I don’t know if writer Robbie Thompson has been reading a whole lot of Kamala Khan’s adventures lately or what, but Silk aka Cindy Moon’s fumbling both through superhero banter and daily interactions with her coworkers, while charming for a teenager, seem downright cringe-worthy when coming from a grown adult (and if Cindy was a week shy of eighteen when she was bitten and spent a decade of isolation in a bunker, then we’re talking nearly thirty here). Spoilers: this painfully forced pairing hasn’t gone away yet. I even want to like Silk despite the fact that she doesn’t have a specific Asian ethnicity yet, probably so the creators can get away with dressing her in a Japanese ninja face mask but retain a name referencing a historically Chinese product and- okay, so maybe I already don’t like her that much. I want to like Silk despite the fact that she’s referred to as the Spider-Bride which is so obviously a title previously belonging to MJ. I do! I want to like Silk despite the fact that she and Peter are face deep in the make outs before we even know much about her in Spider-Verse (because, as characters like Ben and Miles have proven, Peter has a history of immediately becoming attracted to people with spider powers. Let me say first that, in addition to Silk being an important new representative of the above, I drove back through snow-covered traffic at night to retrieve this comic because the shipment was delayed by a previous snowfall, so I really, really want to like Silk.

Happy Tết, everyone (aka Lunar New Year for all my non-Vietnamese readers)! As the resident Asian BNP staff member there are few ways I can think of better to ring in the new year than reading comics portraying a kickass Asian superheroine. Writer: Robbie Thompson / artists: Stacey Lee, Ian Herring / Marvel Comics

Silk (2015) #2 by Robbie Thompson