The Silencer #1 (Bitter Fruit Part 1), Story by Fred Van Lente, Art by Steve Ellis and Dae Uyoo and published by Moonstone Books. It is a thirty four-page product (only two of which are advertisements).
The Silencers are drawn by Ellis who has a good feel for the classic look of the American superhero comic and, while rough at times, captures the mood of the story quite well. The entire comic is in full color, as superheroes (or supervillains) should be.
The Silencers are not you typical supergroup. They are criminals, superpowered enforcers employed by the mob to keep down the competition. The Silencers have to act carefully so as to avoid attracting the attention of the “tights” (costumed superheroes) which is a little amusing as all of the Silencers have bought into the same game, all have code names and costumes.
The comic begins with the Silencers breaking up the drug activities of a rival, and mysterious, syndicate and ends with the betrayal of Cardinal, the team leader, and several other members. Thus ending on a nice cliff hanger. The story builds well and the characters and plot are engaging, even if there are no particular surprises it is a solid piece. The comic ends with capsule descriptions of the character as FBI Wanted posters (which include the warning “powered and dangerous” which I particularly like).
As I am primarily a game product reviewer, I would be remiss is I did not point out that the Silencers would be good fodder both for building a well-organized supervillain team or as a frame work for building a villain-based supers game.
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