Posted in: Comics, Marvel Comics | Tagged: frank castle, Guiu Vilanova, james rhodes, Marvel Comics, marvel legacy, Matthew Rosenberg, the defenders, The Punisher, war machine

Marvel Legacy Punisher #218 Review: Iron Punishment

An arm's deal takes place in an abandoned warehouse in Brooklyn (the abandoned warehouse capital of the world from what I can tell). A local dealer is selling merchandise to Chernayan heavies whom intend to take the stock back to their homeland.

Unfortunately for them, the Punisher is on their trail, and the result is a bloodbath worthy of Frank Castle.

Someone was watching this, and they have a proposition for the Punisher.

There are a couple of things that feel worth getting out of the way before we proceed here.

I like the Punisher. He is a deranged mass murderer who takes out some of the worst of humanity. Watching Jon Bernthal bash the brains in of that pawn shop guy who tried to sell him child porn is one of the high points of Daredevil season two.

There are legions of questionable and problematic qualities to the character and his depictions across his nigh-43 years of existence. I don't think people should idolize him or perceive him as an outright hero. He is, at best, a wish-fulfillment character for anyone who ever saw a news story about someone raping and murdering a child and wished, even for a second, that they could mete out vigilante justice on the scumbag who did it.

I get that. I feel that at times in my bloodthirsty lizard-brain. I'm not really proud of it, but it's a part of me. The Punisher feeds that for me, and I know I'm not alone there.

I don't think Marvel should bury him as a character as some have insinuated in the past. I do think they need to remain very careful with how they present him so it isn't considered a good thing to idolize a gun-toting maniac with temper on par with Alex Jones in a room full of sexually active gay frogs.

There's also something else here that I haven't really seen people talking a lot about yet, and it's an interesting detail in the new Punisher arc.

As you can see from the cover, Frank Castle has taken the War Machine mantle. When has a white character in mainstream comics ever adopted the title of a nonwhite established hero before? What does that mean from a metatextual standpoint?

I'm not even saying it's a good thing or a bad thing; I'm just curious what some of the analysis on that has been and will be. What does it mean in the greater context of black representation in culture?

Anywho, back to the story itself (even though all of that was still relevant to the story at hand). Matthew Rosenberg puts forward a good first impression with this issue of Punisher. It's balls-to-the-wall intense action with a lot of bad people getting shot a whole lot. The Punisher is silent and intimidating, being treated like the underworld bogeyman he has become.

The reason he goes after the War Machine armor is actually pretty interesting and entertaining. His contact there is a very familiar face, and his interactions with the Punisher are pretty funny.

Speaking of faces, I'm glad we can all agree that Jon Bernthal's Punisher is easily among the best depictions of the character, because Frank looks exactly like Jon Bernthal in the interior art. Guiu Vilanova draws the Punisher to look exactly like his Netflix's Daredevil persona, and it threw me off for a moment. I'm not saying it's a bad thing; I love Bernthal as Castle. But it's prominent in a way I've not really seen outside of Marcus taking up the mantle of Nick Fury.

The art is really good here. Vilanova paints a cruel and dim world full of gore and grime. Shadows are used well, and Frank is often depicted like a force of nature. The coloring is dark, and the atmosphere is very oppressive. The art team did a fine job with this new outing for Frank Castle.

Punisher #218 is an intriguing and exciting new step for the Frank Castle's life of shooting bad guys. He's as grim and angry as ever, the War Machine shake-up is an interesting new direction, and the book is appropriately ultraviolent. If you can groove on the Punisher's motif, then this comic is easily for you, and I can highly recommend it to you.

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