Review: The Silencer Vol. 2- Hell-iday Road

Quick Summary

Pros: The main narrative is intense and interesting. The fight scenes are thrilling and are paired with artwork that makes them look even better. The main storyline’s conclusion is well done and helps build excitement for the next volume.

Cons: The volume’s final chapter is lackluster.

Overall: This is a wonderfully successful continuation to the Silencer series. The volume is filled with a great mix of action, suspense, and worldbuilding. Plus, all of this is backed up by solid visuals. The volume even concludes by advancing the overall narrative of the series, giving fans plenty of reasons to come back for more. Anyone who enjoyed the first volume of this series should absolutely keep reading here.

Story

The Silencer Vol. 2: Hell-iday Road, by Dan Abnett, is every bit as fun and thrilling as its predecessor. This book manages to be serious and intense while also being ridiculously over-the-top, which is an impressive feat to pull off. It also advances the overall narrative of the series, with a conclusion that will immediately gear readers up to read the next volume. The collection’s only real downside is that one of the stories within is just average, yet this is only one lackluster chapter in an otherwise solid book. Overall, this is a fun read that builds on the series.

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The majority of Hell-iday Road focuses on Silencer’s attempt to shutdown Talia’s resurrection, while also on a vacation with her family. This narrative combines all of the positive elements from the previous book. It features over-the-top action, in the form of a battle on an airplane, a body-swapping fight between rivals, and the appearance of a magic kaiju. It also features worldbuilding, as readers are introduced to the different factions of Leviathan and to more of Silencer’s powers. This combination worked well in the previous book and works just as well here.

Then, as the main narrative in Hell-iday Road comes to an end, the comic’s narrative advances. It is revealed that the inner turmoil within Leviathan was all planned by Talia in order to weed out the weaker members of Leviathan. She then retakes control of the organization and forces Silencer to work for her once more, by holding Silencer’s family hostage. It is a clever twist that provides a worthwhile shakeup for the series as a whole. It also serves as an effective hook to get readers interested in reading the next volume.

Finally, Hell-iday Road closes with an annual chapter that serves as a flashback to Silencer’s time under Talia’s control and as an opportunity for Batman to make a quick cameo. Unfortunately, this issue is a pretty generic crossover that pales in comparison to the rest of the volume. It isn’t downright bad, but it also isn’t that good either.

(spoilers end here)

Art

The artwork in Hell-iday Road looks great throughout the volume and is a key part of setting the volume’s tone. Viktor Bogdanovic’s crisp, clean, and energetic visuals start the volume off well and immediately inject a wonderful level of energy into the book. Then, Patrick Zircher takes over and brings in less heavily stylized visuals, which work well with the higher level of intensity in this portion of the book. Zircher’s work also handles the villain and the battle with this villain beautifully, which is a key piece of making the storyline shine. Finally, Tom Derenick takes over and brings in an even less stylized approach to makes the even greater level of intensity found in the book’s closing confrontation. The only chapter that doesn’t really impress is the annual issue, which is alright but isn’t anything special. Overall, the artwork throughout the book looks nice and pairs well with the storytelling.

Continuity

The Silencer Vol. 2: Hell-iday Road continues the story from The Silencer Vol. 1: Code of Honor (Review).

The story here is continued in The Silencer Vol. 3: Up in Smoke (Review).

This volume also references other comic books, detailed below:

• The opening page of The Silencer #10 is a visual reference to the cover of Crisis on Infinite Earths #7, part of Crisis on Infinite Earths.