Trivia / Silk (Marvel Comics)

• Creator Backlash: In 2021, Dan Slott wrote in a public tweet to convey how one of his biggest regrets when co-creating Silk was forcing a romance between her and Peter Parker via totemic sex pheromones while unintentionally playing into the racial stereotypes associated with their relationship. Slott would take full responsibility for this plot point along with the more criticized aspects of Silk as a character, while also expressing how grateful he was that writers like Robbie Thompson chose to drop these problematic elements altogether in Silk's solo titles.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: When Silk first launched, MSNBC ran a report that cited the character as Marvel's first Asian-American superhero. Keith Chow corrected them by pointing out that characters like Kamala Khan predated Silk, and that DC's Cassandra Cain was technically the first Asian-American superhero to have her own series. And if we expand the umbrella to cover Asian superheroes rather than specifically Asian-American ones, Marvel's Shang-Chi predates both Silk and Cassandra Cain by a great deal, having debuted in 1973 before receiving his own solo series the following year.
• Sleeper Hit: Silk launched right before Marvel were planning the above-mentioned All New revamp, starring a controversial Spider-Man character who was considered The Scrappy and a Creator's Pet at best. Despite a lukewarm amount of hype before release, the series ended up being surprisingly really good, succeeding in allowing Silk to be Rescued from the Scrappy Heap and connecting to audiences thanks to the titular character's battle with anxiety. It became a modest seller (by no means one of their highest-selling books, but enough that it got to stay on as part of the All-New revamp, and maintained decent sales all throughout its run), and by the time it ended, was considered one of Marvel's best Spider-Man-related books being released at the time.