What should have been a vicious fight between the Punisher and lame-o villain Vulture is instead a murky, hard-to-follow shadowfest that I guess ends the only way it could. Sadly, that the entire issue is turned over to this fight scene is a shame because it’s a real dip in quality from what we’ve been reading so far, both in terms of art and storytelling. As I said in my last review, the new Vulture is just a stupid, uninteresting character and nowhere near the Punisher’s weight class.

Punisher #3

But I suppose this issue takes care of that problem – Punisher kills the Vulture!

I sort of predicted that in my last review. If you’re going to throw the Punisher up against real Marvel Universe villains, he’s going to want to kill them. So of course Marvel and writer Greg Rucka threw him a completely disposable nobody to dispatch. Introduced as a Spider-Man villain, the Vulture is so lame he ends up getting jobbed down to the Punisher. Take that, loser! Maybe be more interesting next time.

So yeah, this issue can be summed up in three words: Punisher vs. Vulture. The other ongoing storylines are only given the tiniest of pushes, though not much happens in any of them. We see detectives Bolt and Clemons, but they don’t do much of anything. The Bride has a few scenes that are clearly leading to something bigger, but we’re definitely not there yet.

There are two truly sucky issues with the fight scene: the art is too dark and murky to really follow, and neither of the two combatants say anything. For the third issue in a row, writer Rucka keeps the Punisher silent (except for the final page). He’s just a quiet killing machine. The Vulture, meanwhile, speaks in incomprehensible squawks. So the fight is basically just the Punisher silently stabbing the Vulture while the Vulture makes random squawks about who knows what.

Stabby McStabberson likes to stab

That’s practically the entire fight right there in that picture. The Vulture can fly, so right at the very beginning he picks up the Punisher in his talons from the warehouse and carries him off. The redhead villainous tells her men not to shoot the Vulture, and then they disappear for the rest of the issue. So the fight between the Punisher and the Vulture is in the air, but there’s nothing truly exciting about the fight. Basically it all takes place as an extended grapple, with Punisher getting the upper hand as he clings to the Vulture high above the streets of New York. Presumably he takes his knife and starts stabbing, but as I said, the art is just too dark and murky to really make anything out. It’s just ugly-looking stab followed by the Vulture spewing yellowish spit from his mandibles as he gets stabbed some more.

It’s not an interesting fight. For all the menace that the Vulture was supposed to inspire, he goes down fairly easily. Sure there’s some red thrown into the pictures to indicate blood, but it mostly looks like the Punisher got cut by accident. There’s no fight. There’s just stabbing until the Vulture goes down.

Or DOWWWWWWWNNNNNNN!! If you'd prefer

The issue ends with the Punisher stabbing Vulture through the head – up through the underside of his jaw, no less. But that means the Punisher is falling from their aerial fight! He lands in a dumpster and seems to get through it OK, though he’s all bloody and beat up. Still, he survives the fall without too much of a hassle. Then he utters the only words he’s said in three issues.

“You…help me.”

Who’s he talking to? Why it’s Norah Winters, the reporter who appeared last issue! She was alerted to the aerial fight and then followed Punisher in a cab, eventually making it to his crash site. We’re led to believe that maybe Bolt and Clemons are going to get there first, but nope, it’s Norah. She straight up asks how he was able to survive the fall, so perhaps there’s more to his fall than we realize. Rucka and artist Marco Checchetto also try to get cinematic with the fall. The panels of Punisher falling into the dumpster are intercut with panels of all the other characters. So we’re flashing from one scene to another. If this were a movie, there’d be some cool dramatic music playing. You can sort of see it playing in your head.

Anyway, as for the other characters in the book, detectives Bolt and Clemons are one step behind the Punisher and the bad guys. They arrive at the warehouse, but they’re too late because the Punisher and Vulture are gone. They find Liam’s body with his head blown off. Bolt thinks the Punisher did it, but Clemons disagrees and has already deduced that someone who can fly has already left the scene.  Norah Winters takes Clemons’ advice and goes to the salon to get her blonde hair cut short. But she leaves in the middle of it, with her hair only half cut, because of the fight going on. Her appearance at the end seems to indicate a Punisher/Norah team-up for issue #4.

Sounds like a hoot.

The Bride is told by the doctors that she’ll have a long rehab process, but at the end of the issue she defiantly gets out of bed and tries to walk. That’s the part that’s intercut with the Punisher falling. The Bride gets a few steps before collapsing to her knees.

It may be a small bit of storytelling, but I think it’s clear that the Bride is supposed to be similar to the Punisher. Her family was gunned down as well, and now it’s just her and her military training. She’s clearly going to tough it through her rehab and get back on her feet, seeking vengeance. Previous Punisher writer Garth Ennis wrote a similar story, about a mob princess who lost everything and decided to become like the Punisher. In the end, neither she nor the police detective investigating that story had what it took to truly sink to Frank Castle’s dark, depressing level. I suppose we’ll see what happens with the Bride.

Perhaps the Punisher will get a sidekick?

