THE PUNISHER #1

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iFanboy
community think?

682
Pulls
Avg Rating: 3.9
 
Users who pulled this comic:
Story by Greg Rucka
Art by Marco Checchetto
Colors by Matt Hollingsworth
Letters by Joe Caramagna
Cover by Bryan Hitch, Paul Neary, Paul Mounts, Sal Buscema, Frank D'Armata, Neal Adams & Justin Ponsor

Size: pages
Price: 3.99

Review: The Punisher #1

Frank Castle is back. Can you believe it, the massively popular star of 80’s comics, 3 films and numerous video game has returned to his own comics series! How exciting! But wait if we look beyond the marketing campaign for this book, its pretty easy to see that Frank never went away. I’ve been buying Punisher Max for years now and its been consistently fantastic. So is there really room for another Punisher title and how will it fair against its more adult oriented brother? Well lets have a look.

The big name that Marvel has been throwing around when talking about this title is Greg Rucka, one of the DC super-stars. His presence is clearly felt here and there is a distinct difference between this and other Punisher series. Rather than a comedic romp through blood-filled gang hide-outs with guns blazing, we get a slower, more serious approach. This book does feel like a slightly more grown-up version of what the Punisher is. The closest thing I can think of is Gotham Central’s tone. It’s not perfect however. Some plot points aren’t made as clear as they perhaps should be, and there are a few moments when you might have to look back over a page a couple of times to try and make sense of everything (although that is often due to problems with the art). It also seems an odd choice to have the punisher return and then to use him so little in the first issue. He’s not even given a single line of dialogue and doesn’t really feature in most of the book.

There is clearly a story developing here though and so far all we can see is the foundations. Rucka must feel like he is going to get a good shot at making this a successful series as he really isn’t rushing anything. I kind of like that. In a similar way to Gotham Central we seem to have a dislocated series of scenes, events and characters that will (hopefully) all be drawn together in a couple of issues to make one, big, satisfying narrative, with everything making perfect sense. I know that’s putting a lot of trust into this book, but I believe the quality and potential is there if we can look beyond what at the moment feels like a peculiar single issue.

The art duties on this book were given to Marco Checchetto and Matt Hollingworth and they both handle it aptly. Although there is nothing spectacular here, it works well for the most part. Although there are a few panels where its hard to tell who is who. Except for one character who is clearly Morgan Freeman in one panel and then never again in any other image. I do however love the colouring on the cover. Overall, it’s a bit of a mixed bag.

I will definitely buy the next issue of this book. But it is a gamble at the moment, this book is nothing special, but it could easily be laying the groundwork for something much, much, better. And at the moment, it shows very little resemblance to the Punisher Max series, and that’s not a complaint.

Art: 3/5

Story: 3/5 (I will raise this score if the following issues make sense of this one)

Story: 3 - Good
Art: 3 - Good

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