I’ve never known of Vigilante before this. Dont know the backstory of the guy(s), dont know his enemies, or allies, or even why he’s in this outfit to begin with. Other then Alan Moore’s two part story I read in ‘Greatest Alan Moore DC Stories’ trade, I never read a Vigilante tale before this. DC has had a lot of great success with B or C titles lately, what with Green Lantern Corps being the high-mark of those smaller titles. So here I thought this would fall in line as a hidden gem.

Well good things out of the way first, the art is pretty darn good. Leonardi’s pencils are nice and detailed, and the fight panels are pretty good as well. Stanisci’s inking also sets the tone for the comic and the first couple of pages are pretty impressive from a coloring standpoint.

With that being said, this story for a first issue is pretty damn boring. Marv Wolfman just takes almost every single cliche from Punisher comics, or just in general crime comics and put it all in here. You got the patsy for the hero, the mob boss who wants to get a truce, the hero wanting to get into prision to get his man, everything you could’ve read in Punisher from fifteen years ago is in this title. Plus, since I never read Vigilante before and dont know about his appearence in Nightwing a way back…..got no idea why this ‘return’ is such a big deal.

So for a first issue it doesnt hit a home run, and it’s very by the numbers. This smells ‘waitin for trade’ and hopefully it will get more interesting as the title goes on. But I think it’s safe to say your not missing much if you dont pick this up.