PC POST #386: -REVIEW- THE PUNISHER #17

 Becky Cloonan's 17th issue of her Punisher series comes to an end with a bittersweet taste.

The problem I had with this particular issue is that the Punisher behavior didn't make any sense. And once again he put innocent lives in danger. Like it happened to the homeless veteran a couple of issues ago.

The storytelling of this issue is very compressed and in terms of action is very straightforward while we are constantly being teased for the main event. The fight with the Punisher and Face.

The fight was enjoyable and even the contribute from the supporting characters was very important to the conclusion of this fight. 

I still don't understand why he let that actress and the director be in this fight or even let the director film his own actions to take out Face.

Matt Horak's art continues to keep his own quality, I get the feeling the more he would've worked on this issue the better he would become. 

The splash scenes were good and every panel of the fight between Face and Frank was worth it. There were a few dark panels and like issue #14 I really liked how Horak draws dark pages. Great shadows and pretty detailed despite the lack of "light".

The cover was decent. Not the best I've seen in this run but decent. Different than I am used to seeing in a Punisher comic. I didn't like the pattern of skulls in the back but overall it was a very decent.

Overall Rate: 7 out of 10

The final verdict of the run: Becky Cloonan portrayed one hell of a Frank Castle. Probably the most accurate to the classic stories of the past decades. He punished evildoers with everything he got like Bear traps, swords and all kinds of crazy stuff. I have to give it to Cloonan she imprinted one hell of diversity tools that Frank handle it perfectly. It might not be for everyone's taste but it was good for me. This Frank Castle doesn't mess around with or without weapons.

The best moment of this comic was around issue 13 to 15. I freaking love those one-shot stories, I think this was the best Punisher Cloonan could offer. It was great seeing the Punisher dealt with common problems aside from the "super stuff" like the EMC.

The weak point was the main arc of this comic, I've said it in many reviews that 12 issues for the Condor arc were too much. Long arcs don't work with the Punisher. The formula doesn't need to be reinvented. 5/6 issues one arc. It just took too long to finish this storyline.

The fact that Steve Dillon passed away was a huge blow to this comic. Matt Horak dealt with his own way which was good but no one can be Dillon and like no one can be Matt Horak.

Horak gives his best and I think, honestly he was up to the task. But, Steve Dillon was born for this kind of storyline that Cloonan wanted to tell.

My only regrets for this run was that I haven't seen Cloonan's interior art and didn't have a good amount of one-shot stories, those good "domestic" storylines that I grow up with.

Overall Rate for the Run: 7.5 out of 10.

PC POST #379: -REVIEW- THE PUNISHER #16

Penultimate issue is out and puts together old foes. The Punisher and Face... With many updates to his own skillset!

Sadly Becky Cloonan's Punisher run is coming to an end. One more issue to go right when she found the perfect formula for her to portray the character. But she will not tap out until she wrapped up an old settle between Frank and Face. 

This issue is fast paced and the Punisher was conveniently placed in the right spot of the action meaning in the hospital that Face was recovering.

Most of this issue is about the Punisher vs Face and what an upgrade Face had. His face is now shaped like a skull and his body assimilated the overdose of EMC that will make him stronger and faster by default.

These two had a great fight in several pages being Face physically superior but Frank tactically smart to overcome that lack of strength.

The dialogue was good and the bit of humor was on point, without turning this issue into a comedy. I have to give credit to Cloonan for making Face a more interesting character than it was for 12 issues and my only regret is that she could make all these changes way back and make the first two arcs way more interesting than it was in the first place.

On the other hand, I'm glad she could catch up with good quality issues and now we will wrap up this story with a bang, next issue.

Matt Horak's art was really good. Since the last issue, the artwork seems to improved a lot. The battle between Frank and Face was graphically on top with great colors and especially the fight that occurred in the flames.

Now, I will give credits to Horak to make Face one of the most creepy Punisher villains I've ever seen. He remembered me a lot of another Punisher villain called Deke Wainscroft back into the graphic novel P.O.V.

