PC POST #120: Punisher: War Zone #5

By @neil4LOST

Punisher: War Zone #5

WRITERS: Greg Rucka

ARTIST: Carmine Di Giandomenico

COLOR ARTIST: Matt Hollingsworth

LETTERS: VC’s Joe Caramagna

COVER: Marco Checchetto

EDITOR: Stephen Wacker

EDITOR IN CHIEF: Axel Alonso

CHIEF CREATIVE OFFICER: Joe Quesada

PUBLISHER: Dan Buckley

EXEC. PRODUCER: Alan Fine

Release Date: February 27th, 2012

Published monthly by Marvel Worldwide, INC.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS:

Price – $2.99

WRITING:

I have to admit...about halfway through the Punisher: War Zone series I was starting to get a little worried about the path that Rucka was headed in. I ultimately still had trust that things would come back around and fans would be able to be at peace with the end of Rucka's great run. Rucka did just that. His impactful writing of the Avengers and their interactions with Frank Castle in this final issue lived up to all my expectations and then some. I knew it would be challenging for Rucka to find an ending to the series that would satisfy hardcore fans while giving them something to look forward to for the future, but Rucka nailed it.

Rating – “A”

ARTWORK:

I had hoped that Carmine's work would grow on me over time...and in some regard it has. He is still nowhere to even being as talented and detailed as Checchetto but his work ends up not taking away or distracting from the story that Rucka is desiring to tell. There were even a few moments in this issue where I was quite impressed with the angles and detail that Carmine put into them. Overall, a nice improvement.

Rating – “B”

STORY:

(WARNING – MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS)

This final issue highlights the Avengers and the fact that they are finally fed up with the Punisher. They understand that they need to bring him in as fast as possible and hope to bring in Rachel Cole-Alves in the process.

Castle's only goal is revealed in this process. His objective is to get Cole-Alves out of town and let her make her own path. Frank is willing to sacrifice his freedom in this process. He outsmarts a few of the Avengers in the process but when is he is finally captured it is revealed that they have a prison that Frank will serve the rest of his days in...somewhere under the ocean. At the end we see Rachel Cole-Alves living out the spirit of the Punisher by helping out a woman who is being mugged in Hollywood.

Rating – “A-“

ENTERTAINMENT VALUE:

The issue overall has a ton of entertainment. From hearing Tony Stark and Spider-man rant on and on about Frank Castle to Punisher outsmarting the Avengers over and over, this one had everything readers could have hoped to see in a Punisher series versus the Avengers.

Rating – “A”

OVERAL RATING OF ISSUE:  “A-"

PC POST #119: Punisher War Zone #4 Review

posted by @ivomgs

Finally!! And sorry for not doing this review sooner but we passed some "technical" difficulties already solved and this kind of delay would not happen again.

So let's get back to the business, shall we?

War Zone #4 Review

(W)Rucka
(A) Di Giandomenico

STORY (MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS): After Thor left Frank thinking on his acts and fly way, Frank's decided to rescue sargeant Cole Alves and goes back to New York. While the Avengers try to antecipate his moves.

While Frank is in New York he finds a drug lab kill some guys inside and threatened other two give them two punisher vests.
Other cool stuff we see in this story is that Frank manages to find a security breach in Stark building and while Tony is working in some "prison" to Frank he didn't notice that Frank's is right behind him. He takes out Iron Man's suit and goes to criminal courtroom to rescue Cole Alves hitting Spider-Man with a blast while he were secure the area, meanwhile Steve Rogers and Natasha ( disguised as Cole Alves) tried to set up Frank and they got ambushed by the two guys (from the drug lab) dressed as the Punisher after some shooting Natasha captures them.

RATING: 4/5  

WRITING: Rucka's has built a strong story besides this ultra-fast paced limited series don't seem to be his style but it is very well built and very solid. Rucka's accustomed us with high quality writing and he developed a Punisher i haven't seen for a long time.. This is the Punisher i want to see in comic books.
He is tactically brilliant and very calculating, this guy thinks and not act by impulse.

RATING:5/5 


ART: Right now i'm accostumed to Di Giandomenico's art, sometimes his drawing seems sloppy but in this issue he improved comparing to the previous. Hollingsworth is doing a great job at the pencillers part, great colours and give to the characters and ambience some livid images.

RATING:3/5


ENTERTAINING VALUE: As i said before Rucka as built a strong character to a great story. Personally i wish this story never ended because i will definetely miss his writing on my favorite character. This limited series in my opinion is with the right pace i like fast paced stories specially with a character like the Punisher. I would like to see some detail in Frank's invading Stark building but i believe Rucka has to compress some details and skip forward. Tony will explain in the next issue.

