Marvel’s in the process of collecting every Silk story in complete editions. This is likely in part because Silk made her return earlier this year with a new series, but she’s also one of the strongest new heroes to come out of Marvel in years. The first complete collection proved Silk is a character that can stand on her own two feet and in the second complete collection the character continues to grow and find her footing as her own kind of hero. Now collected for the first time, fans can get 336 more pages of Silk from her appearances in an Amazing Spider-Man & Silk four-part story, and her various appearances in other books too.
This complete collection houses Amazing Spider-Man & Silk: The Spider(Fly) Effect (2016) #1-4, Spider-Women Alpha (2016) #1, Spider-Gwen (2015B) #7-8, Silk (2015B) #7-8, Spider-Woman (2015) #6-7, and Spider-Women Omega (2016) #1.
Opening with Amazing Spider-Man & Silk: The Spider(Fly) Effect, this is more of a Spider-Man story than a Silk one, but they do go on a team-up adventure to the past. It’s nice to see Silk being used, but they are entangled in Spider-Man’s business more than Silk’s. The big bad in this story is Hydra, but soon Peter and Silk bump into Uncle Ben and are fighting the good fight alongside him. It’s a kooky tale, features a Hydra mech that looks like a t-rex, and has some slick-looking art by Todd Nauck. This is definitely being collected for Silk completists.
Hey, there’s Silk. I can see her!
Credit: Marvel Comics
Unfortunately, being a sidekick is the ceiling for Silk in much of this collection. That’s partly because she’s featured in other characters’ books in much of the rest of this collection in a crossover event. Spider-Women Alpha kicks off the “Spider Women” story arc. It opens with a nice rundown of each character — Silk is given top billing with Spider-Woman and Spider-Gwen, but this tale also feels like Silk is tagging along more than anything. Spider-Woman gets a little more focus thanks to her baby and maybe even because she had a bit more popularity at the time. Vanesa Del Rey’s art is gritty and suits the street-level crime the heroes are up against.
Following this is Spider-Gwen #7, which is followed up Silk #7 and then Spider-Woman #6. It’s jarring how you need to jump from a different creative team for each chapter, though that was a fairly common thing in comics in the ’90s.
Silk #7 spends the most time with Silk, with Spider-Gwen #8 closely following. If you dig alternate universe twists and turns, it’s a fun enough ride. Unfortunately for Silk fans, it all gets wrapped up in Spider-Women Omega #1 and Silk is barely in the story — she’s captured and hidden away for most of the finale. At the time it was likely not a big deal, but when you’re reading a Silk complete collection you’d probably expect more of the title character.
Silk: Out of the Spider-Verse Vol. 2 is for completists who want to own it all. Silk certainly expresses herself and shows off her personality throughout this book, and is even featured for two issues from her own series, but unfortunately, she’s also more of a sidekick in much of this 336-page collection. For that reason, this is an odd book to recommend unless you need to own every Silk story.
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