Silke # 1

 By Mark Rodriguez

Sometimes a cover just grabs you. While purchasing some other comic on Hipcomic, I somehow stumbled onto this one. Sometimes having a kick-ass babe on the cover is all I need to pick up a comic I never heard of, especially if it's from the mid-90's/early 2000's. So let's check out what Silke is all about.

 

"Act 1- Playing God" opens with a guy being caught by two agwents in a subway. The agents, Jones and Tobias, call him 'Ms Matthews' and tell them that they know it's her. Geena Matthews shape-shifts into her true form. The agents keep their guns aimed at her and tell her how their woman-hunt for her cost the tax payers six million dollars. One of the Agents says it's time to take her home. Matthews says she can find a faster way home just as a train is coming up.

Matthews leaps towards the train tracks as the trains passes by. After the train is gone, the agents are surprised to see no sign of a body or blood across the train tracks. We just see a busted up watch.

Elsewhere our main character wakes up and shoots her alarm clock. She laments that she only slept for three hours. She says 'they' will be here soon so she wants to get her last run in.  As she does her morning jog, she thinks about how she is starting a new developmental program that promises bonus money and early retirement.

Just then several cars drive up to her, an hour earlier than expected. She remarks that this looks like enough security for the president. Her friend Noel shows up and the woman, named Sandra, gets in his car. As they drive off, she says it feels like they're taking her to a secret location, which Noel says they are. Sandra asks how secretive genetic testing can be. Noel tells her not to worry since this all protocol. 

Later on, at the Governmental Research and Ministry of Genetics Laboratory, the men are getting ready to proceed, and since time is not on their side, Sandra is going to have to jump into this with both feet. Director Spinter says she was quite the specimen, having a degree in Harvard and having served both in the Secret Service and the Anti-Terrorism Division. Spinter asks her if Noel told her what exactly she signed up for. Sandra says this is for gene therapy to find new ways to boost a human's immune system.

Spinter is concerned since Sandra is a woman. Noel says he didn't mean to offend her, but the sole and last woman they tried this on went through depression, escaped the facility and ultimately ended her life. This was Geena Matthews. She tells them to get on with it.

A man named Jenson they will make the process as comfortable as possible. He explains they were supplied with her liaison to the internal affairs special ops division. Sandra recognizes him as her old friend Jason that she hasn't seen since basic training. Jason asks her if the suicide story creep her out. She says she's sure the woman probably had her problems before she started testing.

Jason has to return to his air force base, but he will keep tabs to make sure she's not being made into too much of a guinea pig.  Spinter said they have less than a month to prepare and Sandra will be his project.

During the next few weeks, Sandra Silke goes through all sorts of tests, and is able to withstand everything they dished out at her. This time the injections were natural and without synthetics, which made any setbacks rare. By the second week, she is able to withstand decibels that would shatter an elephant's eardrum and handle electric currents that would deep fry a whale.

Spinter tells Jenson that she's been sleep deprived as well. He's excited about their progress. Sandra is resilient, but they're not sure if it's because of her natural genetics or the genetic re-coding she's went under. 

Later on Jason sees how Sandra is doing. Sandra says it's been rough and she gets the idea of why Matthews went into depression. The first week had her locked in isolation. Jason said she was introduced to the others the following week. Sandra says that was even worse since she was singled out as the only woman on the group. One of the man, Duffy, got handsy with her, and Sandra completely demolished him. Jason asks for more details about the tests, but that is classified. Sandra reminds him that it'll be for a few more weeks. Jason will try to reach out to her next Sunday.

Later on, two presidential aides and agents we saw earlier, Jones and Tobias, discuss the morality of what they're doing. Jones tells Tobias that chief Jenson's resources have been cut off. The president hasn't acknowledged the genetic re-coding program since Matthews got away. Jensen arrives early.

Tobias tells Jenson that the situation has gotten sensitive. The president is concerned and paranoid that the project will be expose and cost him him presidency. He wants the program shut down completely. Jenson says they are making huge scientific advances. He says they should ask the president to take the military aspect out of it and let them run the program from a purely scientific basis.

Jones says it's too late for that since the president already dumped more two billion dollars from the defense budget for this. The program was supposed to be gene therapy to make soldiers immune to germ warfare, but Jenson accomplished a whole lot more. He developed morphing. Jenson says the president wants them shut down, so he asks the men what they really want. Jones says they have big plans.

The presidential aides tell Jenson that there is enough funding for another month, and they want to see their agents with the full ability to morph, like Geena Matthews. The current test subjects will be replaced with men chosen for this operation. They say the project must be completed and implemented.. even at the cost of the president. Jensen is surprised to hear the last part, and the aides says that they have a replacement in line that will be meeting with him alongside the new agents.

They also ask to make sure none of the agents become like Duffy. Elsewhere we see Duffy in a cell, suffering with monstrous transformations beyond his control. 

After Jones and Tobias leave, Spinter asks Jensen why he didn't tell them about Silke. Jensen say those men don't want to play god, they want to play devil. Spinter asks if he intends to keep their real progress from them, and what he will do when the men return. He asks if he will do the same thing they did to Duffy. Jensen says he will if he has to, he will cast the men to hell, like Duffy. 

