The Punisher: Enter the War Zone

This represents Greg Rucka’s swan song with the character (and with Marvel for the forseeable future) and I was all set to enjoy it. The third volume ended strongly and with the Avengers being brought in as antagonists, things looked like they were headed to the next level.  Unfortunately that turns out to be a huge mistake as the heroes wind up looking like fools and incompetents as they struggle to bring down one normal, albeit very heavily armed and resourceful, individual.  You can see where Rucka was going with this and while the first two-thirds or so are good, “Enter the War Zone” ultimately winds up playing like “Confederacy of Dunces” played straight.

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Let me explain:  “Confederacy of Dunces” was the last storyline in the ongoing Marvel Knights version of “The Punisher” that Garth Ennis wrote.  Remember, unlike the ultra-serious and far better MAX incarnation, this was the run which gave us villains like Ma Gnucci and The Russian, the Punisher’s night at the zoo, and Detective Soap’s neverending stream of misfortune.  It was great comedy and things wrapped up quite well with the storyline in question as Spider-Man, Dardevil, and Wolverine -- all humiliated in their previous encounters with the character -- team up in order to take him down.  Things don’t go as they were expecting (the Hulk is involved) and they all get a valuable lesson about what it takes to bring down Frank Castle while the audience gets a good laugh at their misfortune.

With “Enter the War Zone,” things start off reasonably well.  Spider-Man tries to take down Castle for his use of a web-shooter in the previous volume and after he gets his ass handed to him, brings the matter of the killer’s continued freedom to his pals in the Avengers.  Initially the matter is brushed off as not being worth their time, but Captain America brings up the point that by letting him go free, they’re effectively condoning his actions.  That’s a good reason for trying to stop the Punisher, and it’s also interesting to note that not everyone on the team sees eye-to-eye with the Captain on this issue.  Also adding fuel to the fire is that Castle’s “partner” Rachel Cole-Alves is currently on trial for the deaths of the police officers in the previous volume and things aren’t going well for her at the moment.

Initially Black Widow is tasked with bringing him in with Thor following up after things don’t go the way she expects.  You’d think that sending the God of Thunder would be enough to make this a three-issue-miniseries, but all he wants to do is give Castle a pep talk about not abandoning his comrades in the hope that he’ll turn himself in and testify to save Cole-Alves from the death penalty.  This is opposed to taking the Punisher by the scruff of his neck back to America himself.  That would’ve been the smart thing to do and it would’ve saved the cast a lot of embarrassment in the end.

It isn’t until we get towards the end of the fourth issue that things start going off the rails.  That’s when Castle makes his move in a way that is certainly surprising and makes no goddamn sense at the same time.  I’m not going to spoil it, but his actions involve taking advantage of Tony Stark’s tech in a way that suggests the inventor had no goddamn idea how to properly safeguard it.  Yes, we get an explanation later on, but it’s tantamount to handwaving it away.  Stark then proceeds to suck up even more humiliation by acting like a complete fool as the Punisher is tracked to an abandoned amusement park and the Avengers close in.

That they all have more trouble taking him down than five super-powered individuals should isn’t even an issue at this point.  By this time your eyes will be rolling at the lengths the normally quite grounded Rucka has gone in order to keep his protagonist viable against these individuals.  “Confederacy of Dunces” worked not only because it was played for laughs and you were meant to laugh at the ridiculous parts, but also because it kept the anti-Punisher faction to Spider-Man, Daredevil and Wolverine.  They’ve got powers, sure, but they’re still street-level fighters, not military-trained like Captain America and Black Widow, possessing their own special tech like Iron Man, or a god like Thor.  That Castle was able to stand up to them for as long as he did, without any hint of comedy, simply beggars belief.

It’s a shame, too, since Rucka has the voices for these heroes down quite well and I liked his emphasis on the “marine” side of Castle’s personality.  Carmine Di Giandomenico also provides some great art with a style that works great for either grounded action or superheroics.  What’s here is good enough to make me think that there may have been a better story if the Punisher and the Avengers had been forced to work together for a common goal.  It worked pretty well in “The Omega Effect” and it would’ve been interesting to see how some of the Avengers rationalized working with an unrepentant killer here.

Things end on a note that strikes me as being clearly unsustainable, and that’s even before you consider that the Punisher is back in circulation as a member of the Thunderbolts.  That Castle set Cole-Alves up for this can be viewed as being either monstrous or a lifesaving coping mechanism.  I view it as being somewhat at odds with how the third volume wrapped up and implied that she wasn’t cut out for this kind of life.  Cole-Alves wasn’t portrayed as being beyond redemption, which is the situation she’s in at the end of this volume and that strikes me as being down more to circumstance than anything else.

It’s also a setup that’s likely going to earn her a quick bullet to the head once another writer remembers she’s still running around out there.  The character deserves better and it’s somewhat disappointing that Rucka would leave her in such a situation at the end of his run given all the effort he put into developing her.  Still, disappointment is the order of the day with this volume and it clearly stands as the weakest thing I’ve read from the writer at Marvel.  Just pick up the first three volumes of his “Punisher” run and pretend this one didn’t happen.

Jason Glick