Punisher 1, Wolverine 1

Punisher 1
Edmondson (w) and Gerads (a and c)

Punisher has moved his operation to the west coast in order to stop some crime out there and to stay off the Avengers radar after things didn't end so well with them on the east coast. He's been out there a little while now and his first major mission is shutting down a drug running ring that ends with a big cartel named Dos Sols. He's made some contacts out in LA too, including an army officer capable of smuggling weapons to him named Tuggs, a young female police officer named Sam, and Louie, a local diner owner. While it seems Tuggs knows Frank's true identity, it's tricky to say whether or not Louie or Sam does (more likely Louie than Sam, who works the Punisher beat). When Frank ends up finding an HQ of Dos Sols and promptly blowing it up, it separates his supporters from his detractors, with some cops, Sam included, lauding him for taking down Dos Sols and some swearing to catch him, including the apparently deputized Howling Commandos.

I had to think about this issue for a while after I read it to try to figure out where I stand on it. Of course, it's kind of a fool's errand to try to figure out where you stand on a series after one issue but we're certainly getting a groundwork to base our future assessment on here. The thing that's most apparent is that Edmondson is very clearly creating a network for Frank to go to, something comprised of people on the ground (like Louie, capable of gossip and someone who supports Punisher because the kinds of crime he sets out to stop are run by criminals who wouldn't fear the Avengers the way they fear the Punisher), people in high arms places (like Tuggs, who seems to genuinely like Frank on top of a clear sympathy to the cause, illustrated by his willingness to smuggle arms out of a military base, an act the discovery of which would ruin him), and cops (like Sam, who has apparently taken a liking to Frank and understands the Punisher's place in the city). In fact, I think probably Frank is the person developed least in this issue but that's got a purpose too: this is still Punisher, the one we've seen for so many years now. Frank Castle wasn't about to come back with some kind of new set of beliefs so why spend too much time establishing what those beliefs are? Good issue and I think that it's more a groundwork laying issue (with some solid action and a couple of kind of fun beats) than many number ones are.

Wolverine 1
Cornell (w) and Stegman and Morales (a) and Curiel (c)

Wolverine is back after getting January off (haha, just kidding, I looked it up and WOLVERINE 13 was less than a month ago) and he's only a couple months removed from the loss of his healing factor and his subsequent beatdown at the hands of Sabretooth. Weeks earlier, he met with Storm to talk about (or distinctly not talk about) his new life as someone who will age and will weaken (if you believe that he's not getting his healing factor back, as he is currently forced to believe). He's averse to using armor and other weaponry at first but then decides he's okay with it and trains with Black Widow on using a sidearm and adopts new armor to protect him. In the present again, he's working with a team comprised of never-before-seen super-powered people named Fuel, Pinch, and Lost Boy to do various jobs for an overseer calling himself "The Offer" because he always makes offers to people that, in a line this book didn't use but very CLEARLY wanted to, they can't refuse. Someone from the Daily Bugle shows up to The Offer, claiming to be a contact from Sabretooth, and finds his life threatened only to be killed by Wolverine.

As I said above, it's a fool's errand to try to figure out where you stand based on the first issue of a book but it's also a little hard to consider this the first issue of a book when it's not even a month removed from the last issue of the book that preceded it and it's written by the same writer telling what boils down to the same story. So all the things I didn't really love about Cornell's "previous" WOLVERINE title are back in force here, including a shoe-horning of support characters who quickly go underdeveloped and an odd almost entirely humorless (not for lack of trying in some cases) protagonist and, frankly, some rather boring dialogue. In this story specifically, we'll have to wait a bit longer as some of the details as to Wolverine's switch from the X-Men to a weird team which headlines with a character named "Lost Boy" whose costume is simply an open hoodie with no shirt on underneath and a big chest tattoo that says "FIGHT EVIL WITH EVIL" become a little more clear, but I'm also going to be a little more willing to write off the series if it has a start so slow. I was hoping Stegman's art would infuse a little life into the book I found so lifeless with Cornell, Farmer, and Davis but I think it will take a little more than that to really get into this one.