Derrick Wainscroft

Face

The cover was once again superb with Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire delivering a creepy tooth of Face. With of course a skull in between the front teeth. It's curious, in every Punisher cover they draw always a skull. Sometimes it's not so visible but it's always there. Great touch by these two writers!

Overall Rate: 8.5 / 10

Review by Ivo Santos ( FB / Twitter )

PC POST #373: -REVIEW- THE PUNISHER #15

Simple and compressed. This should be standard for most of the Punisher stories, it's a simple "recipe" that it's been unused for awhile now until Becky Cloonan step up and show how it's done.

Issue #15 tells us a story of a serial killer who is pushing innocent people into the front of the trains and we will see Frank Castle hunting him down.

 In the first issues of this comic, Becky Cloonan shows how bad this villain is and easily make the reader asking for some kind of punishment. 

This guy in with a trench coat is far from being the worst villain the Punisher faced in the current run, but he is a man who knows his surroundings and the Punisher goes into his own "turf" which reveals to be a difficult task.

Cloonan introduced a secondary character called Ryan, a homeless that lived in the underground and was a great help to Frank. Frank recognized that Ryan was a former lieutenant and he pretty much offers his help to Frank to catch this killer, Frank accepted.  

This was the only negative point of this story in my opinion. Not because of the character which was great but the way Frank easily accepted his help putting his life in danger.

On the other side, it was great seeing the empathy of two former military men joining forces to the same goal and Cloonan explored very well the relationship between them.

Matt Horak did a great work on this issue. So far and in my opinion, this was his best work since he picked up the Punisher title. Very solid artwork with a great motion in the action scenes between characters. The backgrounds were great even the crowd who were in the background were well defined. 

Lee Loughridge was a huge help in the coloring of this issue, the tone was perfect for an underground scene.

Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire continues to impress with amazing covers and this is no exception. It's an action scene that reminds me the old 90's beat em up games with Frank wasting some bad guys in the subway.

OVERALL RATE: 7.5 / 10

Posted by Ivo Santos (FB / Twitter)

PC POST #366: -REVIEW- THE PUNISHER #14

Becky Cloonan decided to tell us another "one-shot" format story without any link to the previous issues and it worked pretty well once again.

It's been awhile since we had these kinds of stories, but for the Punisher compressed stories with 1 or 2 issues it would work like a charm instead of big arcs.

The premise of this story was good. A huge blackout creates the perfect opportunity for predators to prey on the weak and this is pretty much what is all about. We will see the Punisher dealing with many situations on the streets due to this blackout.

Like the last issue, this new format of storytelling is based on the old standalone stories of the classic Punisher runs that started with Mike Baron as the writer. So every new reader, old or new fans can start to pick up these books without knowing what happened in the previous issues.

Cloonan tells us a compressed story with simple elements but with good action. It's great to see Frank solving "street level" problems without any fancy stuff that normally appears in the current Marvel Universe. This remembered me a lot of some Punisher MAX one-shots that were released years ago.

Cloonan took Frank Castle to a new level in terms of "accessories". Not only he puts down bad guys with his usual guns but he kills them with everything he gets. Being swords or electrifying cables. This is what I call diversity!

Cloonan shows that the Punisher continues to be merciless with cold kills but on the other side more "hero". The events of this story make him save as many people as he could without any sort of premeditation of taking down someone specifically. Only with a handgun and everything he could take on the way to put down criminals.  

Matt Horak presented us with a good artwork and he played very well with it. With all the "blackout" panels Matt Horak gave an extra darkness to the Punisher and the action scenes are really well made.

This issue was mostly "black" but it gives some edge to Horak focus his art on the details that matter the most, the characters and the actions.

As I said in the previous reviews, this formula works! Short stories, one or two issues, solving "street level" problems as if a MAX story would work but only with one issue. It's been good these past two issues and I want to see more! Sadly this run will end in three issues.

Overall Rate: 8.0 / 10 

Posted by Ivo Santos (FB/Twitter)

PC POST #361: THE PUNISHER solicitations for October 2017!

Finally, it was released the Punisher solicitations for October by Newsarama and we are presented with a new and probably the most awaited series from a few years back!

