I hope it’s not sacrilege on this site to say that I don’t enjoy the work of Rick Remender.  While I did buy the early Fear Agent trades, I made the mistake of letting a friend borrow them over a year ago, and he has yet to return them.  I’m hoping there’s some genius involved in that story, because otherwise, I don’t get it.

I find his Punisher, a really cool concept, but panel to panel, it just doesn’t hold me.  Doctor Voodoo is a title I would be hard pressed to imagine enjoying, so I don’t hold him responsible, but I do think his magic dialog is cliche and awful.  And this first issue leades me to think he has no grasp on dialog, period.  Every word out of these characters’ mouths is a cliche.  And the characters themselves are some B-level 1980s crime characters, which could be cool, but in Remender’s hands, aren’t.

The only reason I even finished this book was because I was trying to decide how I felt about Tocchini’s art.  I found his modeling a little forced, and his faces varied in quality from page to page, but I, at least found it intriguing, which is more than I can say for Remender’s story.

I will not be picking up a second issue.