Thunderbolts 27, Punisher 7

Thunderbolts 27
Acker and Blacker (w) and Barberi (p) and Cuevas (i) and Silva (c) and Sabino (l)

The Thunderbolts quietly take down a team of hitmen aiming to take down the Avengers while they battle downtown. The stealth team discovers that these hitmen were being led by someone operating out of a high school which, they soon discover, is full of dead children. The dead start to rise and begin attacking the Thunderbolts, overwhelming them before it's revealed that it was Captain America villain Dr. Faustus using a psychogenic gas to plant images in the heads of the T-Bolts. Deadpool, though, quickly detected the gas and kept himself from inhaling it, playing dead when Faustus arrived and taking the villain down himself. As the others come to, Punisher demands they kill Faustus but Red Hulk vetoes him, preferring to force Faustus to work for good. Punisher, unable to allow that, quits the team. As the team moves on, Punisher returns to a New Jersey safehouse and finds a bomb in his apartment (as it explodes) with a note apparently indicting the T-Bolts.

Acker and Blacker don't disappoint in their first time out with the THUNDERBOLTS main series (they wrote THUNDERBOLTS ANNUAL within the last year), bringing an interesting new vibe to the series. The team still sticks with the covert "doing the missions the Avengers can't" kind of idea but Red Hulk seems determined to live up to his realization from last issue and do more than just help out, indicating that he'd like the Thunderbolts to expand with more divisions, possibly comprised of captured villains (like Faustus) working against their will to make up for their sins. The voices are distinct and a lot of fun, just what we'd want to see from this team (it's what Soule did right during his time on the book that I felt Way missed in the first arc). Of course, the intrigue of a quitting and punished Punisher doesn't hurt either.

Total Score: 5/5


Punisher 7
Edmondson and Maurer (w) and Carnero (p) and Pallot (i) and Fabela (c) and Petit (l)

Wounded Punisher finds his way down to Mexico to recover and plot out his next move while he tries to figure out who attacked him. A back alley surgeon fixes him up, removing the bullet and closing the wound, though he also drugs him and sells him off to the highest bidder so it seems like they're even by the end. The highest bidder in this case is a Mexican gangster named Ortiz, AKA El Diablito. Ortiz and his men beat up Punisher a bit then sell him again to an unknown group (though probably Dos Soles, right?), who send Crossbones to pick Frank up. Not to be caught unaware again, Frank breaks out of his cell along with another captured vet, and the pair of them, with help from the vet's squad monitoring Ortiz, escape into the woods, where Punisher advises the other vet to move forward while he takes on the cartel.

PUNISHER 7 provides a nice respite from the story we've been dealing with since issue one, which is a good story but perhaps worth taking an interlude from here. Given Marvel's recent push for faster turnaround time on books, these sorts of issues seem to happen a little more frequently (particularly at this sort of issue number, where the main creative team gets a jumpstart on the book and getting about six issues in the can before issue one even goes to press) where a guest writer comes in (sometimes) along with a different artist (more frequently, as illustrating a book takes more time than writing it, typically). Still, the story is strong and fits in the same vein as the rest of the series, though it's hard not to miss Gerads' art on the book and I'm going to have to deduct a point here for how frequently a footnote tells us what an army code translates to. I'd rather have them say the actual words before going to acronyms, though I understand that's less realistic, or to simply say the code and allow readers who want to explore deeper to look it up themselves; the all-too present footnotes end up being distracting and breaking the flow. Also, I don't like that cover. Looks like Punisher's been stung by bees. Still, strong issue and certainly worth looking at if you've been enjoying this book.

Total Score: 4/5