- Today we're on The Show With Issues set
to talk about a female spider-themed superhero.
Can you guess who it is?
That's right, Silk.
(rock music)
Peter Parker, an unpopular high school student
was bitten by a radioactive spider,
which granted him the powers of blah blah blah,
we know this already.
But, it was revealed not too long ago in Marvel's
Original Sin event that the same exact spider
went on to bite fellow student of Pete's
on the same field trip, Cindy Moon.
She has basically the same powers that has Spidey,
wall crawling, super strength, a spider sense,
or rather, Silk sense, that's far better than Spidey's,
and even the ability to shoot out organic webbing
from her fingers, which is what her first costume
was created from.
Cindy was approached by a man named Ezekiel Sims
who trained her to use her powers,
but also locked her away in a bunker
so she would be safe from powerful
spider-hunting villain Morlun.
10 years or so go by with Cindy locked away in the bunker,
a different Cindy locked away in a different bunker,
although I am just now starting to see the similarities.
But, 10 years people!
When Peter finds out about her existence, he tracks her down
and frees her from captivity.
She explores New York, gets a job as a reporter
with hopes it would help her track down her missing family
and becomes the superhero Silk
all while having basically no knowledge past the 90s.
No idea what Twitter is, wasn't aware they made
a three movie franchise out of the Hobbit.
She makes offhand references
to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,
she even mentions Pokemon constantly,
even going so far as to label
one of her villains Dragon Claw as Pokemon Dude.
And it's this lack of modern knowledge
that leads to her bonding with J. Jonah Jameson
who affectionately calls her Analog, it's adorable, and rad.
And maybe you've noticed, but the idea of 90s kids
had become increasingly popular over the last few years,
reaching peak saturation in 2014, the same year
that Silk was introduced.
Coincidence?
Probably, I dunno.
A bunch of 90s properties like Full House, X Files,
Boy Meets World, and Twin Peaks
have been brought back, not to mention,
the countless Buzzfeed-esque articles
about things only true 90s kids will understand.
But I mean, it's not uncommon for a generation
to look back at their childhood with fond memories,
it just seems like 90s kids is a little too prevalent.
There's no doubt that the internet and technology
as a whole have played huge roles in this.
Writer Kelsey D’Auben argues
a somewhat beautiful explanation, quote.
End quote.
This translates quite nicely to Silk.
She's able to go anywhere and do anything
in the great city of New York, but she finds it
too loud and busy.
She longs for the quiet simplicity of the bunker,
the stupid, awful, terrible bunker.
Even though she gave up years of her life in there,
she's nostalgic for it.
As sad as it might seem, it makes perfect sense.
Take a look at this, this is a graph
that shows the number of memories that are encoded
into the average person's brain at different stages in life.
It's known as the Lifespan Retrieval Curve.
This section in red is the reminiscence bump.
Between ages 10 to 30 are, or depending on your age,
will be some of your most accessible memories.
There are a few theories behind why this occurs,
but it seems most of them revolve around a sense
of identity and change.
There are scores of milestones that we set
in our culture for this period of time,
being old enough to drink, being old enough to drive,
hopefully not at the time, graduating high school
or college if that's your thing, wasn't for me,
falling in love, finding your career,
these are all things that tend to happen during this period
of a person's life.
Which means it's both the period of discovering
who you are, as well as experiencing firsts.
First time you drove, first time you drank,
hopefully not at the same time, et cetera.
As you age, you experience fewer and fewer firsts
which means your brain doesn't have to use
as much energy to encode all that information
as it did the first time.
This is why we often feel nostalgic for this period
of our lives and things that are connected to it.
Like how I was super excited about getting my picture taken
with the Legends of the Hidden Temple guard
at VidCon, Green Monkeys for life.
It's during this time when we still experience
novel events and define our identities,
and Silk was trapped in a bunker for 10 of those years.
Even when she's physically freed,
she's still mentally trapped in the past
and needing to find her missing family,
depressed by how her neighborhood has changed
and how the people who used to be in her life
have moved on.
She finds comfort in the bunker.
She hates it, but it's where she formed
a lot of her identity.
What do you guys think about Silk and nostalgia,
and being a 90s kid?
Why are the Green Monkeys objectively the best team?
I'd love to know your thoughts in the comments below.
Sorry for being absent last week and late this week,
I'm still getting my new place set up here in Dallas,
I also traveled to California last week,
loved seeing your lovely faces at VidCon.
Bear with me as we still get things in order.
I'm also sick, if you can't tell.
No end card today, that's right,
we're skipping the end card.
(cheering)
But make sure you sure you hit that big,
sexy subscribe button so you don't miss out on
all the new videos we make for you ever week.
My name is Scott reminding you to read between the panels
and grow smarter through comics.
See ya.