I very rarely laugh when I read the obituaries. Which is why I sort of feel guilty chuckling at the first issue of Punisher War Journal, Marvel's latest attempt to beat a character to death through over-exposure. It just feels... wrong, somehow. Not morally so, but in a disconnected, jarring way, as if Elmo spent an entire episode of Sesame Street crying softly in the background of every scene. I'm not sure if it's just unexpected, or actually wrong for the character. I'm leaning towards the latter, because a haunted man driven to mass-murder by a combination of grief and post-traumatic stress disorder tends not to make quite so many Gilligan's Island jokes. One could interpret Frank Castle's newly found, dry and desiccated sense of humor as a sign that his murderous calling has evolved from a passion to merely a job, a rote exercise to give meaning to a life so empty even the demons driving it have fled. Or, Matt Fraction watches The Simpsons too much. Regardless, what's certain is that this title is certainly not in keeping with the Frank Castle of Garth Ennis' Punisher MAX series.

Which is not necessarily a bad thing. Certainly, diversity should be the motivating factor when adding titles to a character's canon, as opposed to the standard copy and paste approach that plagued the industry in the 1990s. It's just that I had hoped the two titles might fit together to form a greater whole, like pieces of a puzzle, instead of representing two divergent paths. But no matter. While Ennis' Punisher is grim, taciturn, and cold, Fraction's version is merely gruff and ornery, like a septuagenarian sitting on his porch swearing at school children. He's actually warmer, despite the fact that Olivetti's art makes him look like either Tombstone or Solomon Grundy, depending on the lighting. In the first issue of Fraction's How I Won The War arc, the reader is brought up to speed on the events that led to Castle's unexpected appearance in the latest Civil War miniseries. While staking out a child pornographer, the Punisher manages to kill reformed and registered ex-villain Stilt Man, much to his own amusement. Now on the run from S.H.I.E.L.D. and out of weaponry, Castle decides to hunt down those responsible for re-arming villains and setting them lose against unregistered heroes. This eventually leads him to the sewers, where he rescues Spiderman from two Thunderbolts. Fraction's storytelling has momentum, though the dialogue occasionally muddles itself in verbatim realism and demands a second read, and some of the humor seems a tad forced. Inventively enough, Fraction inserts some nice post-modern touches to what could easily have been a straightforward narrative, addressing the reader directly in the narration, and providing the occasional self-referential flourish to the panels.

In terms of the artwork, Ariel Olivetti's art is certainly distinctive. It looks not unlike a painted version of Ralph Steadman’s caricatures, only on less ether. Castle seems unusually brawny, however, and he's wearing that stupid uniform with the boots painted on it, which is just silly. The guy's supposed to be stalking his prey through the night like a jaguar, not prancing around like a Macy's Parade float. And painted boots? That's like one of those t-shirts with the tuxedo printed on it, except probably not stained with as much beer and wing sauce. Other than that, the mild exaggeration of the art matches the mild exaggeration of the writing, and they work together well. One sequence in particular, in which the Punisher confronts Rampage and a gaggle of tiny Iron Man dolls, is very well illustrated, with Olivetti's cutesy robots really bringing out the absurdity of the scene. In the end, I'm not sure if I like Punisher as an absurdist comedy, but if the painted-on boot fits, you might as well wear it.

Rating: 6 on 10

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