ARC from Netgalley.
Presenting to comic readers as a "new hero", The Silencer establishes that she has been around for years, having worked as an assassin for Talia Al Ghul. Having completed a last job, she gets out and settles down with a husband and child, taking the name Honor Guest... but is she really out?
Leviathan, Talia's criminal organization has decided to depose their leader and they are coming after Honor as well. Equipped with all her assassin skills and her metahuman ability of creating areas of silence, she goes toe to toe with other crime bosses as well as Deathstroke.
With Talia *not* dead, and assassins Cradle and Grave on her tail at the end, what adventures await our protective assassin/mom?
Such a great title! I really enjoyed the writing and the story was highly detailed and expansive, while not being confusing or overbearing. I really look forward to Volume 2. High recommend!

A retired assassin is dragged back into the fray between Talia Al Ghul and Leviathan. Honor Guest has been out for 6 years, married for 5, and has a 3-year-old boy. The last thing she wants is her past intruding on the present she has chosen. And when people do not take her "No" as answer, she takes action to make them understand. So the escalation continues. The odds are not in her favor, but you might not want to bet against the Silencer!

Well, at least they didn't steal from Marvel this time. Instead it's John Wick plucked up and put down in the DC universe with Leviathan from Grant Morrison's Batman run filling in for the secret society of assassins from the film. Honor Guest was out before they pulled her back in. Now she'll do what it takes to protect her family.

This wasn't bad and gets much better once Viktor Bogdanovic comes in and pencils the last 3 issues. He tweaks Silencer's costume so it doesn't look so generic and ridiculous. John Romita Jr's designs on this book are super cheesy. His art has this over the top, 90's feel to it in the worst way. The villains are even dumber with names like Bloodvessel, Breacher, and Killbox.

Silencer is good fun, outrageous and madcap in the best ways. In its violent-protagonist-as-mother, it reminds of Marc Andreyko's Manhunter, never a bad thing, though Silencer is sillier and less dark than Manhunter, like one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's comedy-action flicks. Writer Dan Abnett scores a win here.

It's in short order that seemingly normal suburban mother Honor Guest reveals herself to the reader to be former Leviathan assassin the Silencer, stabbing and shooting cybernetic rival assassin Killbox and, after pasta fagioli, then taking out Breacher and Bloodvessel. Indeed, Silencer is part ode, part send-up of that comics time when "Killbox" was a viable name for a comics character; Honor left the 1990s behind her, and now it wants to pull her back in. Artists John Romita and Viktor Bogdanovic are both perfect for the series; the action gets bloodier and more outrageous the longer this goes, but both artists have such an animated distance to their work that the book is never gross, just increasingly electrifying and absurd.

Well, this was a lot better than the other initial title in the New Age of (Old) Superheroes re-re-reboot for DC, but that's not saying much at all. What we have here is the title character reluctantly forced back into the world of killing people and surviving other people trying to kill you, even though what she really wants is her ugly husband and her pleasantly non-bratty pre-school son. Dragged back into machinations she thought she had left behind, the story is standard – the superpower, however, annoyingly vague. She's called The Silencer, and can have a sort of soundproof force-field around her, so other people can never hear her shoot others – but is that really it? Things are so vague and woolly we just can't tell. Yes, she can take a sense away from people, but big whoop – she resorts to being just a gunsmith. Still, at least the second half of this book matches her against another of that kind…

The insistence on dragging classic characters back into these worlds is a lot more successful this time round, even if you've never known the elements herein to have been mentioned in their previous stories. So while a retcon may have been made, there has been no diminishing of prior successes. It's just that this still doesn't feel like having that much longevity. The ethnicity of the heroine is hardly featured, but it's still there for a reason. Having her in a headscarf doesn't help the entertainment level whatsoever. (Mind you, the sonic fidget spinner that changes her clothes for her when required, as well as too much else, isn't any fun either.) You're left with the instant poser of how she maintained her skills and sharpness in the humdrum life of suburbia she chose, but you certainly don't get the calamity that was "Damage".

The aspect of leaving a vengeful life many moons ago was the realm of the male anti-hero. As with other recent novels, the tide is changing with the female leads taking on the reigns of vengeance in a more dynamic way. Like “John Wick” or “Atomic Blonde”, “Silencer” [Don Abnett/DC Comics/144pgs] has the underpinings of family with a sense of blood vengeance beneath. Honor Guest (her civilian name) left her life as an assassin to have a family but like “La Femme Nikita” or “Point Of No Return”, one is never really gone. What works here is the infusion of that dark DC mentality but with a hero who is not really a hero. In a way that perhaps “Venom” might work, Honor here is revolting against what she is taught. While the idealistic portrait of her beautiful family is a little bit too saccharine, her protection of it is not, especially in that involves the women who created her in Talia Al Ghul, reproduced with the visualistic cue of Marion Cotillard from Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises”. Honor is mixed and goes from long blonde hair to spiked to buzz cut style which balances and mixes her identity as she slips into her Silencer costume which thereby allows her to control different micro-particles and sound. Some of the art is undeniably swift and beautiful while not harking back to the need for other superhero worlds like Batman and Superman. One aspect in the texture of “Deathstroke” is brought to play but as a plot point to add a level of action but also misdirection. The diner scene along in the way it works shows how these different ideas of family, betrayal and balls-out action can work including the sound bubble Silencer protects her son in. It is an immediately perception to a similar set piece in “Face Off” where the young son simply wears headphones which shields him from the carnage being wreaked around him. Even images when Honor comes out of a grocery store and has to take out a hitman without her son hearing sometimes strains credibility but is lyrical in that the ballet nature of the execution simply plays with undeniable smoothness. “Silencer” has its shortcomings but its aspect of being both diverse, kick ass and lean and efficient give it all it needs.

A-

By Tim Wassberg

The Silencer Vol.1 carries a little bit of a John Wick vibe. Honor Guest as Silencer was Talia al Ghul's right hand, the assassin that cleaned up the messes for the head of Leviathan. After one last hit, Honor was out and started a life with a family. When the past begins to catch up with her, Honor realizes her trust in Talia was ill placed. Honor impressively clears the room when it overflows with the best assassins Leviathan has to offer. Even Death Stroke gets pulled into the action when the infighting in Leviathan threatens his life. The Silencer is a bloody, violent, action packed read that started a little slow but managed to blast off by the end. Honor's character slays and literally slays. An old school vibe ran through the art and I found the colors a little dark but overall I immensely enjoyed this volume. My voluntary, unbiased review is based upon a review copy from Netgalley.