2 out of 5

Around this time – 2011 – Greg Rucka was scrambling out of an unfortunate 52-ridden DC Comics rut with his back-to-basics Stumptown comic, which definitely took steps toward repairing my appreciation for his writing (the wake of 52 left me with disdain for several writerly heavy hitters), but was still far from his greatest hits from back in the day, a la Queen and Country, Gotham Central, and others.  I certainly hadn’t left Greg completely behind, though, and his appearance on The Punisher – despite my sneaking suspicion that I’d have to draw a line between his Big Two work (meh) and his indie stuff (good) – definitely had me hoping for a potentially classic run.  A good crime author taking on the vigilante?  Greg can have a softer touch than the character may have demanded, but it felt like an intriguing fit.

I gave it some issues.  When Frank found himself in an airborne battle with a super villain – the Vulture – I called it quits.  Not that Pun has to be divorced from the spandex crew, but the title was just reading like a moody hero book, and not like The Punisher, and/or not like ‘The Punisher by Greg Rucka as imagined by Me.’  Time passed, good revierws were had, I read a crossover with Daredevil that made me curious about the Pun characters’ appearances…  So, fine, I’m giving it another go.

When Frank found himself in an airborne battle with a super villain, I pretty much called it quits again.  But I had the trade, so I kept reading.

The Punisher by Greg Rucka issues #1 – 4 are pretty awful.  They read like someone mimicking Greg’s style, adding in extra blood and bullets and stabbing because: Punisher.  Mixing it up with Vulture is spoiled icing on a fallen cake.  Issue #5 suggests… that this may all have been set up.  Greg’s writing does tend to excel when he’s stripped a character down, allowing him to revel in the silence of their motivations while rebuilding the world around them, and that – again, maybe – is what’s happening here, along with setting up another character who would play a pivotal role, Rachel Alves.  But the setup is slow, and cheesy, and filled with cliched grizzled detectives and double-crossing detectives and evil plan spouting bad guys (whose “plans” are pretty much just: punch Frank), and Greg’s ‘strong female’ shtick via snarky reporter Norah Winters, and a goddamn sexy Punisher with a slick haircut and cute stubble and a model V-taper.

Alves’ wedding is interrupted by a shootout – she’s the only survivor – setting her up with a backstory to parallel Frank’s.  Castle is going on semi-normal rampaging, offing member of clandestine crew ‘The Division’ before running afoul of their pet Vulture, leaving Frank battered and bruised for three months.  His recovery – thank christ he now sports a more suitable full beard – in issue #5 is where the writing finally starts to pick up; Alves gets a personality, Frank is worn down and plotting, and the aforementioned detectives come across as slightly more fleshed out people instead of police filler.

The trade also includes a short from a Spider-Island one-off, which, though of the humorous variety, does further suggest that Greg has a handle on the character, but more importantly: artist Max Fiumara’s take on Pun is hulking and monstrous, and leaves us with a good memory versus main series’ Marco Checchetto’s baby-boy Castle.

Checchetto is another black mark on the book thus far, with his photo-touched backgrounds totally at odds with his Bryan Hitch-style weight characters, and an unfollowable sense of choreography and unmotivating page flow.  It’s very possible that all of the worser elements of Greg’s writing were pushed to the fore as the art did not serve the book’s pacing or timing well.

Lastly, while the HC is priced acceptably (20 bucks) and has some covers and sketches, it also misprints the issues contained within (it states #1 – 6) and, more damningly, miscredits Fiumara as having worked on I Kill Giants with Joe Kelly.  Editing interior content can be time-consuming; editing copy on the back cover of a trade should be… not as time-consuming.