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@ivomgs
Bad news guys, our Punisher title will be cancelled by Marvel after the War-Zone arc.
The good news is that Greg Rucka said that the Punisher will be integrated in a team.
The writer bids adieu to the baddest mother in the Marvel Universe.
by Joey Esposito
July 17, 2012
In a
bittersweet announcement at Comic-Con,
Marvel revealed that
Greg Rucka and
Marco Checchetto’s run on The Punisher – a book we love so much we nominated it for
Best New Series
last year – was coming to an end. However, the finale of the series
will spin out into a five issue mini-series dubbed The Punisher: War
Zone. We caught up with writer Greg Rucka to find out what’s next for
Frank Castle.
Please note that this interview was conducted before the cancellation of the series had been revealed.
IGN Comics: Back when we were initially chatting before Punisher #1 even came out,
Fear Itself was going on at the time and you mentioned that the greater
Marvel Universe had bigger things to worry about than what Frank Castle
was doing. So now he seems to be declaring war on the Avengers –
Greg Rucka: No! No he doesn’t! That is a
misassumption based on promotional images and the tile or something. He
doesn’t declare war on them. They declare war on him.
IGN: Well, what makes this the time for the big conflict between the two parties?
Rucka: They notice him and they can’t ignore him. It
really is as simple as that. Something has occurred and they cannot in
good conscience go, “You know what? We’ll just pretend that’s not
happening and continue on our merry way.” Something has happened and
they have to respond.
IGN: Is this something that happens in the mini-series itself or does this carry over from the ongoing book?
Rucka: It comes out of Punisher. It will be, of course, reflected in War Zone. Its genesis is absolutely in Punisher.
IGN: Cool. So then I guess my next question would be: What kind of a chance does Frank Castle stand against the Avengers?
Rucka: Better than you might think, but not as good as he would like. They
are
the Avengers, you know? [laughs] There’s only so much prep you can do.
There’s only so long that your luck is going to hold. I think Frank
knows that any conflict with the Avengers only ends one way. There is a
certain tactical awareness that he has that makes him not as easy a
target as they think he’s going to be. By the same token, well, I don’t
want to give stuff away. Suffice it to say that he will deal with them
as best as he can, but I never believed in a Frank Castle that would go
around murdering heroes, because they are
heroes. If Thor goes
on a rampage and starts killing people, then Frank’s not really going to
have a problem with trying to end him. His ability to do that is a
different question entirely. [laughs] But his desire to do so, that, to
me, doesn’t exist. Ideally, Frank wants to be left alone to do what he
does.
“
Frank knows that any conflict with the Avengers only ends one way.
The problem is he lives in the Marvel Universe where he’s not going to
be allowed to do that once the decision is made and they say, “You’re
killing people and that’s bad. You have done it now in such a way that
requires us to bring our attention to you.” Well, he has to respond in
the same way that they do. This isn’t a good guy/bad guy thing. This is
very much a superhero comic because it’s got the Avengers for God’s
sake, but at the same time this isn’t about Frank deciding that the
Avengers are a corrupt and evil force in the universe that must be
stopped. By the same token, the Avengers aren’t turning around and
going, “Well, he’s public enemy #1.” They are forced into a situation
where they have go, “We have to answer this.” It’s not a place I think
either team really wishes to be, in aggregate.
On another level, I think Spider-Man would be like, “We should’ve
done this years ago! He needs to be stopped! The man’s a menace! He’s
murdering people and I have a problem with that!” The fact that they
haven’t gotten off their asses to do anything about it is due primarily
to having higher priorities but also because they didn’t want the
headache. The Avengers aren’t going to kill him, so what are they going
to do? They’re going to capture and incarcerate. Well, that’s not really
a problem for Frank. This isn’t as simple for the Avengers as going,
“We’ve got to stop him.” How do you stop him? How do you stop him short
of killing him? That’s a problem they’re going to have to deal with.
IGN: You mentioned that this spins out of something that
happens in the Punisher series. So is there a particular reason that War
Zone happens in its own mini-series? Is there a reason you wanted it
separate or is that a Marvel decision?
Rucka:
Well, it’s a combination of things. The story in Punisher was reaching a
terminus. There was a sort of second act of that terminus which
involved the Avengers and always did. At some point a few months ago I
was informed that Marvel wanted to end the book and would be spinning
Punisher out into a different team book and I wouldn’t be writing it. So
[Steve] Wacker and I talked about how we were going to wrap this up. It
was Steve who proposed that maybe it’ll serve us better if we end the
run in the way we want to end it, and then we can do this as its own
stand-alone coda to it.
So if you’re reading the series, you’re going to be able to read War
Zone and go, “Okay, this all follows.” There’s a logic and causality.
