[Editor’s note: This review may contain spoilers]
Writer: Dan Abnett
Artist: Patch Zircher
Colors: Mike Spicer
Letters: Tom Napolitano
Summary
When The Silencer #8 ended with Quietus in Honor Guest’s body and her pass to Adventure Land in his hands, I was not amused. I have issues with body switching in general. Freaky Friday — the original or the remake — or the episode of American Dad when Stan and Klaus switch bodies. The Family Guy episode when Lois and Peter body swap was thankfully short-lived and at least featured a ditty that made me laugh. To my surprise, Dan Abnett wrote a story that avoided the obvious tropes and made this classic tale feel fresh and new.
Positives
It all starts with the death metal cover featuring Wishbone choking The Silencer, Quietus, and the prone body of Talia Al Ghul. Slick and greasier than an ’80s Satanic rock band poster.
Quietus can fight. Despite countless body-mods, he reminds Honor at the bottom of page 4 and the top of page 5 that he was a Leviathan field agent long ago, and he still knows how to fight.
The Silencer gets downright silly with all of the drop-down menus that come with the body mods. Mini-rockets and force fields are available at a thought. The real fun is when she decides to put a stop to the fighting by using her newfound access to leverage a truce with Quietus. End the destruction or she launches every kill command. Including self-destruct all of his men. His Ultimate Option.
Wishbone has a funny name. Maybe that’s why nobody took the magical division seriously. Now that she is pulling strings, Wishbone conveniently places Gunn close enough to crash down on Quietus and Honor moments after they agree to join forces and stop Talia. Gunn’s ready to party and he has no idea that Wishbone is using them all to protect Talia until her resurrection the Lazarus Pit she keeps in Khadym.
Every master of the mystic arts needs a lackey. Wishbone has Michael. When Michael tries to warn his lady about using too much magic, Wishbone turns him into a black cat. Michael continues to serve his mistress in spite of constant humiliation and is rewarded with another transformation. Right when Gunn figures out that Honor and Quietus have switched bodies, Wishbone rewards Michael’s loyalty by turning him into a monster and dropping him on top of Quietus and the Silencer. Michael then promptly picks Gunn and eats him.
Mr. Supers is right next to a screaming woman when the monster named Michael charges into Action Land. Mr. Supers is screaming “Save Me”, but I don’t think he’s loud enough. Maybe if he had Remy Zero. Maybe.
Negatives
I don’t know if you can ever anticipate a body switch. So, maybe it’s wrong that I think that it was almost too easy for Honor to access the self-destruct functions. I guess I expect that Quietus would have a failsafe to prevent someone from making a final decision like that, but I don’t even have any body-mods, so what do I know.
Verdict
Mr. Abnett is a master storyteller with years of experience crafting original and traditional comic book stories. He clearly demonstrated that there are more ways to walk in another character’s shoes than just the top five we are trained to recognize.
