THE PUNISHER #1 – A New Era

Creative Team – Benjamin Percy, José Luis Soares, Oren Junior, Frank D’Armata, VC’s Cory Petit, David Marquez, Guru-eFX

Published by Marvel Comics

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The Story

The Punisher #1 is review by Nerd Initiative’s Megan and Shawn!

Shawn – Marvel has found the perfect match when they paired Benjamin Percy with Frank Castle. Fresh off the Punisher: Red Band series, Percy jumps right in with this issue. The issue starts off a little slow, but I can appreciate that Percy is using that time to catch folks up and get them to hit the ground running if they missed out on Punisher: Red Band.

Percy’s writing in this issue just feels like some of the quintessential Punisher stories. Between this and the Red Band series, I haven’t enjoyed reading a writer’s work in Punisher this much since the Garth Ennis Punisher Max runs.

Megan – Benjamin Percy brings us a fantastic continuation of The Punisher after he was used as a brain-controlled assassin in Punisher: Red Band. Now, Frank is still feeling the aftereffects of having to carve out Kingpin’s device out of his head and is in desperate need of help. Meanwhile, what The Punisher doesn’t know is that Jigsaw is making moves and one of those moves is pointed directly at Frank.

The story of The Punisher #1 has all the things you love about Frank Castle and his stories. The grittiness, the violence, the street-level hijinks that perfectly sums up who Frank Castle is as a character, all of that Benjamin Percy excellently nailed.

The Art

Shawn – What a team. Soares, Junior, and D’Armata really capture the feel of Punisher. Starting with the very first panel you can’t help but notice that for the visual team this issue was not just a job but a labor of love. Whether you’re looking at the details of the buildings in the background or the graffiti on the subway entrance, your eyes find a new detail every time you look.

The visual team keeps this up the whole issue. I’ve always felt as a comic book fan that doing colors for Punisher may be one of the hardest gigs in comics because outside of black, white, and red what are you going to work with? D’Armata really serves as a credit to the craft with this issue choosing just the right pops of color to bring some flavor to panels. Of course the art and narrative wouldn’t work as well as it does without the work of Corey Petit helping the eyes flow and really letting the story and art merge together in a beautiful symphony of darkness and pain that have come to mark the Punisher.

Megan – With a creative team as stacked as this one, it’s a guarantee that the artwork would be spectacular. Perfectly capturing the essence of a classic Punisher story, José Luis Soares, Oren Junior, Frank D’Armata, and Cory Petit knocked it out of the park with their incredible talents. Soares and Junior bring a great deal of detailing to each and every page, with shadings that really nail the grit of the story. Frank D’Armata relies heavily on the darker tones while still adding the vibrancy to the focal points. Which brings so much depth to each page. Cory Petit nails the different tones from the different characters through the dialogue, such as Frank’s worry or Jigsaw’s unhinged planning.

Final Thoughts

Shawn – 10/10. I don’t know that Marvel could have asked for a better first issue of Punisher than this. The creative team takes the familiar “man on a mission” m.o. of Frank Castle and tweaks it adding nuance and new challenges. Percy and Company set the stage for some of the best Punisher work since the Ennis era.

Megan – 10/10. Benjamin Percy does a fantastic job with starting off this new ongoing series with a bang! The artists brought the story to life in the most impressive ways. This story could go so many ways, and they have me hooked already just by the first issue!

Overall Grade – 10/10

Let us know in the comments below what you thought of The Punisher #1!