The Punisher #7 – Review

by Greg Rucka (writing), Michael Lark (pencils), Stefano Gaudiano (inks), Matt Hollingsworth (colors), and Joe Caramagna (letters)

The Story: Clemons and Bolt take a long, awkward drive up to the chalet that is the site of the Punisher’s latest massacre.

The Review:  Another issue of Greg Rucka’s Punisher with no Frank and despite this, it’s excellent once again.

Once again, the success of this comic hinges on the strength of Rucka’s supporting cast, with the focus this month on Clemons and Bolt.  The point has been hammered home, but perhaps more than ever, this month really hearkens back to Rucka and Brubaker’s fantastic Gotham Central.  There’s a strongly procedural tone to the book, with Bolt and Clemons driving to crime scenes and looking at bodies and evidence.  It’s a down-to-earth look at a world dominated by superheroes from the perspective of the little guy, or cops specifically.  The result is a comic that feels both realistic and human despite the lingering background of spandex.

This only makes things more interesting when Bolt and Clemons run into an actual superhero; the result doesn’t feel surrealistic at all, but rather completely natural.  When Bolt and Clemons encounter Daredevil, it feels like we readers are looking at Murdock through a different lens.  It’s engaging and fresh.

But really, it’s the procedural nature of this issue that keeps it going.  Rucka crafts a comic with a heavy emphasis on details and detective work and the result is a fine-tuned, focused, and smart comic.  Once again, the Punisher leaves a mess and these average Joes are the guys that are charged with picking up the pieces.

Naturally, Rucka gets to do some really great character work as well, particularly with Ozzy.   Ozzy’s obsessiveness with respect to the Punisher, his meticulousness and skill as a detective, are combined with a complete and utter social ineptitude.  The result is an earnest yet abrasive character.  Rucka begins to paint Ozzy as a kind of counterpoint to the Punisher.  Frank is representative of vengeance and violence incarnate, but Ozzy is representative of “the Law.”  Busting out the law school jargon, Ozzy is, more specifically, “legal positivism,” the belief that law is authoritative and worth being followed simply because it is “the Law,” which flows from authority.  The morality or success of that law is not Ozzy’s concern, only that the system operates, the wheels keep turning, and the rules are followed.  As such, Ozzy is, himself, a kind of machine, just like Frank is, but he’s a machine representative of an entirely different sort of justice.  It’s a really excellent dichotomy that Rucka provides.

The Punisher #3 – Review

by Greg Rucka (writing), Marco Checchetto (art), Matt Hollingsworth (colors), and Joe Caramagna (letters)

The Story: Frank grapples with the Vulture in a fight to the death over the skies of New York City.

The Review:  Given how much of this issue is consumed by a sprawling action scene, it seems fitting to start out with a discussion of Marco Checchetto’s artwork.  Simply put, it’s really, really good and it’s becoming increasingly surprising how Checchetto has flown under the radar for so long.  Once again, Checchetto draws a dark, gritty, and mysterious New York City, but it’s the action that he shines at this month.

A long, aerial grappling session is no easy feat in comics and could have easily been disastrous.  I was fearing that we’d get an incomprehensible jumble of bodies and storytelling gone out the window, but somehow, Rucka and Checchetto manage to make it all completely understandable and, in fact, they even manage to make it beautiful, creating a fight scene that, while primal, tells a story in its own right.  It’s intense, elegant, and an experience that’s unique to the medium.

The fight’s ending also shows some serious balls on Rucka’s part and should go a long way in answering the complaints of those who question how Frank Castle can operate in the Marvel U.  Rucka shows that he has no qualms about having Frank run amok in New York and making sizable impacts.  I can’t go any further without major spoilers, unfortunately, but let’s just say that this fight doesn’t end how most superhero/villain fights end and that the conclusion is very appropriate for Frank.  There’s no equivocation here.

But it’s not only in the villain-fighting that Rucka’s Punisher impacts the Marvel Universe.  Rucka seems to want to establish Norah Winters as a major supporting character for this series, which is fine by me.  Norah is a brilliant addition to the cast, as I could not imagine a more polar opposite to Frank Castle.  I’ve always loved the character, who’s unfortunately often been thrown to the periphery due to Spider-Man’s massive cast.  Seeing her in this dark and very different context is wonderful and her mouthy, energetic character is a fantastic counterpoint.

The Punisher #2 – Review

by Greg Rucka (writer), Marco Checchetto (art), Matt Hollingsworth (colors), and Joe Caramagna (letters)

The Story: The Punisher has marked his prey, tracking a poor, hapless goon back to his masters while Bolt and Clemons are left to pick up the bodies.

What’s Good:  For the second issue in a row, the Punisher doesn’t utter a word, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.  This silent Frank Castle is as fresh as the first issue and his silence makes him all the more monstrous and inhuman, if not mythical.  In many ways, Frank’s silence actually opens opportunities for Rucka to make him even scarier, particularly in one scene, where Rucka perfectly illustrates the Punisher’s uncompromising mercilessness.  The Punisher has never been more predatory.

The result is a comic where Frank hunts this thug and follows him, always just in the corner of the poor guy’s eye, haunting him like a vengeful spirit.   The Punisher plays the hunter through and through, the thug in question the hapless deer.  Franks silence and the way he manipulates his unwitting prey to run from safehouse to safehouse, allowing the Punisher to rack up the bodies, is utterly brilliant and makes Frank appear to, on some primitive level, possess an awareness, calm, and intellect that his prey lacks.  He leads the guy, tracks him, nudges him, all without saying a word.  Frank is so menacing and so coolly calculating that in many ways, as this unrelatable hunter of people, we come to experience “the Punisher” legend just as the criminal underworld does.