THE PUNISHER ANNUAL #1
© Marvel Comics
Mania Grade: A
Issue: 1
Authors: Mike Benson, Laurence Campbell, Lee Loughridge
Publisher: Marvel
Price: $3.99
Issue: 1
Authors: Mike Benson, Laurence Campbell, Lee Loughridge
Publisher: Marvel
Price: $3.99
THE PUNISHER ANNUAL #1
By: Kurt AmackerReview Date: Friday, September 28, 2007
I review this first annual of Marvel’s adults-only MAX series, The Punisher, because the rumor mill suggests that this issue’s writer, Mike Benson, might take over the title when Garth Ennis leaves. Again, take that only as a rumor. But, if Benson’s work on this annual indicates anything, the series will continue in good hands.
Low-level Mafia hitman Eddie Gands finds himself in the sights of Frank Castle after he and his crew burn down a tenement building with the residents still inside. Gands and his fellow lowlifes work freelance for the mob. In this case, Omar Gonzalez wanted the tenants of his newly acquired property to vacate. They refused, and he sent Gands and his friends to firebomb the building. The writer never explains why Gonzalez would burn his own building, but we can assume that the insurance check would make up the difference. After celebrating at a dive bar, Gands and his crew stumble into the parking lot to find Castle waiting. Gands survives the massacre, only to run through the city and find the Punisher at every turn. He begs for help from the mob, he asks an old girlfriend to take him in, he tries to leave town, and he even attempts to turn himself into the police. Everywhere he turns, Castle appears like a ghost. The end is inevitable.
Benson only suggests once that Castle might appear only in Gands’s mind, but that seems more the result of the Punisher’s chase than the reality of it. This issue works because it presents Castle for what he really is – an unstoppable killing machine with no capacity for negotiation, nuance, or, least of all, forgiveness. Benson never once doubts Gands’s guilt or his own complicity in a life of crime. But, he makes it clear that Frank Castle will not stop or listen or care once he has selected his target. Gands even attempts to turn himself into the police, which, based on his omnipresence in the rest of the issue, we have to assume Castle sees. When the police turn him away, Castle arrives to end his life. Benson repeatedly compares a life of crime to a system of trade – you want something, you pay the price. In that regard, the Punisher almost comes across like Mephistopheles in Faust. Gands sold his soul for the pleasures of the criminal life, and the man that collects payment has arrived. While that seems just, Benson makes it clear that the Punisher extends beyond the realm of superheroic vigilante justice into something cold and merciless. By not allowing Gands to turn himself in or renew himself in any way, he cements his role as an unholy avenging angel squarely committed to doing the Devil’s dirty work.
Besides the fantastic writing, this first Punisher Annual has really stunning art. Laurence Campbell and Lee Loughridge bring a noir grit to the book that reminds me of Michael Gaydos’s work on Alias combined with Alex Maleev’s work on Daredevil. This issue is a muddy, inky pleasure to read.
Pick this one up. If you like the Punisher, you’ll be reminded of the reality of the character. If you hate him, you’ll have good reason to continue to do so. I
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