BY JENNIFER M. CONTINO

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The creators called The Silencers, "SOPRANOS with superpowers," and Moonstone is hoping fans of that series and other "criminals can win" types of tales give their new series a try. The Silencers was created by Fred Van Lente and Steve Ellis, and the two are hoping to take the comics scene by storm. THE PULSE had a sit down with Fred Van Lente and Steve Ellis. We wore a wire.

THE PULSE: What is THE SILENCERS?

FRED VAN LENTE (writer/co-creator): The best one-sentence pitch for THE SILENCERS is "THE SOPRANOS with superpowers," or "POWERS from the criminal's P.O.V." It's a gritty crime/noir series, in the tradition of David Mamet, "Miller's Crossing," "The Godfather," Quentin Tarantino, and so forth, but set in the world of superpowered gangsters and superpowered criminals.

At the center of the series is a legendary and much-feared supercriminal, CARDINAL. He's the leader of The Silencers, the superpowered enforcers for New York City's most powerful crime family, THE PROVENZANOS. The Silencers provide the Provenzanos with muscle against rival gangs, the cops, and, most importantly, "The Tights" (supercriminal slang for "superheroes").

STEVE ELLIS (artist/co-creator): The Silencers live in the dark underbelly of a superhero universe, a place where "The Tights" in blue and red don't go…because their rules don't apply there.

VAN LENTE: But in the first storyarc (a two-parter, #1-#2), we learn that Cardinal is sick of where his life is going (or not going). He's too old to keep getting beaten up by superheroes. He's wasted a big chunk of his life in jail. He wants out of "The Life"—he wants to retire.

Before he can, however, the Provenzanos get wiped out and their territory is taken over by THE SYNDICATE, a mysterious international cartel with seriously high-powered weaponry. The Silencers are now marked men and women—they were betrayed by one of their own. They're forced to go underground, and exact payback from the Syndicate by pulling off a spectacular series of heists, hits, scams and stings against the new mob power in New York!

ELLIS: As Cardinal likes to say, "We haven't gone straight—we're just crooked in a different direction."

THE PULSE: Who is the main cast?

VAN LENTE: We've already mentioned CARDINAL. He's the leader of the Silencers. He's surrounded by a 100,000-volt electrical field that lets him execute people by "Laying Hands" on them, hence his name. The field also seems to give him exceptional longevity. He's one of his "universe's" most venerable and feared villains, with a career dating back to the Silver Age. But, as we said, he's something of a reluctant villain now, and razzing the Syndicate is in many ways his penance for all the bad stuff he's done over the years.

ELLIS: The rest of the team is a bunch of hotheaded young Turks, which obviously creates a lot of friction between them and the old-school Cardinal.

There's HAIRTRIGGER, who's kinda like that kid you knew in high school who liked to blow up things and torture small animals. Except that he's been accelerated three seconds into the future, so now he can predict your every move (and the move of everyone else in the immediate area) and act upon it before you can. Oh did I mention that he's also carrying around a personal arsenal?

Then there's MISSILE 21, who's a victim of the Soviet "Human Missile" experiments of the 1980's. He can fly at geometrically increasing speeds until he smacks into something causing tons of collateral damage. He gets a bit punch drunk, but otherwise he's completely invulnerable. NIL is a mystical, living shadow that no one knows much about…he can't talk, and communicates only in hand gestures.

STILETTO was a nice young girl who got led down the wrong path. After mistakenly killing her parents using her psychokinetic "knives" she was on the run until she fell right into the hands of her criminal boyfriend, KID CHAOS, and the Silencers. Now she commits felonies like some girls do their nails. She's a bit of a tragic character.

VAN LENTE: They're all a bit tragic, a bit twisted. All trying to make sense of their messed-up lives, so it's no wonder they've fallen into a life of crime. My favorite superhero comic when I was a kid in the 1980's was John Byrne's ALPHA FLIGHT, where everybody had crippling mental problems or were possessed by demons or were repressed homosexuals. I loved it. [laughs] I've always been drawn to tragic, screwed-up people with superpowers…I don't know why…I guess that says a lot about me… [laughter]

ELLIS: Seriously, though, it's tweaking an old formula. If Stiletto had been discovered by, say, Professor X instead of the Provenzano Family, she'd have become one of the X-Men. She'd be a hero instead of a so-called villain. The series explores a different side of the genre in what leads people on these different paths, the thin line that can separate the good from the bad.

THE PULSE: What inspired the creation of THE SILENCERS?

ELLIS: Basically, we love crime and mobster stories. We love superheroes. It was a whole Reese's Peanut Butter Cups thing, like, "Mmmm, these two genres taste GREAT together!"

VAN LENTE: I especially love heist movies, particularly Kubrick's "The Killing." In SILENCERS #3-4 Cardinal and the team set into motion an elaborate scheme to rob an illegal "Ultimate Supers Fighting" ring run by the Syndicate. It's this sort of decadent, expensive back-room thing where two washed-up superpowered beings get shoved into a ring together and rich mobsters bet on which one will walk out alive.

