Broken Frontier

The Marvel Universe is filled with second stringers. It should be great fun to watch The Punisher get to take a few down. Unfortunately, it isn’t what it could be.

Whether it’s the countless Goblins or the umpteenth reincarnation of whatever background bad guy you can pick, the Marvel Universe is littered with some very strange (and sometimes lame) super-villains. Most of these are hold-overs from the time when monthly comics’ main appeal for readers was to see what fantastic villain the Marvel crew could come up with this month to go up against Spider-Man, the Avengers or whoever. With that in mind, it would seem there is plenty of old junk for someone like Frank Castle to clear out from the old super-villain attic. While he has gotten to do that in the latest Punisher War Journal serial, it seems to have lost its way in this particularly issue.

Last issue, Frank had been led to believe that Tony and his super-hero registration crew were using super-villains in their campaign to round up the rebels. Being the uncompromising individual that he is, that didn’t settle to well with Castle. It ended with Frank rescuing Spider-Man and taking him to the resistance. The last we saw of him he was standing over the wounded Peter Parker with Captain America.

Inexplicably, this issue starts with The Punisher, not standing, but tied to a chair being questioned by the Captain. The two verbally spar on the nature of war, this Civil War in particular. While this could be interesting it just seems to fall flat, particularly the latter portions where Cap’s crew wrestle with how to handle the vigilante. From there, Castle joins up with the resistance, abandoning his pursuit of the bad guys that Stark and company have employed on their side. This is, presumably, to end the Civil War faster, thereby allowing Castle to get back to the business of saving ordinary people from ordinary criminals. The dialogue doesn’t seem to have much spark, though, and in later parts of the story, doesn’t seem to fit the Punisher character very well.

The best part of this issue, by far, is the art. The colors and inks work extremely well together making it a pleasure to read. It also can be said, in a very positive fashion, that the Punisher War Journal looks very different from the majority of comic books on shelves right now.

While the art continues to be fantastic, not much really seems to happen in this issue. Whatever you do, make sure to read the latest of Civil War before this one.