RATING: 5/5

 

PC POST #118: Thunderbolts #5 preview

posted by @ivomgs

Here goes another preview, this time for Thunderbolts reaching the end of the first arc.

PC POST #117: War Zone #5 Preview

posted by @ivomgs

Damn, i'm too divided to explain how i feel about this issue... I'm glad it's finally here but in some way it's sad that this powerful run will end in a couple of days. Greg Rucka is doing a great job developing the Punisher, one of the best (if not the best) i've seen in years. In my opinion Marvel didn't do the best move to cancel this title, but who am i?

PC POST #116: Punisher 2099 - Tribute

posted by @ivomgs

Here goes another Punisher tribute, this time i will pay respect to Jake Gallows. He belongs to the 2099 universe and had an ongoing for 34 issues back in 93' ( Punisher golden era) and i add a few samples of a recent cameo in Wildstorm, when he travels to the past to take out heroes.

I hope you enjoy, feel free to check the other tributes (if you haven't checked yet) in the same channel of youtube.

PC POST #115: Way's "Thunderbolts" Uncover Shadowy and Sinister Forces

posted by @ivomgs

More news about the upcoming arcs of Thunderbolts...

The cover to "Thunderbolts" #7, featuring the Punisher and Elektra locked in a passionate embrace, suggests not all the Thunderbolts are unhappy at being forced to work together. The sight of the team's two most cold-blooded members kissing has left the other Thunderbolts wondering what exactly is going on.
"The story we're telling is not a love story. It's a perceived love story. The friction, tension and danger comes out of what certain people think is happening. It mostly plays out in other characters' imaginations," Way said. "Everyone who looks at that picture assumes they understand what's happening. We know who those characters are, so why would we think they would abruptly switch such fundamental things about themselves? Even if we think about it and it doesn't make sense that's what it looks like.
"There are a lot of characters in the book who have the same feeling. They can't reconcile what they believe is going with what is actually going on," Way continued. "It's interesting to explore whether or not the Punisher and Elektra are capable of these types of feelings anymore. Does Frank fall in love? Or is that part of him just as dead as his wife and kids? Elektra has used sex and sex appeal as a weapon for so long. So would she know to use it in any other way? Is it even possible for her to conceive of such a thing?"
Those interpersonal dynamics unfold against the backdrop of the Thunderbolts' next mission, which finds them dealing with nefarious people who have gotten their hands on some of the Marvel Universe's more fantastic military technology.
"I think a lot of writers from a certain generation fell in love with the idea of examining how superheroes would solve problems in the real world. How would they tackle the stuff you see on CNN or CNBC? Why doesn't the FF open source some of their technology and make the world better? I love asking questions like that," Way said. "I don't think it drags superheroes down -- I think it bonds them more fully to us. It closes the gap a little bit.

"In our first arc, we dealt with a puppet regime on this island nation that's within striking distance of China and the former Soviet Union. The next story arc takes place all across the Middle East, Northern Africa and in parts of present day Russia. The real world analogy would be the Cold War ordinance that's just sort of sitting around and then gets gathered up by these suddenly appearing warlords. Everybody is picking over the bones of a former super power and seeing if they can do with what Mother Russia failed to deliver on.
"I'm not saying this is about the rebirth of Communism, but they definitely use some of the tools," Way continued. "Basically we have a loose nukes style scenario involving a lot of upgraded Crimson Dynamo armors."
The Crimson Dynamo pilots and their masters won't be the only villains in the second arc of "Thunderbolts." Readers also get a glimpse at the mastermind behind some of the horrible revelations the team uncovers in the initial arc.
"This is a villain who's going to be around for quite awhile," Way said. "It's still too early to say much about this character, but this was all masterminded a long, long time ago. The plan was then broken up into billions of pieces and now it's being reassembled. It's a process that began on Kata Jaya and will then be exported."
Artist Phil Noto brings to life this mysterious mastermind and all the other major players in this arc. The artist, who is an old friend of Way's, is no stranger to stories involving super powered strike teams, having just come off of an acclaimed run on the first volume of "Uncanny X-Force."

