Silke is a stylish science-fiction adventure with a gorgeous heroine, an intriguing plot and plenty of action to keep readers involved.

Unfortunately, the storyline suffers from a rushed feeling, as if author/artist Tony Daniel was forced to squeeze a 300-page story into a meager 96 pages, and the plot starts to pile up toward the end in a mess of confused directions.

Sandra Silke is a beautiful (and somewhat immodest) secret agent who has volunteered for a series of genetic experiments that could give her resistance to environmental extremes, immunity to incurable illnesses and the ability to morph her appearance. Somewhat naively, she believes she will be released from the program after a six-week course of experiments -- without considering the consequences of the changes being wrought in her body.

The experiments are a qualified success, and Silke soon discovers the plots and secrets that go far beyond the expected military involvement in the program. It's here, when Silke begins to use her new abilities against the people who gave them to her in a frantic montage of action scenes, that you wish Daniel had slowed down the pace a bit. None of the characters has been properly developed. Silke's powers haven't been thoroughly explored. And why, at one point, does she suddenly become Witchblade, a character from another, unrelated line of comics?

The conclusion doesn't even make sense. Something happened, but I'm not really sure what it was.

The art is fantastic, but it's not enough to sell the book. Daniel needed more pages to tell this story, and it's a shame he didn't get them.