Seat back.

The Punisher MAX: Platoon: #1 & #2

Garth Ennis (W) & Goran Parlov (A&C)

The Punisher was born in Vietnam, Frank Castle had already become a dark legend of the battlefield. Stories about him were told in whispers, if at all. Now the legendary Punisher team of Garth Ennis and Goran Parlov (PUNISHER MAX, FURY MAX) brings the first of those stories to light: the tale of Frank Castle’s first command and his first kill. Don’t miss this epic new series!

32 PGS. (EACH)/MAX/Parental Advisory …$3.99 (EACH)

The Punisher #17

Becky Cloonan (W), Matt Horak (A) Declan Shalvey (Cover)

STARING DEATH IN THE FACE!

• FACE was a live wire in the wilderness. In New York City, he’s an armed bomb…

• And THE PUNISHER is all that stands between him and 8 million souls…but he’ll have to blend in with high society to do it.

• A confrontation we’ve been building to since issue #1, and Frank Castle in a TUX! You ALREADY KNOW you CAN’T miss this!

32 PGS./Parental Advisory …$3.99

It's curious that there is nothing about The Punisher#218: Frank Castle War Machine when most of the Legacy titles will start in October. Which leads me to believe that we will have that story later this year.
The Punisher: End of Days miniseries is not seen in this solicitations. We will probably get it next year. 

-Posted by Ivo Santos (FB/twitter)

PC POST #352: -REVIEW- THE PUNISHER #12 (2016)

The conclusion of Condor arc is here but there is only a few good things out of this issue...

This run has been a complete rollercoaster, with great issues and some not as good as it should be. The fight between Frank and Olaf ends after 12 pages, it's brutal and pure brawl but the artwork of Matt Horak doesn't seem so consistent as previous issue specially in the last pages.

(W) Cloonan (A) Horak
(C) Frank Martin (CA) Declan Shalvey
& Jordie Bellaire

In my opinion Cloonan did some mistakes in this issue with Frank. I mean, at the end of issue #11, Olaf challenged Frank to fight hand to hand on an iceberg when Frank was armed and with ground advantage to kill him off easily ( Frank was in the boat). But in issue #12, while fighting Olaf, Frank missed his guns. The big question is... why he let the guns sink with the boat? Why didn't he shoot Olaf when he had the weapons and ground advantage (Olaf was in the iceberg and Frank in the boat).

I can see that Cloonan is portraying a heroic and honorable Frank Castle by fighting Olaf hand to hand , but he doesn't play by the heroes rules, he's smarter than that.

The fight itself was good, it makes you feel hooked while you are reading it, The fight scenes were well built by Cloonan and Horak.

The artwork is solid but my grip was in the last pages when Frank is seen with a different face design. I can understand that the hair has grown, but the face looks a bit different specially the jaw. I really like Matt's artwork but didn't understood why the sudden change in Frank's face... 

Aside from this, the action scenes were perfectly portrayed and choreographed in every panel.

Frank Martin did a great work specially in the day scenes where the fight between Frank and Olaf was placed.

Again great cover by Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire, it's far from being my favorite cover but it's a great one too. I think it lacks a bit of color ( of course! It's a glacier theme,,,) and the characters lack a bit more of detail.

Conclusion: With the end of this arc, i think it took too long to end this Condor chapter. I'm more a fan of compressed stories and a 6 issues arc would be enough instead of 12. But it's far from being a bad run, not at all. It's been quite decent run with very good moments and with a Frank who is like a force of nature who doesn't compromise.

It was too bad that the main bad guys couldn't be punished, they will eventually, but i don't know if they can show something interesting to pull them back into the game and keep things interesting.

Pros:

Good fighting scenes with Frank and Olaf;

The Punisher is back in New York!

Cons: 

The main villains were unpunished;

Significant changes in Frank's face. 

OVERALL RATE: 7 / 10

Posted by @ivomgs

PC POST #348: -REVIEW- THE PUNISHER #11 (2016)

(W) Becky Cloonan / (A) Matt Horak
(C) Frank Martin / (Cover) Declan Shalvey
& Jordie Bellaire

The Punisher #11 is out and it was a blast! Clearly the best issue of the current run!

