Marvel Universe vs. The Punisher #4 – Review

By: Jonathan Maberry (writer), Goran Parlov (art), Lee Loughridge (colors) & Cory Petit (letters)

The Story: Punisher has to save a still-human Mary Jane Watson from a band of cannibals led by Kingpin.

What’s Good: This was a satisfying wrap up to a fun, little non-continuity miniseries featuring the Punisher as the last “hero” who has remained uninfected by some sort of virus that has turned the other heroes into raving cannibals.

The whole series has played with the notion of whether the Punisher is really a hero or whether he is just a killer in the wasteland and that question gets resolution in a not surprising (but still satisfying) way.  There are probably few people reading this comic who want to see anything other than Punisher being a bad-ass and those folks will be happy with what happens.

Most of the “surprising” parts of this come via cannibal Deadpool.  I’m not a fan of all the Deadpool books, but I don’t mind him showing up for comedic relief in other comics and what we get here is pretty good as his self-awareness carries over even after his infection (and repeated killing at the hands of Punisher).

Throughout it all, Goran Parlov’s art makes everything work well.  It isn’t stunning art, but it sells the story very nicely.

Marvel Universe vs. The Punisher #3 – Review

By: Jonathan Maberry (writer), Goran Parlov (art), Lee Loughridge (colors) & Cory Petit (letters)

The Story: Frank Castle is forced to do battle with a criminal mastermind who is ruling the cannibal controlled wastes of NYC.

What’s Good: How do you make a fun, non-cannon story about cannibal versions of your favorite Marvel heroes and villains getting killing by Frank Castle better?  Well, it appears that you can do it by having Jonathan Maberry write it because he tosses in a few plot wrinkles here that have made this one of my current favorite miniseries.

The story has evolved quite rapidly from the first issue to where we have learned that the cannibal hordes opposing Frank Castle aren’t mindless.  They have some structure and are lead by infected cannibal heroes/villains who have kept some of their mental faculties.  I don’t want to spoil matters here too much, but if you’ve read Marvel comics for any period of time, the identity of who would come out on top of a cannibal gang in NYC shouldn’t be a huge surprise.

The better surprise is the motive of cannibal Spidey to seek Frank’s help with a plot device that is especially sweet if you have been reading the garbage that is Amazing Spider-Man: One Moment In Time.  This issue of MU vs Punisher either shows that Joe Quesada has a healthy sense of humor and ability to laugh at himself for allowing this story OR he just wasn’t paying attention at all.

Marvel Universe vs. The Punisher #2 – Review

By: Jonathan Maberry (writer), Goran Parlov (art), Lee Loughridge (colors) & Cory Petit (letters)

The Story: The Punisher, as the last “normal” hero (super or otherwise), tries to rid the Earth of infected cannibals.

What’s Good: I really enjoyed this a lot.  I’m usually a continuity whore, but for some reason I don’t mind these alternate versions of The Punisher (Franken-Castle, Max, this one, etc.).  This version of Punisher does have the advantage of being pretty true to his original form: the bad-ass and heavily armed man-with-a-plan cutting a vengeful path through the Marvel U.

There really isn’t much not to like about this issue.  We get to see two really cool little action sequences where Frank takes on Hulk and Venom.  I especially liked Frank’s method of taking down the Hulk, but both sequences show just how much planning Frank has put into taking down these various superhuman-types, so Punisher fans should be happy by this showing of their hero as the baddest badass there is.  And it’s also fun that the two main villains are both talkative heroes who annoy the piss out of Punisher in the 616 universe.  That’s well thought out.

This comic has lots of little bits of humor, but doesn’t go overboard into full-scale yuk-yuk mode.  It’s just that appropriate dark, black and dry humor that I appreciate in an apocalyptic Punisher story.  I don’t want to give away the jokes, but you’ll enjoy them when you see them.