THE PUNISHER #2 (Marvel Comics)
by Greg Rucka, Marco Checchetto, Matt Hollingsworth and VC’s Joe Caramagna
Synopsis: Frank Castle loves kittens, hates Mondays.
01. You can hear Rucka cracking his knuckles as she says to the detectives, “I took my husband’s name.”
As she struggles to remember the events that lead her to that hospital bed, you can see Rucka grin. As the scene proceeds, he throws the punch. It comes at your face slowly, background to the sound of this woman’s voice.
When she finally remembers, you can feel impact against your nose. You heard it coming. You saw it coming. He knew it too, you could see it in his eyes. As the book falls silent and as the camera pulls away in four heartbreaking panels, as blood spills from your nose, and you gasp and sputter from the pain, you chide yourself. You could have gotten out of the way of that punch at any moment. You could have avoided it completely and been fine. But dammit, sometimes you just gotta’ know how much it’s really gonna’ hurt.
Greg Rucka sure knows how to throw a punch.
02. There’s something potent about a first love. Not just as it applies to reality, but as it applies to fiction as well. There’s something special about the things you loved when you were younger, and there’s something special about that moment when a character just clicks for you.
I fell in love with Frank Castle when he was riding a dragon. He had been turned into a Frankenstein monster and set upon a course of action that required transportation to a far away castle where undead Nazi soldiers and a wave of samurai monster hunters were waiting to gun him down. And so he did what any of us would do in that situation. He got on the back of a god damn dragon and mowed the fuckers down with a Gatling gun. Or at least I think it was a Gatling run. I don’t know a whole lot about guns.
Anyway, that was the moment I will always carry with me, so potent in its purity. Frank Castle would always be that to me. But then there’s this. Decidedly different than the whole Franken-Castle story, there’s this story about a man who silently takes revenge on behalf of those who’ve been wronged. Though revenge is probably not the right word. He’s not doing it through some kind of misguided empathy. He doesn’t really feel for the people who have passed, nor does he particularly care. He’s just a man who has a task to complete - one that’s unending and unerring, and the specific circumstances are lost in his very black-and-white view of good and evil. And god damn if it’s not fascinating to read.
03. Within this series, you are given no insight as to what Frank is doing, nor why he is doing it. Though at this point, we all know. We all know the why of it all, and we’ve all come to accept it. Frank is getting rid of the riff raff, the ne’er-do-wells, the scum. He’s doing it in his own way, which isn’t particularly right, nor empathetic - and yet, we cheer for him. We cheer for him, because we see what effects these horrible people have on the perfectly nice folks around them. Your heart breaks over a set of silent panels. Greg Rucka smiles as blood pools on the ground below your face. It’s about enough to make you forget about that first love.
God dammit.
04. The art in this book is a thing of beauty as well. And it needs to be to carry off the bouts of silence. Just like in music, there’s a poetry to the silences and without a very deliberate and delicate touch, that poetry could be ruined. Checchetto and Hollingsworth are more than up to the challenge, though - plying a sense of dark beauty to what should be horrific scenes of violence. This whole book is a joy to behold, even though it’ll hurt you so. If you haven’t purchased it yet, get on board right away, or else you’ll miss out on one hell of a ride.
