This Week In Comics: 5/9/2012

This week in comics, owls get pissed at Batman, the Punisher fights zombies but stubbornly refuses to get at all groovy, and Vertigo drops a new anthology of sci-fi shorts.

Okay, he gets a LITTLE groovy.

This Week In Comics: 4/18/2012

This week in comics, Wonder Woman #8 takes us to the underworld, the Avengers and the X-Men hit each other some more, and

It's important to point out that this is the greatest cover in the history of comics. Basically.

Review: The Punisher #7

The Punisher #7

I’ll admit, part of the reason you haven’t seen too many reviews of The Punisher popping up lately is, I lost interest.  Though the book opened strong, a detour featuring the Vulture was too campy to keep up the tone of the book, and a tightening financial situation made me decide to drop it.  But I like Rucka and Lark too much to stay away for long, and with sales on the title dropping like a rock and a bit of Christmas cash in my pocket, I decided to dive back in and see where things stood while I still could.

Review: The Punisher #2

I mentioned briefly last month that The Punisher #1 read more like a horror comic than a conventional action book, but I never said why.  Though The Punisher #2 is a much more conventional issue than the formally daring opener, that idea holds: not only is The Punisher seemingly being written as a horror comic, but as a horror comic in which the monster is the good guy, and everyone else is even worse.

Review: The Punisher #1

Let it never be said that Marvel doesn’t know how to launch a book.  Following hot on the heels of Bendis’ dark, well-received Moon Knight and Waid’s lighter, pitch-perfect Daredevil comes the third in a series of heavily hyped relaunches: Greg Rucka and Marco Checchetto, working together on The Punisher.  Three high profile books, three high profile creative teams, and three high profile success stories so far.  The Punisher isn’t the strongest of the books, but Rucka and Checchetto’s innovative take on the character is just as daring and fascinating as either of the other two.

The Unread Canon #10: The Punisher MAX: Up Is Down and Black Is White

“Up Is Down and Black Is White” is the fourth volume of Garth Ennis’ run on The Punisher MAX, and while it isn’t as strong as “In the Beginning” was, it’s leagues ahead of the last arc, the weakest in the series so far, “Mother Russia”.  The arc follows the Punisher, Frank Castle, when he’s truly cut adrift.  The bodies of his family are stolen and defiled.  Castle may not be enough of an investigator to puzzle out who done it, but he doesn’t have to be: the thief is an old enemy come back to haunt him, and one who knows him well enough to know what buttons to push.  And he announces himself on national TV.  This goes about as well as you can imagine it would.

The Unread Canon #7: The Punisher MAX: Mother Russia

Everyone has a set of entertainment by which they’ll swear, the ones they’ll eventually convince every friend to watch/listen to/read.  Sometimes, those suggestions are echoed time and again all over the place, and even the most jaded, world-weary or dirt-poor fan of the medium has to get curious about just what all that fuss is for.  That’s why I’ve started The Unread Canon, my attempt to experience a great deal more of comics than I already have and take a look at the books that, over the past few years (or, in some cases, decades) have achieved passionate, vocal critical and fan supporters that have nevertheless managed to slip by me and to try and look at how they grew, how they aged, why they work, or why they might not work so well anymore.

The Unread Canon: The Punisher MAX: Kitchen Irish

Everyone has a set of entertainment by which they’ll swear, the ones they’ll eventually convince every friend to watch/listen to/read.  Sometimes, those suggestions are echoed time and again all over the place, and even the most jaded, world-weary or dirt-poor fan of the medium has to get curious about just what all that fuss is for.  That’s why I’ve started The Unread Canon, my attempt to experience a great deal more of comics than I already have and take a look at the books that, over the past few years (or, in some cases, decades) have achieved passionate, vocal critical and fan supporters that have nevertheless managed to slip by me and to try and look at how they grew, how they aged, why they work, or why they might not work so well anymore.

The Unread Canon: The Punisher MAX: In The Beginning

Everyone has a set of entertainment by which they’ll swear, the ones they’ll eventually convince every friend to watch/listen to/read.  Sometimes, those suggestions are echoed time and again all over the place, and even the most jaded, world-weary or dirt-poor fan of the medium has to get curious about just what all that fuss is for.  That’s why I’ve started The Unread Canon, my attempt to experience a great deal more of comics than I already have and take a look at the books that, over the past few years (or, in some cases, decades) have achieved passionate, vocal critical and fan supporters that have nevertheless managed to slip by me and to try and look at how they grew, how they aged, why they work, or why they might not work so well anymore.