I’ve always liked the Punisher character but I’ve never been a faithful reader. I was pretty excited to see “The Punisher” #1 announced. I was even more intrigued when I heard Greg Rucka would be writing the book. With this particular character, Rucka has a creative sandbox loaded with potential. Not only was I anxious to see how he handled the Punisher persona, but also Frank Castle as a man.

The first thing I noticed is that The Punisher seems to be portrayed as a shadowy ghost-like figure, an urban legend who uses fear much in the same vein as Batman. Of course the glaring difference is Punisher’s unabashed willingness to kill and we get a small taste of that in this issue. The book is broken down into two stories which mainly serve as an introduction to the supporting characters. The first story seems to be the main arc and it’s really good material. But it’s also short and considering this is a first issue and we barely see The Punisher, I was hoping for more.

The highest point of the issue is Marco Checchetto’s art. His work is a wonderful fit with Rucka’s dark and gritty tone and his characters look great. My favorite sequence involves a brutal wedding massacre and Checchetto artfully captures the sense of violence, chaos, and panic. He did lose me on his darker, shadow filled pages. While I understand his intentions, the lack of clarity in some panels made it hard to see what was happening.

As far as first issue go, “The Punisher” #1 is good but certainly not all it could have been. The content we do get is fantastic. We just don’t get enough of it. The brief, fleeting glimpses of Punisher are cool and I know we’ll be seeing much more of him in the future. But I really would have liked to see more of him here. All of that said, this issue does give us a taste of what’s to come and I’m pretty excited to see what Rucka and Checchetto have in store for us.