I can't describe how much fun i had reading this comic book, the storytelling and artwork were in perfect harmony.

Punisher #11 is like 80's movie in terms of action with minimal dialogue and straight up to business, this issue marked a fighting for survival with a cornered and wounded "animal" (Frank Castle) outgunned and outnumbered.

Becky Cloonan did a great work in the passed few issues, in former issues there was some dull moments and sometimes it gave me the feeling that i was lost in terms of storyline. 

But clearly she did set up the story very well and at this point and the results are seen in this issue. The final objectives of Condor are clear, agent Ortiz seems to find the right path and Frank has to close this chapter, that eventually it will be concluded next issue.

Matt Horak and Frank Martin did one hell of a job (again) on this issue. Matt because of his amazing splash pages and scenes during the fight scenes that last for at least 15 pages. Great hand to hand fighting with Frank using all the elements around him to take out dozens of Condor mercs.

Frank Martin set up a dark tone and amazing colors to this issue, once again he let Horak's artwork be even more amazing.

Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire are the perfect team for the covers of this run. Great creative team and how they set up this cover with a perfect aligned sharks formed the eyes and nose and the rocks bellow the ocean formed the teeth of the skull.

The bodies below the ocean and the boat described perfectly what was this story.

The Good:

-Great action;

-Good artwork;

-Compressed storytelling;

-Great cover.

Not so Good:

-

Overall Rate: 9 / 10

posted by @ivomgs

PC POST #344: -REVIEW- THE PUNISHER #10 (2016)

Punisher #10 finally arrived and it doesn't disappoint me as a long time Punisher fan.

After the last issue (#09), with only one page of Frank Castle, we finally got what we deserved. A strong presence of the main character in his own comic.

Becky Cloonan presented us some sort of compressed issue with a top notch action with Frank Castle attacking Condor's. 

We final learned the ultimate plans of Condor's but we got a twist near the end that will be questionable why Olaf took "that" action so late.

Becky Cloonan and Matt Horak gave us one great issue, good action, writing and great artwork.

The action was good like the old school Punisher issues when he storms a place killing everyone on sight.

Cloonan's is building a strong female characters like Ortiz and the lady of Condor's that got herself a face burn on issue #8.

The carnage and violence were good, the combo between the axe and the bear trap was great. Seeing the Punisher with these weapons attacking the Condor's compound would need a seriously creative imagination and this creative team just deliver it. There are some over-the-top action panels but the Punisher is like that.

Matt Horak did an amazing job on this issue. Specially when his art was pushed to the limit during the splash scenes. 

Horak's art is improving in every issue and in the close up panels when we see the details of the characters are really amazing.

I've been a fan of Guru-eFx for since his coloring work in Thunderbolts. Today he kept doing what i've been writing for years about him. He really add even more quality to Horak's art and gave life to splash scenes and make even more entertaining the comic book. 

The Good:

-Compressed storytelling;

-Artwork and coloring;

-Action;

-The soldier lady from Condor's.

Not so Good:

-Face is still breating.

OVERALL RATE : 8.5 / 10

Posted by Ivo Santos (@ivomgs)



  

PC POST #341: -REVIEW- PUNISHER #9 (2016)

Punisher #8 is out, with less Punisher but more Agent Ortiz... And it doesn't have to be all that bad.

For those waiting to see a kick ass action scenes with the Punisher, might be disappointed, because there is only one page with him.

But overall it's far from being a boring comic, specially with the art of Matt Horak that gave a great dynamic to the comic with the storytelling of Becky Cloonan.

Becky Cloonan gave a chance to Ortiz to develop a bit more in this comic. It was important, in the past issues Ortiz seemed kind of obsessed with the Punisher instead of putting down the guy responsible for the death of his partner Henderson.

Ortiz is a kick ass character and we can see that in this issue specially in the scenes with Face.

We could have a bit more of the Punisher, sadly we got only one page with a few panels, as a Punisher fan i didn't like it but his lack of appearance was sacrificed with some characters development like Ortiz and Face.