"Due to ramping up of the shipping schedule, we brought in another artist and Phil's a great choice. Obviously the guy has big chops. He knows exactly what needs to be done with a team of this nature," Way stated. "At this point I've only seen thumbnails, but when you look at thumbnails and already get a sense of kinetic action it really frees you up as a writer. You know your artist has got it -- I don't have to take a lot of time to make sure Phil understands things.
"In our first conversation we talked about a scene taking place at a CIA headquarters in Afghanistan, this dilapidated run down hotel. I was like, 'It's a hotel that you can imagine was totally luxurious back in 1971. Since then it's just been bombed to shit and has leaky pipes and things like that,'" Way continued. "Phil was like, 'Oh yeah! I love that stuff!' It's easy for an artist to get excited about a scene involving super powered characters, but when your artist is getting excited about drawing some old janky hotel in Kabul you know it's going to be great -- especially when it's an all action scene. It's cool to have a conversation like that knowing he's going to Google image search to try and find that hotel."
The CIA continues to be a presence in the Thunderbolts' lives moving forward. Sometimes they'll be embroiled in operations where they'll clean up the Agency's messes, but other times the CIA acts in a beneficial way by exerting their influence to keep a major Marvel super team from interfering in the T-Bolts' operations.

 "It's the actions and inactions of agencies like the CIA that end up putting the Avengers at bay for now," Way continued. "The Thunderbolts have definitely popped on the Avengers radar, though. They've just done so in a way that the Avengers aren't looking to get involved because this isn't an Avengers problem. From what they're able to see it's simply not something they should get involved with."

"The Thunderbolts are out there doing what they do in the same world as the Avengers. Now, especially with some things we're planning out across Marvel, there exists a bigger level of interaction. Until that happens, we have to delay a confrontation between the Avengers and the Thunderbolts. We really want that showdown to be resonant when it happens," Way said. "We have to introduce a reason for the Avengers to not get involved in things at this point, which is simple. The mechanism used is one that happens all the time -- so much of what the CIA does is inherently compromised and hard to act upon. You can't really back them up one hundred percent because there's no way you can agree one hundred percent on what they've done. You can guarantee they're not telling you the whole truth.
When the Avengers do decide to confront the Thunderbolts, it's at the worst possible time for the team -- the Red Hulk's super powered force has their hands full for the foreseeable future, battling the various cells making up the larger organization of the mysterious mastermind introduced in the book's second arc.

"There are several villainous characters who have a piece of the larger puzzle. There's only one guy though who can put them all together. The villains are basically seeing what they want to see because they have things they want to do," Way said. "Each of these underbosses are not aware they're all being fed from a common source. All they're seeing is an availability of power they can use for their separate agendas. They don't realize it serves a larger purpose that's been mapped out by someone else.
"I wouldn't want anyone to think they should feel sorry for these guys because what they do definitely justifies a Thunderbolts response, but they're part of a bigger and ultimately much more destructive type of plan," Way continued. "Since we have this kind of ultimate team of bad asses, the worst and most disappointing thing we could have done is to put them up against people they could just mow down without much effort."

As the Thunderbolts dispatch these various villains, their war with the mysterious mastermind above these adversaries escalates, taking them into new and dangerous territories. "The more force the team exerts -- and the harder they hit -- results in exposing more of a larger and sinister plan, propelling them towards bigger action. The Thunderbolts have to get more extreme to deal with it. When you start hitting that critical mass a whole new spectrum of stories opens up," Way concluded. "The Thunderbolts are facing a many headed adversary -- what brings them deeper into this is their unquestioned assertion that evil is evil, and the solution for evil is a bullet to the head."

For the full interview check @CBR

PC POST #114: Iron Man - Rise of Technovore Synopsis + Images

posted by @ivomgs

So we got recently news about this animation movie that will feature The Punisher, it will be released on Blu-ray and DVD on April 16th.

This movie will feature: Hawkeye, Black Widow, War Machine and Nick Fury.
The cast includes Norman Reedus (The Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day and TV's The Walking Dead) as Punisher.

Heres the official synopsis:

Billionaire Tony Stark, in his Iron Man armor, prevents an attack from a mysterious new foe, but innocent bystanders are killed, including his best friend War Machine, Lt. Colonel James Rhodes. Detained for questioning by S.H.I.E.L.D., Iron Man escapes, determined to find the mastermind behind the attack. Pursued by Black Widow and Hawkeye, Iron Man enlists the help of the ruthless vigilante The Punisher. But can the Armored Avenger handle what he finds when he catches the person responsible and is forced to face his deadliest weapon, a biotechnology called Technovore that could wipe out all life on the planet?

Some images has been released:

Keep following us for more news about this animation!

PC POST #113: Marvel Universe Vs. (series) Punisher Tribute

posted by @ivomgs

Hi there Punisher fans, this is my second tribute to our favorite character.
Now i have focused on the marvel cannibals all through Wolverine, Avengers and Punisher comics.

I hope you guys like it!

Thanks for watching!

PC POST #112: Thunderbolts #4 preview

Can the team trust the Red Hulk to lead them?

                                              The return of the gamma-powered MADMAN!
                                              The Thunderbolts first mission is going off the rails!

This is on sale 6th of February. BUY IT!