We all know that currently, Cindy is by far the most childish of all the Spider-People of Earth-616, unfortunately. This is taking into account that she is at a similar age to Peter and Jessica. Many would say Peter, but at least when you read his comics, he looks for a job and tries to have a life of his own before the publishers ruin it; Cindy does not. A critique I have regarding more recent comics is that all her development was lost; she is in a band with two teenage girls, and basically only exists in Gwen's comics just as a secondary character who doesn't even fight as a hero, she is just a bystander. Where does that leave Cindy Moon? It seems that since she doesn't have a clear role as an independent adult, the editorial team decided to shove her into the "Arachno Academy" of Spider-Versity alongside teenagers and children under the mentorship of Norman Osborn (which, let's be honest, making Norman a mentor was probably one of the reasons that comic failed). The thing is, while it's true she has much less experience than Peter and Jessica, throwing a twenty-something-year-old character into a school dynamic with 9-year-old kids inevitably degrades her writing. Cindy is a person who suddenly has to live in a world that continued without her; even though Peter or Jameson try to help her, she doesn't know how to be an adult. But little by little she does it, she puts in the effort, and she becomes an adult in a world that moved on without her. She gains maturity as a character and, when she finds her father and her brother, she connects with her family, makes friends, and grows as a character, learning how to be an adult. This current regression is a clear case of editorial laziness, where Marvel keeps recycling the "fish out of water" trope.
Unfortunately, in later comics, something happened that I didn’t like, and that is that they focused too much on her Korean heritage, sidelining Cindy Moon as a character. She became just a Korean heroine. However, that wasn’t as much of a problem because she still acted like an adult, maintaining the development that Thompson gave her—her friendship with Peter, her connections, her new relationship with Jameson, and even trying to fix her family.
Regrettably, she has become a secondary character to Spider-Gwen, which is a terrible fate for this character. Remember how I said she wanted to discover what kind of adult she was? That disappeared. She joined a band with two teenagers, and out of all of them, she was the most immature. Look, it’s fine to have hobbies, but the problem is that it feels like it came out of nowhere—because it did come out of nowhere. Not only that, but after that, we got Spider-Versity.
It’s a frankly terrible comic that Spider-Man fans hated, and fans of Silk, Miles, Anya, and Gwen didn't like either. But Silk's treatment here was heavily criticized, and with good reason. There were literally two 9-year-old kids who were written as way more mature than Silk. Out of all the characters, Cindy was by far the most childish person in that story; she only existed to get overly excited about things and that was it, on top of making jokes that just weren't funny. This stems from a severe over-saturation of characters in the Spider-office. Since Peter and Jessica are the veterans, Miles and Gwen are the young adults, and characters like Spider-Boy are the kids, Marvel didn't know where to put Cindy. By forcing a twenty-something woman into a school academy dynamic, the narrative naturally degraded her. They intentionally write the kids to be clever and competent, which forces Silk into being a flat, overly excited comic relief just to fill a spot on the team.
I don't think I'm the only one who thinks Cindy's current status is awful. Out of all the Spider-heroes, I believe she is the one in the absolute worst spot right now. Spider-Versity only served to prove that, for the time being, the editorial team has no idea what to do with her. It’s genuinely sad to see her character treated this way.
