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Will The Avengers hunt down The Punisher? Click the jump to read the review.
The Punisher: War Zone 1 or 6
Written by Greg Rucka
Art by Carmine Di Giandomenico
Published by Marvel Comics
Greg Rucka (writer of Punisher: War Zone) is an all time favorite. His work is pure adrenaline that not only entertains, but also gives great character development. Rucka used to work for DC Comics where his best works were Batwoman: Elegy, Gotham Central, as well as some story arcs in Batman: No Man’s Land. The man is just a genius when it comes to building characters especially if they’re grouped together such as they are in Punisher: War Zone. I’m a fan of Punisher for the dark grittiness that comes with being a vigilante. (If you have read my biography down below, I really love bad ass characters.)
Now, this may be Rucka’s last run with Marvel since he is fed up with how both Marvel and DC Comics are running comics nowadays. So, I’m hoping to see Rucka bring his best in this comic book. I am also excited to read this comic book because Rucka is well known for writing awesome, strong, independent female characters and Natasha Romanova aka Black Widow is going to be one of the few female characters in this comic book. I’m excited to see what plans Rucka has for her to make her more popular, or at least more respectable, as a character.
Synopsis: A quick little summary of Punisher: War Zone #1, Frank Castle aka The Punisher, assaults a criminal organization called The Exchange and SPOILER ALERT kills twenty of NYPD’s finest. This makes him a murderer and Spider-Man notifies The Avengers of The Punisher’s crimes. The Avengers are composed of Captain America, Black Widow, Wolverine, Iron Man, Thor, and Spider-Man. Now, the question is will The Avengers hunt down The Punisher?
Good: Rucka did a phenomenal job from beginning to end. He demonstrates the issue’s plot, by showing the cover of the newspaper page. If you skipped over the newspaper page, you should really go back to read it because the cover explains The Punisher’s crimes. Here’s a portion of it:
Rucka uses the newspaper cover as an element throughout the issue so count on seeing it a lot. As a person, I enjoy seeing grouped characters in a comic book; You get tons of personalities and it makes for great plot development. However, what Rucka does with the characters in the comic is build them up individually and since they are all pretty well known Rucka doesn’t have to do much character development –Focusing on driving the plot of his story instead. So, in this issue you’re going to see four characters highlighted: Spider-Man, The Punisher, Wolverine, and Iron Man.
Aside from those four, there are two characters that you will be seeing a lot of, but I’ll leave it up to you to see who they are.
The artwork by Carmine Di Giandomencio is superb. The storytelling flowed nicely from panel to panel and though he used an older, “conventional” panel layout, it still held a certain amount of suspense making the issue entertaining. Artist, Giandomencio really wants you to sit down and read this issue carefully as he includes a couple of details in this issue that you might miss if you’re just scanning through it. You really have to absorb the art because there are tons of elements being used throughout this issue.
Bad: There isn’t much bad that is bad in this issue, except for the actual situation that The Punisher finds himself in. When I actually look at the way Natasha is rendered, I see that her face is a little hard just like the male characters portrayed in this comic book and I am one for certain details, such as the facial features. If you look at the facial features, most of the characters have a strong squared jaw including Natasha. Now for some artists, sometimes the characters have a certain feature that is the same for all the characters. This is only an artist’s preference which isn’t harmful but that is still noticeable if you’re paying attention. No harm, no foul. It doesn’t take away from how well Giandomencio did in this first issue.
I am seriously looking forward to the rest of the comic book. It’s suspenseful and Rucka is really pinning the characters against one another. There is nothing more enjoyable than seeing such strong characters in this plot driven story. The diversity of the characters helps make the comic book more interesting due to their huge personalities. You really can’t help but read this entire comic book without a smirk on your face. Hopefully, Rucka might give Black Widow more presence since he is well known for writing strong female characters. So stoked for the next issue!
Rating: 5/5
What did you think of The Punisher: War Zone #1? Are you reading this issue? Why or why not?
There are some images down below that I thought were cool from this issue.
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