“Punisher Vs. The Amazing Spider-Man #1” Review

Story

Punisher Vs. The Amazing Spider-Man #1 features a classic Marvel team-up between the title characters as Frank Castle (AKA The Punisher) recruits our friendly neighborhood wall-crawler (AKA Spider-Man, AKA Peter Parker) to take down a powered up mob boss. Frank wants to train Spidey to make him a more efficient and more effective hero. Spidey wants to get Frank to stick to non-lethal methods. The result is a fun, odd-couple story that will appeal to fans of both the dark, brooding death-bringer and the ever-quipping web-slinger.

Writer: Dan Abnett

Artist: Matteo Della Fonte

Colors: Rachelle Rosenberg

Letterer: VC’s Joe Caramagna

Writing

Dan Abnett knocked this book right out of Central Park! I don’t know how he did it, but Abnett managed to make this story feel like something I might’ve read in the 80’s. Spider-Man is cracking-wise while cracking heads and his quips are genuinely hilarious! The Punisher is the strong, silent type we’ve come to expect, but not to the extreme that most modern takes on the character portray him. He’s capable of communicating with words, but he’s stingy with them. It may be the best version of Frank Castle I’ve read even if it’s not the best Punisher, if that makes sense?

The villains are, oddly, throwaway characters made up for this story. With the deep well of characters available to pull from, it would have been a nice touch to use some recognizable faces or at least some deep cut characters. It’s a choice that does keep the focus firmly on our protagonists and their relationship as they try their best to work with each other.

Abnett does some of his best work here as he explores the stark contrast between two characters that, on the surface, have nothing in common. But the more they learn about each other, the more they start to see similarities that drive the relationship forward. It’s fresh and interesting and I’m excited to see where this is going.

Art

This was my introduction to Mateo Della Fonte and, I gotta say, this guy is fantastic! His style reminds me of the late, great John Cassaday mixed with a bit of John Buscema which added to that nostalgic feeling I mentioned earlier. There is a simple elegance that is on display, achieving some nice detail without excessive line work. Rachelle Rosenberg’s color work is gorgeous and artificially reproduces the old 4-color printing process while still feeling modern. The book is beautiful from cover to cover.

Final Thoughts

If you’re a fan of Spider-man or the Punisher or both, you will not be disappointed with this book. It delivers on every level. I had mid-level expectations because I thought this would be a cash grab by Marvel, capitalizing on the Punisher’s upcoming MCU feature film debut in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. But, thank goodness, I was wrong. This is obviously a passion project by a creative team that loves these characters and poured their hearts onto the page. This made me feel things a comic hasn’t made me feel in decades. It feels effortless as if the characters wrote themselves. Don’t sleep on this one!

Overall Grade: 10/10