Punisher War Journal

I understand the sales logic behind launching new books during massive universe-wide events, but from a storytelling perspective, it’s a horsebunk concept. The identity of the book is forever entwined with the value (or lack thereof) in the larger crossover story.

Matt Fraction makes the most of it, and fortunately Civil War provided a pretty ideal launching pad for the return of Frank Castle to the Marvel Universe proper. Fraction seems to have somehow ingested every word of overwrought narration written for the Punisher since the late seventies and has woven in an actual personality, tweaking expectations constantly with oddball one-liners. The supporting cast is refreshingly surreal, which seems to underline what makes Fraction’s take on this character so appealing: Instead of totally buying into the reality of a gun-toting psycho who kills criminals, he first embraces the idea’s absurdity, and then layers on some reality as almost an afterthought.

Which brings me to issue 4 of the title, a stand-alone that is almost worth the price of the first trade all by itself: a second-class supervillain wake, bringing together the dregs of Marvel’s bad guys to celebrate the life of Stilt-Man. The situation is mined for all its humor potential (the malfunctioning Doombot was my favorite bit) but there’s a layer of pathos and critique that at first reads like any other hipster fanboy complaining about all the doom and gloom in modern comics.

Until the final few pages, where Fraction lets the story take a very dark turn that forces you to wonder if he was trying to espouse his views on superhero comics all along, or just tweaking expectations yet again before literally burning them to the ground.

In a universe full of oddballs who usually don’t realize just how odd they are, Fraction’s Punisher is the High King of the Oddballs, and in taking that direction, the writer gives us a new, irreverent take on the character and his world. Good stuff.

The Story and art start off great with a bit of humor as well in the first issue but after the civil war crossover is over the story heads south fast.

its just hard to take this series seriously. Its constantly switching from gritty to cartoony.

after the original artist leaves at issue 12 the art plummets dramatically. so now you have a poor story line and a poor art style.

it’s really a drag to read through all of these comics. I’m at issue 16 and it doesnt seem to get better.

I can see why they ended this early at issue 26.

The best example i can give as to how ridiculous this gets is that it goes from the civil war story line straight into a battle with a villain named the Hatemonger where the punisher decides to wear a combo of his outfit with the recently deceased captain america’s outfit. (I didnt make any of that up, it’s just that ridiculous)

The world war hulk tie in was laughable, the punisher protects the city from a bunch of giant insects for a single issue.

My word of advice. Just buy the first volume of this series, it has issues 1 to 4 and it wont dissappoint you. Anything after that is just nice to look at until issue 12. after that you should have someone to pay you to keep reading.

fours stars to the first four issues one star to the rest of the series.