With the second issue of the new series, writer Greg Rucka continues his tale of the wraith-like, silent Punisher and the investigation into the wedding massacre. Once again our focus is on NYPD detectives Celmons and Bolt, split with the continuing adventures of the killer, who is being stalked by the Punisher. We get a peek at the people behind the massacre (I think), but we’re no closer to discovering why everybody at the wedding had to die. Still, the series is rich, dark and fun to read.

Punisher #2

Until they blow the cliffhanger with a frankly silly new addition to the story!

But more on that later. For now, let’s start with the Punisher. Once again, Rucka gives us a Frank Castle who doesn’t say a word and doesn’t have an inch of internal monologue. Though no longer as spectral, thanks to the art, he still doesn’t say anything. The Punisher goes about his killing in utter silence, and there’s a lot of killing this issue. But I’m already getting tired of the silent act. The supporting characters are good so far, at least the detectives are. But I want to read about Frank Castle, not a bunch of nobodies.

Hopefully the villain they inject into the cliffhanger will at least get the Punisher to speak next issue. If only it wasn’t such a lame villain.

We start off following the killer from the first issue, the goateed guy who gunned down people at the wedding but survived the Punisher’s club massacre at the end of issue #1. This guy is running like hell through the streets of New York, trying to go to ground. But nobody’s willing to put him up. So he just keeps running through the dark, grimy streets of New York City. We’re treated to narration by two people named Stephanie and Christian, who we see a bit later standing on a rooftop with a group of other people. They’re dressed like rich people and are talking about the killer, and how the only reason the Punisher let him live is to track him, which would lead the Punisher to Christian and Stephanie.

And sure enough, that’s exactly what Frank Castle is doing. Though still in the shadows, Punisher is now drawn in such a way that we can clearly see his face. He’s no longer a stealthy ninja, as in the first half of the first issue. You may remember that issue #1 was split into two parts. In the first part, Punisher only appeared in shadow. In the second part, he was in the light. In this issue, all one story, he’s in the light again.

Because of my love of the Garth Ennis Punisher series, in which Frank Castle was a hard man pushing 50 with a lot of years on him, I’m not a fan of this young, handsome Punisher. But it’s not a big deal.

Handsome chap

Stephanie and Christian aren’t worried because they’ve hired someone to take care of the Punisher. We see this person only in shadows for now, and he has claws and glowing red eyes. Someone badass perhaps? Just you wait and see!

We jump to the daytime, with detectives Clemons and Bolt investigating the club massacre that ended the first issue. Oscar “Ozzy” Clemons is the Morgan Freeman guy, and he’s convinced that the Punisher is responsible. The kills are far too clean, far too precise. That’s Special Forces training right there. So now they’ve got the Punisher to deal with, messing up their case. They’ve got a job to do, doesn’t the Punisher understand that?

Speaking of jobs to do, in comes Norah Winters, a reporter for the Daily Bugle and a supporting character from Amazing Spider-Man. Now this was a fun cameo. One aspect of this Punisher series is that it’s firmly set in the Marvel Universe, complete with superheroes and mutants and whatnot. So it’s smart that, instead of making up some random reporter, Rucka just borrows an existing reporter character from Amazing Spider-Man. Norah’s fun and sassy in this issue, and has clearly worked with Clemons before. Unfortunately, their entire conversation is about Norah and we don’t really learn anything new about Clemons or Bolt. It’s an extended explanation into who she is and what she does. Hopefully that means she’ll be making routine appearance in this comic.

Being a newspaper reporter myself, having one as a character is always a hoot.

Young, perky and blonde; what's not to love?

Let’s stop here for a moment and look at that picture I just posted. This is a pet peeve that’s only going to bother someone like me, who is a crime reporter for a newspaper in real life. Just like most jobs, Hollywood and other media tend to exaggerate a reporter’s job. I realize that Norah is supposed to be a sassy and edgy reporter, but she’s all over the place in this issue. I realize she may just be joking with her friend Clemons, but when a homicide detective tells you that you can’t quote him on the details of a murder investigation, you don’t quote him on the details of a murder investigation. You have to maintain sources as a reporter, and to do that you have to maintain their respect. If they tell you something ‘off the record’ and tell you not to quote them, you don’t do it. That tends to piss them off. Bad enough she snuck past the police tape into an active crime scene.

Honestly though, I’m probably just being silly. It’s comics, not real life. And my dinky little city isn’t New York City, so maybe it’s different there. Still, it’s one of those things that will only make someone in my specific circumstance stop and shake his head.

This scene is awesome, though, because it name drops Phil Urich. Longtime readers of my blog will know that Phil Urich was one of My 6 Favorite Comic Book Characters. His current comics status quo is that he’s a cameraman for the Daily Bugle, who is making some cash and fame by filming himself as the villainous Hobgoblin and selling it to the Daily Bugle. Exactly like Peter Parker did when he took pictures of Spider-Man. So it’s awesome that Phil gets a mention in a Punisher comic. It means Marvel is really pushing him as a character that will stick around. What’s silly, though, is that Phil is being treated like a TV cameraman. They say that Phil is filming Norah doing her reports. I know the Daily Bugle is mostly an online newspaper now in comics, but do they really do more video than newspaper reporting? Norah can easily make the leap from anchorperson to writing reporter? Those are two rather different fields, especially when it’s clear that Norah prefers the writing.

