A new Punisher series hit the stands this week by fantastic crime-writer Greg Rucka, and it’s an awesome comic that’s light on actual Punisher, but great on atmosphere and future potential. The art is realistic and moody, the story is rich with wickedness and the Punisher comes off as the boogeyman – which is exactly the Punisher I want.

Punisher #1

Though nothing will ever compare to the glorious 11-volume Punisher masterpiece by Garth Ennis.

Still, let’s get to the new issue. We open with a military wedding (or the reception afterwards), with a happy couple and a beautiful bride. Then some violent men with guns interrupt the party, and those men have brought death and destruction with them. The wedding erupts in gunfire, shattered glass and chaos, and soon a lot of people are dead, including the groom. The bride is just hanging on, but only by a thread. The police arrive soon after to investigate.

And it’s here that we’re introduced to probably the true protagonists of this tale: NYPD detectives Walter Bolt and Oscar Clemons. The former is the young, white rookie detective, while the latter is the aged, wise black detective who just happens to look a lot like Morgan Freeman. This is an interesting tactic for the comic, to not focus on the Punisher. Frank Castle is by no means a shy guy. Plenty of comics in the past have had the Punisher at the forefront with internal monologue and everything. Perhaps we’ll still get that as the series continues, but for now we start with Bolt and Clemons. There is no internal monologue, just dialogue.

Clemons and Bolt

The two detectives do some cursory work at the crime scene and trade a little dialogue, establishing that Clemons may be getting too old for this sort of carnage, and that Bolt may still be more than a little wet behind the ears. We learn more than enough to get a handle of the two, so they will make suitable entry characters into the world of the Punisher. Because unlike other bright and colorful superheroes, Frank Castle, the Punisher, lives in the dark, grimy streets of New York City. He’s only a man (with a lot of guns), and he deals with bodies, cops, hard-boiled detectives and violent criminals. And that’s how the Punisher should be. I don’t want the Punisher fighting Doctor Doom or super-villains. He’s first and foremost a street-level vigilante, and that’s how I enjoy him.

A little background in case you’re not familiar with the Punisher. Frank Castle was a soldier in Vietnam who saw first hand the horrors of war, while receiving more than a little military and special ops training. When he returned stateside to his wife and two kids, he was looking forward to an idyllic family life – but that was not to be. While out on a picnic one day, his family was gunned down in a shootout between two rival mobs. Castle and his family had nothing to do with the mobsters, they were just collateral damage in the shootout. But Frank survived. From then on, he has used all of his military training and connections to wage a one-man-war on crime. He’s not out for revenge against those specific mobsters, he’s out to punish any and all criminals who break the law.

He’s the ghost story that mobsters tell their children.

Like this...He's almost spectral, but still human

Moving on, Det. Clemons is ready to interview some of the survivors, but Bolt gets a suspicious text message about a drop spot. We cut to a subway terminal, where a nervous Bolt is sitting on a bench next to an envelope. We catch a glimpse of a suspiciously shadowed man in a black trenchcoat passing through the crowd, and then we get a brief glimpse of an underground bunker armed to the teeth. That envelope contained crime scene photos of the wedding. Looks like Bolt is passing information on to the Punisher.

The next scene is at a bar, where violent men who invaded the wedding are kicking back with a celebratory drink. They’re having fun in the crowded bar. Then the lights go out. Then people start dying. The men pull out their own guns, but they dare not shoot because they’ll only hit each other. They group up, but it doesn’t help. More blood. More bodies. Like a wraith, the Punisher moves through the crowd taking them out one-by-one until only the leader is left. And that’s when we get our first real look at the Punisher in this comic.

Bad. Ass.

Punisher goes to shoot the leader in the head, but he’s out of bullets. So the Punisher lets him live and walks off. Ideally he has something else in mind for this guy.

And that’s it. That’s where the story ends. It’s tragically short. We do get a back-up feature told in the style of a police interrogation/interview. It’s a flashback to how Bolt met the Punisher back when he was a vice cop making drug busts. He and his undercover partner were at the scene of a drug deal, in some sort of courtyard. There were also kids around. Something at the bust goes belly up and it becomes obvious that the bullets are about to fly. Bolt, still young, is scared out of his mind. His partner is in the middle of it, as are the kids. What’s he going to do?

Bolt doesn’t have to decide. A gloved hand grabs his mouth while the other hand pulls the fire alarm to get the kids out. Then the bullets do start flying, and the Punisher steps out. He pushes Bolt back and draws his weapon, returning fire. The Punisher obliterates these drug dealers, killing them with military-like precision. Bolt’s partner dies, but all the bad guys are dead and the kids are safe. Back at the station, Bolt gets all the credit. It’s hard to tell if he’s willingly taking it, or if everyone just believes it did it all himself because the Punisher didn’t stick around to talk to the cops. Whatever happened, Bolt makes detective and is now in the pocket of the Punisher.

It’s a nice little back story setting up Bolt and the Punisher. Plus it’s much more of an action scene than the massacre in the bar. So we actually get to see the Punisher shooting and doing a damn good job of it. The Punisher is absolutely badass in this entire comic, and that’s important. A lot of superheroes seem to require a softer side, like Spider-Man. Part of the appeal of Spidey is that he’s a regular guy with foibles and problems that he has to balance alongside his superhero life. Not Frank Castle. The Punisher is at his absolute best when he doesn’t have any reservations, doesn’t have any doubt in himself or his mission. He his cold and hard and determined 100% of the way.

When Punisher isn’t the nitty, gritty hard-boiled vigilante, it can get kind of silly.

His classic costume is ludicrous. Even without the white booties.

So consider me sold on this new series. It’s got the perfect amounts of street-level violence and epic Punisher badassery, with a couple of cool detective characters to serve as foils. Greg Rucka is a fantastic author. I know him best from the DC series Gotham Central, which was about the Gotham City Police Department trying to do their jobs in a city where the criminals are homicidal clowns and Batman is expected to solve everything. That series is brilliant, and is a fine indicator that Rucka can handle the same level of characters in the Punisher. The art is by Marco Checchetto, who I’ve never heard of before. But it’s nicely realistic while also haunting. It should be a nice fit.

And one of these days I’ll tell you about the Garth Ennis run on the Punisher. It’s one of the most brilliant and amazing comic book sagas ever written, and I have all 11 volumes on my bookshelf. Here’s a taste of the Punisher’s dialogue and his badassness.

Click to enlarge