I really liked the artwork, Matt Horak seems the right man to this book, i'm still on the fence about the details of his characters in a distance, but his "close ups" are really amazing and very detailed.

I have to give a special credit to the "crash scene" and the explosion in the Olaf's house. 

Frank Martin, the guy from the "background" is part of the success of Horak's work, like he did with Dillon's. Great coloring and very adequate to the tone of this series.

Decent cover by Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire, this time i'm not surprised with this cover. In fact it's my least favorite of this series, but hey, it's still a very decent artwork. But to me, not at the same level as for example last issue.

Overall i didn't felt so engaged like the previous issues, in terms of plot, but i liked that Cloonan could develop a bit more of Ortiz and Face. I was very surprised how the house of Olaf exploded, didn't saw that coming... i was expecting a simpler trap but nothing so extreme, specially to put his wife and kid in great danger. 

Let's hope we have more "Punisher" in the upcoming issue.

The Good:

-Good development of Ortiz and Face; 

-Great artwork and coloring.

Not so Good:

- Lack of appearence of the main character in this issue;

-Face is still around, barely, but still is.

Overall Rate: 7.0 out of 10

Posted by Ivo Santos (FB/Twitter)

PC POST #337: -REVIEW- THE PUNISHER #7

Punisher #7 marks the last pages of Steve Dillon, unfortunately he didn't finish this issue but Matt Horak stepped in to end this issue and will replace Dillon's as the main artist of this run.

Becky Cloonan didn't dropped the quality of this issue. But when i was reading it felt like a "filler". There was no huge improvements in the plot or any important events for upcoming issues.

On the other side, Becky Cloonan and Matt Horak built an amazing brawl fight between the Punisher and a few members of the Condor, gritty violence, pure fun and entertainment, almost like a western but with a significant amount of gore.

I think its about time that Face can meet his end and about time to see more action from Olaf (which i believe we will see next issue).

The artwork of this comic was divided by Steve Dillon and Matt Horak. There are five pages of Dillon's in this comic and it really gave that nostalgic feeling that he was born to make this comic. Nothing really fancy but it was really enjoyable to see his last work on this.

Matt Horak did a very good job, the first time i read this comic it didn't felt somewhat "off" but after two more reads it looks good.

It seems that Horak tried to adapt his style to Dillon's, it was expectable and understandable, because of the few pages of Dillon's art in this comic but i prefer that he can make his own design in the upcoming issues. I didn't like the look of Frank's face in some panels.

The bar fight was amazing and very well constructed, without a doubt my favorite bar fight i ever read.

The cover from Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire is a masterpiece like they used to do in this current run. Pretty much in context if it was released last issue but in terms of art it's amazing.

Frank Martin as the colorist did a good artwork, in the brawl fight scenes the splash pages are simply amazing.

The editor Jake Thomas did a great tribute to Steve Dillon in the letters page to a great artist with his own style and great storyteller. He will be missed.

Overall Rate: 7 / 10

posted by @ivomgs

PC POST #334: PUNISHER Solicitations for March 2017

THE PUNISHER Solicitations for March 2017

PUNISHER #10

Becky Cloonan (W), Matt Horak (A), Declan Shalvey (C).

* Agent Ortiz is no longer hunting Frank with the D.E.A. Now, as they say, it's personal.

* Agent Ortiz is now up against both the Punisher and an entire deadly mercenary outfit.

* Agent Ortiz might be in trouble.

Editor note: Is it me or did i just seen something similar happening in the last run by Nathan Edmondson, when Agent Stone turn against Frank and hunting him down?

DOCTOR STRANGE/PUNISHER: MAGIC BULLETS #4

John Barber (W), Andrea Broccardo (A), Jason Muhr (A), Michael Walsh (C)

* Using dark magic, a mobster family has transformed into monstrous beings of unbelievable power!

* With Doctor Strange working on being more grounded and the Punisher trying to adjust to magic, this mismatched pair has their work cut out for them.

posted by Ivo Santos | @ivomgs