Kind of an odd sort of crossing of wires in terms of what the Daily Bugle is doing these days. Still, woot Phil Urich!

But I digress. Back to the Punisher!

After the extended introduction to Norah, we jump back to the Punisher chasing the goateed killer. His name is Liam, by the way, and he’s found a brothel to hide in. The owner kicks him out on the street, tossing him into the gutter. Oops! Punisher’s right there, right outside! Liam scrambles to his feet and keeps running, while the Punisher decides to pay the brothel a visit. In silent fashion, Punisher lets himself in and starts blowing away the druggies and the gang-bangers – but he doesn’t harm the girls. Punisher doesn’t kill prostitutes, especially ones that are hooked on drugs like these girls. But he does kill the owner, even when the guy tried to take a hostage, and he kills the ‘madame’, who was using drugs to keep the girls in line.

The blood will wash right out, the punishment will last forever!

The art in this scene is clear and easy to follow, if a little scattershot. The panels are not square and gridlike, with a few experimental angles. What works great are the colors. The scenes on the street with Liam are blue and black, while inside the brothel we switch to a fuchsia. The rooms are bathed in fuchsia, and soon blood. The Punisher’s kills are sharp and bloody. One is especially cool when they just show the silhouette of the owner (in fuchsia, not black) and he’s got the detailed, bloody bullet hole in his head. Punisher leaves and the drugged out girls in the brothel are free. I guess.

We jump back to Clemons and Bolt, who have gone to visit the bride in the hospital. She’s practically the only survivor of the wedding massacre, and she’s finally woken up. It’s a quiet, soft scene in which she tries to remember what happened. Then she remembers everything…

A brilliantly silent page

In the end, Liam has made it back to his bosses, though not Christian and Stephanie from earlier, just some other people who were working with Christian and Stephanie. One of them is a pretty redhead named Dove. She kills Liam with a shotgun, and the Punisher watches from afar through the scope of his sniper rifle. Once Liam is dead, Dove turns to look up Punisher’s scope to tell him that she knows he’s there and she’s ready for him.

Enter cliffhanger villain…the new Vulture!

Are you KIDDING ME!??

What is this crap!? This character is a guy named Jimmy Natale, who used to be a mafia ‘cleaner’. But then the mob turned him into a murderous bird monster-man who now wants to get his revenge on mobsters, or something. Sometimes he works for the bad guys. He fought Spider-Man a few times as some kind of vicious freak. He has no connection to the classic Vulture though, nor to the Punisher. He’s just some monstrous new take on the classic villain created during the period when Marvel wanted to give Spider-Man some new villains to fight. But the point I’m trying to make is that this is the lamest, one-note, bottom-dwelling super-villain that they could possibly throw at the Punisher. They build up this hidden, surprise super-villain…and it’s the new Vulture?

What a chump!

I can only hope they needed to find some bargain bin super-villain for the Punisher to kill. For you see, that’s the problem with bringing the Punisher into the normal Marvel Universe. If you want to have him go up against costumed super-villains, he’s going to want to kill those super-villains. That’s why Garth Ennis’ Punisher took place in its own separate world. And why when they brought Punisher back to the Marvel Universe during Civil War, he almost immediately killed Stilt-Man.

R.I.P.

So I guess Marvel’s just throwing out some lame super-villain who, in theory, will be able to put up a fight. The character of the new Vulture is that he’s vicious and monstrous. So it could very well be a brutal battle in issue #3. I’m sure he’ll definitely give the human Frank Castle some problems. He’s just a laaaaaame villain.

All-in-all, it’s a good second issue. The story continues along on both fronts, though not very far, I’m afraid. We meet the bride who survived, and we meet the people who were behind Liam and the killers. So the story is moving. Unfortunately, we don’t get to really know anything more about the protagonists. Punisher remains silent, ‘speaking’ only with his guns. He kills and moves on, as the Punisher does. He continues to be badass, but this silent treatment isn’t going to be as much fun if it continues much longer. Detectives Clemons and Bolt are back, but their character development is brushed aside so that we can be introduced to Norah Winters.

While it’ll be fun to have Norah in the book, if she sticks around, we didn’t really get to know anything more about the two detectives, who we know will be the main protagonists. Bolt, especially, was in the background this issue, while he was the main character in the last issue. So while the story may have progressed, the characters did not.

At least the art was once again phenomenal. The right mix of action and gritty, street-level talking heads. I love realistic art in my comics, as opposed to silly superhero fantasy, so I’m enjoying the art. This is definitely a book to keep reading. I’m going to try to keep going with every issue, since I’ve had the luxury of starting with issue #1.

What do you all think? Should I keep reviewing the Punisher?

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