SPEED ROUND: Punisher 6, New Warriors 5

Quick note to start: having a pretty busy weekend (they're only going to get busier from here, it seems, but I'm going to do my best here) and so the last two sets of reviews this week, both set to drop today, will be done in SPEED ROUND fashion, where I tell very little about the comics (though especially these two deserve a little more) and just drop a rating in. Sorry for all of the format changes recently but such are the ways of a blogger on a limited schedule.


Punisher 6
Edmondson (w) and Gerads (a and c) and Petit (l)

Punisher nearly kills Electro but is stopped by a reluctant Domino, allowing both mercs to escape. He sets out to stop Guillermo Del Sol but finds himself caught in an explosion, seemingly killing Del Sol. He's caught in two more explosions and eventually shot through the back as he lands on a moving city bus by the Howling Commandos, still hot on his trail.

The book keeps its intensity up and manages to fit three nice explosions in (impressively, they all look really good too) without it going so over the top it loses itself. Instead, Punisher even points out how much he's getting blown up. It's smart and quick writing and it's easy to lose yourself in this book, as it's been pretty easy throughout its run so far. Very strong stuff coming from Edmondson on both this and BLACK WIDOW and equally strong stuff from Gerads on this title.

Total Score: 5/5


New Warriors 5
Yost (w) and Roche (a) and Redmond (c) and Caramagna (l)

Still examining things to do with the High Evolutionary, the New Warriors (minus Nova, home per his mom's request) have made their way to the Wundagore Mountains to investigate possible monsters in the mountain. While Justice, Scarlet Spider, and Water Snake search the mountain (complete with Water Snake seeing visions of the whole team dead), Speedball, Hummingbird, Sun Girl, and Haechi make sure the villagers are fine (they are) and chat together. In the mountain are an evolved dog and cat who agree to return the team home but plan to do it by teleporting the mountain to New York.

The book continues to be a lot of fun and Nick Roche's art here matches the tone of this issue, which is a little more humorous and light, brilliantly, right up to and including when Hummingbird questions Speedball's involvement in Stamford and his time as Penance, which silences Speedball for just about the only time we've seen so far. It's a deep, dark moment juxtaposed against the lightness and fun of the issue (minus, of course, the visions Water Snake's having). Definitely worth reading this title, which is something of a breath of fresh air in exactly the sort of way Yost's SCARLET SPIDER was.

Total Score 5/5



BOY I wish I had swapped CYCLOPS and LOKI with these two because I didn't say much about those books and I have more about these books but TOO LATE FOR WISHES NOW.

Punisher 4, She-Hulk 3

Punisher 4
Edmondson (w) and Gerads (a and c)

Captured by Dos Soles and Electro, Punisher is in a bit of a bind. Electro tortures him while the leader of the Dos Soles promises that he'll earn money loaning Punisher out to be tortured to other villains who have been hurt by his actions. Electro has no intention of letting Punisher live that long but doesn't mention that bit to the Dos Soles' leader. After the drug lord leaves the room, Electro continues to brag to Punisher before Punisher kicks out at the chest of Electro and propels himself, chair and all, through a window behind him. Freed from his chains on impact, he rushes to one of the bombs in the room, daring the Dos Soles who saw his escape to shoot him. He manages to get a gun from one of them and he works his way through the building before the Dos Soles' leader detonates the building, preferring not to leave anything behind. Punisher reunites with Tuggs and tells him that the Soles are planning a citywide strike on LA with Electro, who is also working with AIM and has come to work with the Dos Soles as part of an arrangement with AIM (though Frank doesn't know this part yet). While Frank sets out to shut them down, Tuggs is captured by the new Howling Commandoes closing in on Punisher. A new wrench is going to be thrown into everything, though, as AIM hires another mercenary to work for whatever their plan is: former X-Man/X-Force member Domino.

Like BLACK WIDOW, Edmondson is here writing another story about a strong protagonist who is good at what he does even if what he does is arguably "good." He also makes sure that the protagonist has a strong narrative running throughout, something important for both books that he's writing right now. With BLACK WIDOW, he has to ensure that she's not characterized as cold or heartless; Noto's art helps bunches with that because she's so very human in the art but having a running narrative of the way she thinks helps tremendously. In that same way, Punisher is brutal and efficient in his methods and he's very steadfast in what he believes, all of which has put him toe-to-toe with unambiguously "good" superheroes time and again. Giving him a strong narrative and putting his very human thoughts there (as writers sometimes use the "Punisher's War Journal" entries to do, though I think it's less effective than a straight shot into his mind) humanize him in a way that his actions never could. Strong issue here and plenty of story to follow as Punisher's new universe gets a bit bigger every issue.

She-Hulk 3
Soule (w) and Pulido (a) and Vicente (c)

She-Hulk has been approached by Kristoff Vernard, son of Dr. Doom, seeking asylum in the United States. As the two go out for coffee so she can hear his case, he says that he's being kept in Latveria and groomed to be the next ruler of the nation, which may be okay except that he knows he wouldn't be a ruler in his own right, he'd be the ruler holding all of Doom's positions and doing only what he wanted. He wants to be allowed to experience the world for himself and he knows Doom will never allow it. She agrees to help him but, since he's been in America for exactly a year at this point, they have to get the paperwork in that day. She calls in a favor with a judge and they get into Kristoff's car. His driver begins to take them to the airport, revealing himself to be a Doombot as they figure out where they're going. She-Hulk stops him and tracks down an old Fantasticar kept at JFK to get them back into the city. On the way in, they're besieged by legions of Doombots as they try to make their way into the courthouse in disguise. One catches what they assume is Kristoff only to find it's Hellcat posing as Kristoff to allow the actual man time to get into the courtroom. He does and She-Hulk rushes in behind him, rather beat up. Given the difficulty it took just getting past Doom and into the court that day, the judge approves his grant for asylum but no sooner does she pound the gavel than does Doom himself descend into the courtroom and drag Kristoff away, with She-Hulk vowing to get him back.

Bold move here as Soule puts She-Hulk right up against Dr. Doom to kick off her brand new series. There's a lot of legal work here as we understand why Kristoff wants asylum and the case in which it can be granted to him, not to mention some of the logistics of gaining asylum. The book kicks off with double page spreads galore as She-Hulk and Kristoff walk through the city with elongated panels stretching between the two pages. It's certainly an interesting layout and makes the story feel almost widescreen, in a way, though it's not a tactic I think I'd enjoy so much on repeated issues (I'm a bit conservative with my fondness for double page spreads, another thing I tend not to enjoy from Bendis). The book flows pretty well, though it's an interestingly paced book. There are long swaths of dialogue as procedure and history is explained but the double page spreads serve to make the book read faster; though there's a lot of dialogue, every page-worth of dialogue is spread across two pages. So the book flows but it's not in a regular sort of way. Still, it works and the book continues to be a pretty fun ride.

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.