have been hanging in this long.  RIP Terry McGinnis.  You deserved better.

2.5 out of 5