As an ongoing solo title, Greg Rucka’s “Punisher” came to a superb end last month. While there were plenty of story threads left rife with possibilities, issues #15 & #16 contained bittersweet resolutions to some of the major relationships in the series. With the much-teased “War Zone”, Rucka’s story continues, but from a new angle. I called Rucka’s “Punisher” one of the best Punisher stories of all time. That’s high praise. Will we be able to include “War Zone” in that statement?
Written by Greg Rucka
Illustrated by Carmine Di Giandomenico– The Punisher vs. The Avengers. Welcome to the War Zone.
The issue begins with Spider-Man reading about the events of the recently ended ongoing and taking after an on-the-run Frank Castle. There’s an interesting but unspoken dynamic to Spider-Man’s involvement, given that The Punisher made his first appearance in “Amazing Spider-Man” #129. Spider-Man feels strongly about getting the Avengers to intervene in the recent crimes allegedly committed by The Punisher, and these concerns are deepened by the fact that Spidey has a history with Castle. It’s all there on the page.
Greg Rucka’s masterful run succeeded by focusing on taut action and small, subtle character moments that soaked into Marco Checchetto’s renderings of the characters themselves. Frank Castle and those close to him changed and grew significantly over 16 issues, which is an economy of storytelling as masterful as any in recent years. Rucka favored authentic emotion over melodrama and realistic combat operations over bombast. But while this is a glorified extension of that same story, Rucka has five issues to add the Avengers in, which means that the action is going to be scaled up, emotions will be heightened, and the subject matter is clearly going to be more fantastical. It would be hard to throw Wolverine and Spider-Man at Frank Castle and maintain the storytelling’s cold, exacting nature.
There is no doubt that this series has a completely different feel. It’s not trying to be that story anymore, so you can’t really fault it for being different. That said, this “version” of The Punisher character is just plain more satisfying when removed from the superheroics of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. A vengeful killer with a guilty conscience trying to follow his unique code against crime and corruption works better on a smaller scale. Those ideas get lost in the shuffle when you throw in web-slinging and SNIKT!-ing. “The Punisher” was a moody classic. “Punisher: War Zone”, right now, is a Summer blockbuster. It’s a good one though, with a hard-hitting Spidey vs. Punisher fight that would please any midnight crowd.
As for the art, let’s be clear about one thing: Marco Checchetto was originally solicited as the artist on this issue. Shame on me for not following things closely enough, but it only took opening the book to the first page to say, “well, this is not Marco Checchetto.” Don’t get me wrong, Carmine Di Giandomenico’s work is fine enough. But it’s not Checchetto.
Checchetto’s work grew leaps and bounds over the “Punisher” run, culminating in several images and character designs that will loom largely in the memory of great Punisher moments. Di Giandomenico doesn’t really provide any of these moments of his own, making scruffy Frank Castle’s recently dyed skull t-shirt and eye-patch look positively ordinary. Furthermore, his rendering of the various Avengers rank from excellent (his Spider-Man) to unmemorable (Black Widow) to downright uncomfortable (Tony Stark via Zoolander. One of the most unpleasantly eccentric renderings of Tony ever).
Luckily, Di Giandomenico seems to be adept at getting the pacing and the action of Rucka’s Punisher correct. It’s just that that is clearly half the battle. When the characters don’t look right, that pacing loses its affect. Maybe inserting the colorful and varied Avengers group into the very specific tone of the “Punisher” is the problem to begin with, but something tells me that Checchetto’s clean, attractive, confident character work would have sold this script just fine.
Whether “Punisher: War Zone” is going to reach the heights of pathos and storytelling that his most recent ongoing series did remains to be seen, but if issue #1 confirms anything, it’s that Marvel was right to make this a separate miniseries. It’s a clean break from what came before. Enjoyable enough for fans of that story, while quickly driving Frank Castle in a new direction for new and old readers alike. And, you know, toward Marvel NOW, too.
Final Verdict: 7.6 – Buy, but Rucka’s “War Zone” is definitely not Rucka’s “Punisher”