In writing that story I was very much like a kid locked overnight in a toy store, combining the motifs of my two favorite genres: smoked-filled rooms, fighters taking dive money, impregnable underground vaults filled with millions of dollars in bets…and guys who can shoot lightning bolts from their fingers. Too cool!

THE PULSE: Why Moonstone over another independent publisher?

ELLIS: I've had a relatively long working relationship with the publisher, Joe Gentile. I've worked on several of his White Wolf Games comics and I like his ethic and his ideas about publishing comics. He's also got a long track record and keeps making strides forward. I like the idea that Moonstone can grow with the Silencers as much as the Silencers can grow with Moonstone. I also find it appropriate that Moonstone publishes a lot of crime books and while this will be their first "super" book, it relates pretty well to the other books in their line.

VAN LENTE: Ditto that. Except that, unlike Steve, this is the first project I've done with them, and it's been a blast thus far.

THE PULSE: What are the biggest challenges to doing this series?

VAN LENTE: How to deal with the superheroes themselves was a real challenge. They're a big part of The Silencers' world, obviously, but at the same time we didn't want their presence to draw any attention away from The Silencers, who are the series' real protagonists. Also, heroes' traditionally colorful costumes and flashy powers could damage the overall noir look of the series.

In the end we decided that the presence of the "Tights" should be felt rather than seen. So in the book we only see the heroes partially, or in shadow from above, and when they do appear, they're never named. It creates this sort of creepy and oppressive effect—which, after all, is how most criminals view "The Man" anyway.

ELLIS: It's also helps to make the series more of a crime book. Usually when I've seen villains get their own series, they're still trying to take over the world or kill the local superhero…which has nothing to do with the real world, that's just the logic of how the superhero genre works. The Silencers have no interest in world domination, they're just trying to survive, make a living—though granted in their own criminal way.

VAN LENTE: Besides, the Silencers really have no motivation to actually fight superheroes. It's not like when the cops show up at the scene of a crime real-life criminals are like, "So we meet again, Officer Krupke. But you have foiled my plans for the last time. Prepare to die!"

ELLIS: No, the cops showing up is the cue for the clever getaway!

VAN LENTE: In the tradition of the crime genre, The Silencers spend their time battling other criminals, not the authorities.

ELLIS: At least in the first six issues. [laughter]

THE PULSE: Why should people check it out?

VAN LENTE: Well, for one thing, I think we're the only superhero comic in history where half the team gets whacked, gangland-style, in the first issue…

Wait, no, I should give a less lurid reason, shouldn't I…[laughter]

ELLIS: People should check out THE SILENCERS because it features a bunch of really intriguing characters having high-stakes adventures in a world that's almost--but not quite--our own with a rich backstory that you can completely lose yourself in for 24 pages an issue.

Oh, and if I do say so myself it's got great art and high action…wait till you see the second issue. To put it succinctly, it's really freakin' cool.

I think it's a great insult to the greatness of The Sopranos to call this "Sopranos with superpowers". Sopranos is not nearly that simplistic, and I deeply doubt that this comic will have even a fraction of that shows depth and intelligence. I would recommend that they quit it with the "Sopranos with superpowers" tagline if they don't want people to walk away from the comic very disappointed.

Don't get me wrong - best of luck to the creators, I just hate to see people stand on the shoulders of giants like that.

How the hell can something be in the tradition of The Godfather AND Quentin Tarantino?

Well, I don't think it's fair to make all those assumptions, but yeah, these days, every single Mafia-themed entertainment tries to sell itself as "The Sopranos". It's getting worn out. There's only one "Sopranos."

The comparison is just a pitch, a frame of reference to give people an idea of the series. It's not an effort to say the comic is of the same quality as the supposedly sacred Sopranos.

It gives me a better idea of what the series is about versus them comparing it to something like this:
"Iron Man but without the iron suit and the guy is nothing like Tony Stark and actually it's a lot like some recent cable mob shows you've seen, but with superpowers"

or "With Superpowers and nothing like TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL"

or "Have you seen the kids show Barney? Like it? Our comic is nothing like that."

It's just a frame of reference. Nothing more.

Bah! Semantics or whatever aside, the artwork looks tight and I can dig the basic concept. I'll be looking forward to this series when it starts!

Looks good!

This series looks really good but I would have liked to hear a little bit more about the creator's backgrounds, as I know they've both been active in the comics industry for a while.

Fred and Steve did a phenominal black and white sci-fi book a few years back called Tranquility that's worth searching for. The series was about a female police officer on an opressive moon colony trying work with the underground resistance to escape back to Earth. Actually there was much more to it than than, but "Comics Worth Reading" explained it better than I ever could:
http://www.mindspring.com/~johannadc/comics/tranq.html

The Silencers looks like it's going to be one cool series. I'm really looking forward to it.

Looks like there's some more art and info on The Silencers at Moonstone's website:
http://moonstonebooks.com/silencers.asp

This sounds really intriguing. I'll definitely be picking it up based on the great looking artwork and the series premise. Hopefully this will turn out to be another gem in the coalshed.

Actually, I'd rather see an actual Sopranos comic. Preferably written by Azarello. Not sure about art chores.

I'd prefer that to "Sopranos with superpowers."