But you don’t have to read Punisher to enjoy War Zone because seeing how
it got to that point, that’s going to be explained easily and very
quickly on the first page of War Zone pretty much. But as a package, it
works very well.
IGN: Cool. Well, that’s a huge bummer about the book, man. I didn’t know that.
Rucka: Yeah, well, now you do! It was a bummer to me
too, but you know, this is the name of the game. You work in a
corporate environment for corporate-owned characters, they own the
characters and at some point they say they don’t like the numbers or
what you’re doing or somebody else had an idea they want to do, you say,
“Yes, sir.” You do the best you can with it. The nice thing here is
that we’re still telling the story we always set out to tell.
IGN: That’s good.
Rucka: Yeah. That was never compromised; Marvel never asked for that to be compromised.
IGN: So that being said, does Rachel Cole-Alves have a role in War Zone itself?
Rucka: She is absolutely integral to the events, yeah.
IGN: Does putting Frank in this larger universe environment
have any sort of a learning curve as compared to writing him when he’s
in his own little pocket of the Marvel U?
Rucka: Learning curve for me, or for Frank?
IGN: How about both?
Rucka: My feeling is that Frank has always imagined
that this day was coming, one way or another. He knows where he stands
in the universe and I feel very strongly that, as I’ve said elsewhere, I
don’t think Frank’s position is a political position, it’s a personal
position. I don’t think he looks at Daredevil and says, “Well, you’re
wrong and you have to be stopped because you’re dangerous.” I think he
looks at somebody like Spider-Man and I think Frank recognizes his
heroism. He knows they’re heroes and he also knows that he is not. He’s
doing what he must do. He will argue to the end of his days – if he were
willing to even engage in the argument – that what he must do must be
done. So for him, this does not really take him by surprise. He has
contingencies; the man has contingencies for his contingencies.
And for me, yeah. This is a gear change. It’s not even a gear change,
it’s a vehicle change. I’ve been driving a military Humvee through the
inner city for the last 16 issues of Punisher and now all of a sudden
I’ve got to get into a Maserati. The game absolutely changes the second
you’ve got Iron Man in the mix; the second you’ve got Thor and Cap in
the mix. There’s just no way that doesn’t leave an effect. Frank still
lives on the ground, but now he’s got to be looking up a lot more.
IGN: Now, Marco’s handling the art duties on War Zone. With
him doing that, can you say who’ll be working on the issues of Punisher
leading up to that?
Rucka: Marco!
IGN: Oh, wow! He’s a machine.
Rucka: Yeah. Marco is doing #15 and #16 of Punisher and then he’s doing War Zone #1-5.
IGN: Awesome. Well, my next question was if you’d be handling
Punisher for a while longer, but I guess you answered that earlier…
Rucka: Now you know! [laughs]
IGN: Well, okay, that being out there – do you have any further work coming up in the Marvel Universe?
Rucka: Not at this moment. Nothing planned beyond War Zone.
IGN: Is there anything you wanted to add about War Zone or your time on Punisher in general?
Rucka:
I love the character. The writer’s curse is that the more you fall in
love with the work you’re doing the more I think it shows. Writing Frank
has been far more fun and far more rewarding than I ever thought it
would be when Wacker proposed the gig to me. Saying goodbye to Frank is
bittersweet. That said, War Zone – I think, I hope, I pray – will be an
exciting and fun sendoff. It’s been very grim and gritty in the first 16
issues of Punisher. One of the things that you immediately get when you
add the Avengers to the equation is quite literally you get more color.
It brightens the world, even if Frank’s presence in it is a dark one. I
think that War Zone is going to be a lot of fun. I think the
interactions aren’t going to be exactly what people expect, either.
While the Avengers agree that
something has to be done, they don’t agree on
what has to be done or how to go about doing it.
IGN: I guess another question I have is that back when we were talking about the Omega Effect, you said that you and Mark Waid had more stuff planned. Has that been altered now with the end of the Punisher book?
Rucka: Honestly, I’m not sure. I haven’t finished
the War Zone scripts yet, and there is something that Mark and I had
discussed at length that I mentioned back in the Omega Effect
discussion. This is what I was referring to. I was referring to War
Zone. Finding the appropriate way to bring in Daredevil is something I
still want to do, but that is contingent on, more than anything, Mark’s
willingness to let me play ball. I don’t want to go in and say, “I’m
doing this!” and have him go, “Wait a minute…” That’s just rude!
[laughs]
IGN: That’s all I’ve got for you. I’m sorry to hear about the book, but I’ve really enjoyed the run, so great work, man.
Rucka: Thank you. I’m hoping that people that stuck
with us will stick with us through this, too. Like I said, it’s not a
joy having to depart, but by the same token, it’s nice to be able to do
it the way we want to.
IGN interview
