Franken-Castle #21 – Review

By: Rick Remender (writer), Dan Brereton (art) & Joe Caramanga (letters)

Back-up story: Remender (writer), Andrea Mutti & Luca Malisan (art)

The Story: Franken-Castle turns back into good, old-fashioned Punisher.

What’s Good: Everything comes to an end in comics and Rick Remender has caught a lot of flak from old-time Punisher fans for this Franken-Castle experiment.  That is very unfair as we should applaud comic creators who attempt to do something new and different, even if it is understood that the party must end eventually and the furniture must go back into its starting positions.

The story revolves entirely around how Franken-Castle morphs back into plain, old Frank Castle – The Punisher.  And to make this journey, he gets a huge co-starring role from his League of Monsters compatriots.  That was a lot of fun and almost poignant because you just know that we won’t be seeing The Punisher hanging out with a bunch of monsters that much in the future.  Probably the best part of the story was how Remender handles Franken-Castle losing all the metal and tubes all over him: he just ignores it.  You literally turn the page and that crap is gone which was nice because no one needed to see an unnecessary scene in a surgical suite as the monsters cut away the metal.

And, then if you were wondering whether this “new” Punisher would be the dude you’ve gotten used to over the last 30 years in the Marvel U., Remember gives us a classically styled Punisher short-story that both reestablishes the character AND makes the reader feel that the character is in capable hands with Remender.

Avengers: The Initiative #16 – Review

By Dan Slott & Christos N. Gage (Writers), Stefano Caselli (Artist) and Luca Malisan (Colors)

Yowza. First of all, you should know that Avengers Initiative #16 has an ad for the new season of The Sarah Conner Chronicles, featuring a full page of Summer Glau in all her lithe, terminatrixy glory, and I have to say I would buy the book just for that ad.

Fortunately, I don’t have to. AI just keeps getting better and better. Unlike a lot of the summer books, where the Secret Invasion just seems an impediment to the ongoing storyline, here we’re in the thick of things, and things are very thick indeed:  1) Because of an over-dependence on Starktech, the virus that brought down Iron Man has also caused technology to fail across the entire U.S. Remember what everyone thought Y2K was going to be like? Imagine that, times ten.  2) Skrulls are everywhere—not just in Times Square and the Savage Land—everywhere.  3) The Skrull Kill Krew is back, or at least those whose brains haven’t been eaten by Skrull prions. I didn’t think much of the original mini-series (as a rule, I steer clear of hate groups with more than one “K” in their initials), but if there was ever a time for their unique brand of murder and mayhem, it’s now.

3D-Man, having fled  Camp Hammond, has crash-landed in the desert where he meets and joins up with the Krew. They set out cross-country to rid the Initiative of Skrull infiltrators, one by one. Meanwhile, in New York, Crusader, the Skrull with the Cosmic-Cube-style Freedom Ring, is forced to decide whether to fight alongside his fellow Skrulls or with Nick Fury and his new super-commandos. Back at Camp Hammond, things are in complete disarray. The only people who seem to have any chance against the Skrull Yellowjacket turning the base into command central of the Skrull army are the new Ant-Man (or, after Scott Lang, is that the new New Ant-Man?) and War Machine, whose armor is still functioning because, ironically, it still has back-up systems designed by Obadiah Stane.

All in all, it’s tremendous fun, with interesting characters, a fast-moving, convoluted plot, and lots and lots of action. My only complaint is that, in weaving their tale, Slott and Gage are drawing upon over at least half a dozen different comic series spanning over thirty years of continuity, so it’s practically impossible that any reader would truly “get” everything that’s going on. Of course, that’s also part of what makes it so fun. (Grade: A)

– Andrew C. Murphy