 

Duffy continues to suffer as a monstrous hand tears through his chest, another bizarre transformation.

Silke continues with the treatment. With three weeks in, she is starting to become paranoid as more tests are been run on her than usual. She notes that Jason hasn't contacted her lately. She thinks about the sleep deprivation and sees her hands and face change shape, which she chocks up to going delusional. 

Later on Silke tells Spinter she wants to speak with Jason. Spinter says he is no longer needed. He says she has already gone through the most critical stages of the testing. So far her body has been able to repel the Ebola virus,  Sarin nerve gas and Anthrax. They will still need to quarantine her for six weeks, for public safety.

Moments later, Silke is arguing with Noah so loud, the others could hear it. Noah tries to calm her down but Sandra has had enough and is packing up to leave. He says she's not supposed to just leave, and she asks if it's not protocol in a sarcastic tone. As she heads out, the exit door is locked. Just then two men show up, ready to take her to solitary. They warn her that they were advised to use 'maximum force' against her.

Silke snaps and asks what they mean by 'maximum force' as she punches one of the men across the face. She then shoves his head against the wall so hard so hard it cracks his head open. Silke is consumed by bloodlust for a moment until she snaps out of it and sees what she has done. She is so shocked that she just kill man, that she doesn't notice the second man pull out his gun. Silke is gunned down. She falls to the ground, bleeding heavily.

 

Silke wonders if she's in heaven, but determines she's in too much pain so she must be in hell. As the agent drops his guard, Silke snaps awake saying she will take everyone to hell with her. Silke, with a gaping bullet hole on the side of her face, and now brandishing monstrous arms and claws, lashes out. She subconsciously turns into the previously killed agent as she kills the other one. Spinter hears the screams over the phone and calls the men fools.

Silke monologues to herself about the Human Genome Project which started in 1990 and how the human code has been unlocked by the year 2000. She asks if they were ever meant to read the Book of Life, or even worse, rewrite it.

Spinter notes that Silke is in the energy room. There's a blackout on the first and second floors. Silke is seen yanking out wires. She says she has been re-written, and feels everyone here has been re-written. Jason is outside and notices the power outage.

Silke ponders that she was never meant to leave the project alive. She says that she must escape for the sake of humankind's future. Elsewhere, some sort of chained up monster struggles against his chains, taking advantage of the power outage. The monster manages to escape.

 

Spinter and his men examine the energy room and see that Silke busted a water main. One of the men says she's hiding under them. Spinter looks at the broken pipe attached to the ceiling and thinks she might be hiding above them.

Silke is crawling through the pipe, having morphed herself into a four year old to be able to fit. She doesn't know how she's able to do this, but she can't worry about this now. Silke uses her creativity to turn into a large golem to break through the wall, and then flips to freedom, turning back into her regular self.

Elsewhere in the test subject sleeping quarters, Silke knocks on the door, asking to be let in. The other men let her in, wondering what she's doing out there. Silke steps inside and says she came to wish them all bon voyage. The men say they're not going anywhere. Silke says they're right as she turns into some sort of creature and kills them all.

Later that night, out in the woods, we see an old man walking onwards with his walking stick. Just then someone spots him, and socks the man in the face. The old man turns back into Silke and the man says he has her.

 

My Thoughts- 

Pretty good start for the story. Sandra Silke signs up for secret experimental gene therapy which is actually a secret plot to give soldiers the ability to shape shift. As you can tell from the rundown, the story goes heavy into the behind-the-scenes of the people behind the project and their goals as Silke endures the tests.

The testing have a wild affect on Silke as she seems to black out with violent outbursts from time to time. One thing that got me was that she was so out of it, she saw her body shape-shifting as sleep deprived delusions. We the readers know the shapeshifting is part of her new powers, but from her perspective, she thinks she's going nuts.

The story went more into the evil plans in the background, but now that Silke escaped and is behind hunted, the next issues should crank up the action. We also have the other test subject Duffy that had turned into a flat-out monster.. and has now escaped. 

The art is pretty good in that indie 90's comic way. You get to see lots of blood, implied 'convenient shadows' nudity and Silke going feral with a huge bullet hole where her eye used to be. With the benefit of hindsight, it seems that this is a 4-issue mini series. I would have liked for there to be more, even after just reading this first issue. It seems she also has a guest appearance in F5 # 4.

We don't know too much about Silke except for her credentials and that she went through basic training with her friend Jason. It seems she lived a solitary life beforehand, and signed up for this with a 'eh why not, it's extra money' mentality. I wonder if we'll find out more about her as the story progresses.

The comic also included lots of ads for other kick-ass femme fatales like F5, Adrenalynn and The Tenth. There's also an ad for both an anime-style action thriller game called Oni for the PS2 as well as the, at the time, upcoming comic based on it.

 

There's also a cool interview with the writer of several or these series, Tony Daniel. He explains that he liked to make stories about ordinary women thrown into extraordinary situations, like the case of the main characters of F5, Adrenalynn, The Tenth and now Silke. He likes going into how a woman would handle these situations and how her actions and decisions would differ if a man was in a similar case.

The ad that really grabbed me was Mindhunter which is a mega-crossover between Aliens, Predator, The Darkness and Witchblade. Dark Horse Comics and Top Cow were wild back then.